178 Pa. 377 | Pa. | 1896
Opinion by
This was an action for damages caused by the failure of the defendant to deliver promptly a telegraph message written in cipher. The evidence was to the following effect: Plaintiffs, on March 15,1890, sent two cable messages in cipher, addressed, to “ Octorara,” “ Liverpool,” the first of which ordered the purchase of fifty tons of soda ash, and the second ordered one hundred tons of the same, subject to shipment on the steamer Kingsdale. The first message was duly delivered to plaintiffs’ agents, the second was not delivered until six days afterwards. The steamer Kingsdale had sailed in the meantime. The delayed message reads as follows : “ Bewail boarish, bewail bluster, provided steamer Kingsdale ” and was interpreted to mean “ purchase for our account 50 tons jarrow 55-56 per cent soda ash, 50 tons jarrow 48 per cent soda ash, provided shipment can be made per steamship Kingsdale.” The plaintiffs had contracted for a resale of the entire one hundred and fifty tons, and when the one hundred tons failed to arrive they were compelled to pay a higher price to fill their contract, and thereby lost $892.72. The plaintiffs claimed that this was the measure of damages, but the court confined it to the sum paid for transmission of the message. Was this ruling erroneous? It seems that the question now presented has not been decided by this court. It has been frequently considered in many of the courts of our sister states and in England, and the great preponderance of authority is in accord with the ruling of the court below. The
We do not concede that the rule of Hadley v. Baxendale has no application to this case, nor that the decision of this court in Telegraph Co. v. Wenger, or in Telegraph Co. v. Landis, is opposed to the ruling of the court below. The message in Telegraph Co. v. Wenger disclosed to the agent of the company the nature of the business to which it related, and there
Judgment affirmed.