20 Ind. App. 569 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1898
The complaint in this cause was in two paragraphs. The first paragraph charged appellant with liability for the loss of the contents of a trunk, delivered to appellant and held by it as a common carrier. The second paragraph of complaint proceeds upon the theory that the appellant was liable to appellee for the loss of the contents of the trunk, charging appellant as a warehouseman. The cause was tried upon the issues formed by the denial of the material allegations of the complaint. The lower court found in favor of appellee, and overruled appel
The evidence is before us, embodied in a proper bill of exceptions, and presents the following undisputed facts: That the appellant is a corporation, and owns and operates a line of railroad 152 miles in length, between the cities of Decatur, Illinois, and Indianapolis, Indiana, and that its said road passes through the town of North Salem, Indiana, where it has a station consisting of a one-story frame building and a platform; that this building contains three rooms, the agent’s room in the center, the waiting room to the right of the agent’s room,, and the baggage room to the left of the agent’s room; that the outside doors leading into the baggage room are large doors, of double thickness of wood, and fastened with heavy chains on the inside; that the outside doors of the waiting room are heavy pine doors, locking with a key; that the doors, two in number, leading from the agent’s room into the baggge room, and one leading from the agent’s room to the waiting room are ordinary doors with ordinary fastenings and are inside doors and were not locked on the night of Sunday, the 20th day of October, 1895; that there are no outside windows to the baggage room, and that the windows to the waiting room are about three and one-half feet across, three feet above the ground, and consist of one upper and one lower sash made from pine wood and painted and sanded; that these windows were all fastened by iron fastenings at the placewhere the lower and upper sash met. These fastenings were each attached to the
It is also shown by the evidence that the doors leading from the room occupied by appellant’s agent were not locked. These were inside doors. There was a saw mill and several large piles of lumber near the station. The station was located about one half mile from the business portion of the town, and the dwellings extended down to near the station. It was also shown by the evidence that this station and baggage room in which appellee’s trunk was stored was such a station and baggage room as is ordinarily used by railroad companies in towns of 800 to 1,000 people, for the transaction of their business, and the reception and retention of baggage until called for.
It will thus be seen that appellee’s baggage remained in the • baggage room undisturbed and uncalled for, during a period of seven days, before the station was broken into and the articles taken from the trunk. Under the authorities, appellant’s liability as a carrier had ceased long before the loss herein
It was held in the case of the Chicago, etc., R. R. Co. v. Addizoat, 17 Ill. App. 632, that a railroad company is the insurer of the baggage of a passenger as long as the relation of a common carrier exists, and that such relation exists as to such baggage until its arrival and discharge at the place of destination, and until the owner has reasonable time and opportunity to claim it and remove it. If such baggage is not called for within a reasonable time, the company should store it in its warehouse, and from that time its liability as a carrier ceases and the liability of a warehouseman is assumed. It' was also held in the same case, and we think correctly held, that a passenger can not prolong the strict and rigid liability of a railroad company as a common carrier, longer than is reasonably necessary under the circumstances of the particular case, or for any purpose of his own convenience; and that if a passenger is informed that his baggage has not arrived on the train he came on, and no directions are given concerning it, and no information to identify himself, so that notice of its arrival can be given him, it is his duty to make inquiry for his baggage within a reasonable time after the arrival of the next train. In the case at bar the appellee was informed of the particular time when her trunk would arrive, and no notice of its arrival was necessary to relieve appellant of its liability as common carrier. Bansemer v. Toledo, etc., R. W. Co., 25 Ind. 434, 87 Am. Dec. 367. It is the undisputed law that, where baggage is not called for within a reasonable time, it is
It was the duty of appellant, under the facts in this case, when appellee’s trunk arrived, to place it in the baggage room, appellee not being present to receive it, and the liability of appellant then ceased to be that of common carrier and became that of warehouseman-. It was not necessary that such baggage room be fireproof or burglar-proof, but it was only necessary that it be such a place as persons of ordinary prudence, under like circumstances, would use for the storage of such goods. Chicago, etc., R. R. Co. v. Fairclough, 52 Ill. 106. Ordinary care, is all that the law requires. Cincinnati, etc., R. R. Co. v. McCool, supra.
It would not be required of appellant that it keep a night watch about its baggage room, or to have some one sleep therein, when, as it is shown in this case, no baggage was delivered at this station from the night trains. In such cases there could be no need of any such precautions. See Pike v. Chicago, etc., R. W. Co., 40 Wis. 583.
The evidence in this case conclusively shows that appellee failed to call for her baggage within a reasonable time after the time when she was informed that it would arrive; that appellant at the time of the taking of appellee’s goods, by some person unknown to either party to this action, occupied toward appellee the relation of a warehouseman, and not of a common