114 A. 905 | Md. | 1921
Eight carloads of grain, purchased by the plaintiffs, were destroyed in accidents while in course of railway conveyance *163 to Baltimore from points in Nebraska, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. The defendant railroad company, on whose line the losses occurred, paid to the plaintiffs the value of the grain at the time and place of shipment. This was the measure of damages prescribed by the bills of lading under which the grain was being transported, but it did not fully compensate the plaintiffs for the losses actually sustained. The liability of the carrier could not be thus restricted unless the grain was intended for export to a foreign country not adjacent to the United States. If it was received for transportation only from one state to another, or was destined for export to an adjacent foreign country, the carrier was prohibited by the Federal Act to Regulate Commerce, and its amendments, from stipulating for recovery of less than the full amount of the actual loss, damage or injury to the property in transit, and the limitation of liability in the bills of lading before us would, under the express terms of that legislation, be null and void. 38 Stat. at L., 1196; Comp.Stat., sec. 8604a; 39 Stat. at L. 441. In this suit to recover for losses in addition to those for which payment was made as provided by the bills of lading, the court below ruled that the stipulations therein as to the measure of damages were valid because the grain was intended for export to a non-adjacent foreign country, and the shipments were consequently not within any of the classes of commerce to which the Federal statutes apply. Evidence tending to support a larger measure of recovery was, therefore, excluded, and a verdict in favor of the defendant was directed The exceptions in the record were taken on account of those rulings
In each of the bills of lading the consignment to which it refers is described as being "for export" The record contains an agreed statement of facts from which it appears that each of the carloads of grain, "at the time it was so shipped and at the time it was destroyed," was "intended for transportation by railroad from" the place of origin "to Baltimore, Md., at which point it was to be unloaded from said *164 car into the elevators of the defendant at Baltimore, and thereafter loaded out of said elevators into a vessel, or vessels, for transportation by water from Baltimore, Md., to a point in Europe."
The Supreme Court of the United States, in a series of decisions, has settled the principle by which a question like the present one should be controlled. The intention as to destination with which the goods are delivered and accepted for conveyance by the carrier is held to be the determining factor in such a problem. Whether or not in a particular case the bill of lading discloses that the shipment is for export, if that was the real design with which it was started on the course of its transportation, and if it would proceed to a foreign destination as the normal result of the movement thus originated, it must be regarded and classified as foreign commerce for the purposes of such an inquiry as the one with which we are now concerned.
In the case of Texas N.O.R. Co. v. Sabine Tram Co.,
The opinion from which we have quoted reviews earlier decisions by which its conclusion is supported. In Southern P. TerminalCo. v. Interstate Commerce Commission,
The case of Railroad Commission v. Worthington,
The principle of the cases already cited was applied inRailroad Commission v. Texas P.R. Co.,
The decisions quoted from distinguish the case of Gulf, C. S.F.R.R. Co. v. Texas,
The appellants cited the case of Myers v. Baltimore County,
It is conceded in this case that the eight carloads of grain, at the time they were shipped and when they were destroyed, were intended for transportation to Baltimore, there to be unloaded *169 into the defendant railroad company's elevators, and loaded therefrom into vessels for export to Europe. The bills of lading themselves disclose that the shipments were for export. The plaintiffs acquired the bills of lading while the grain was in transit, and their purpose, as shown by their testimony, was to ship it abroad to fill orders for the European market. If, therefore, the grain had arrived in Baltimore, it would unquestionably have pursued the intended course of transfer to vessels by which it would have been carried to foreign ports. There is nothing in the record to suggest that there would have been any break in the continuity of the purpose by which the shipment was controlled from the time of its inception, or that there would have been any interruption of the processes by which the grain was to reach the holds of the vessels in which it was to be exported. The purchase of the bills of lading while the grain was in transit, merely affected the title to the shipment and made no change whatever in its movement or destination or in any of its commercial characteristics.
The facts of the case, in our judgment, bring it clearly within the principle of the decisions of the Supreme Court to which we first referred, and we, therefore, hold that the shipments of grain, for the loss of which additional compensation is sought to be recovered in this suit, were in course of transportation to a non-adjacent foreign country, at the time of their destruction, and that the measure of damages stipulated in the bills of lading is not contrary to the provisions of the Federal statutes but is a valid limitation of the carrier's liability for such a loss.
The appellant's contend that even though the validity of the provision as to the limit of liability be upheld, the railroad company is estopped from relying upon it because the appellants, notwithstanding their diligent inquiries, were not given notice of the loss of the grain for long periods of time, ranging from three weeks to seven months, after the various shipments were due to arrive in Baltimore. When the notice of *170 the loss was finally received, the replacement value of the grain was very much higher than at the time it should have reached the point of export in due course of conveyance. The delay in the notification that the grain was destroyed, and the loss resulting to the appellants from such delay, form the basis of the estoppel which is said to prevent reliance upon the stipulation in the bills of lading that "that amount of any loss or damage for which any carrier is liable shall be computed on the basis of the value of the property (being the bona fide invoice price, if any, to the consignee, including the freight charges, if prepaid) at the place and time of shipment."
The defendant is not estopped to invoke the limitation of liability in the bills of lading with respect to any loss to which the provision applies. The scope of its application is very broad, for it purports to restrict "any loss or damage for which any carrier is liable." A loss resulting from delay in delivery would be clearly within the class of losses to which such a provision refers. This was decided in N.Y.P. N.R.R. Co. v.Peninsula Prod. Exchange,
Judgment affirmed with costs. *171