8 Ga. App. 59 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1910
The Planters Phosphate & Fertilizer Company brought suit upon an account, against Mrs. Orr, for certain fertilizer which it alleged it had furnished her. She filed a plea setting up that she did not know the fertilizer company in the transaction, but had bought the fertilizer from B. B. Lovett Jr., individually, and pleaded, by way of set-off, an account which she claimed was due her for hauling for said Lovett. It is not necessary to say more in regard to the general grounds of the motion for a new trial than that there was a conflict in the evidence, and the verdict in favor of the plaintiff was authorized by the evidence. The.' testimony for the defendant, it is true, tended to show that there was an agreement that the fertilizer should be paid for by hauling, and $500 was paid to the fertilizer company by Lovett on Mrs. Orr’s account; but whether this payment was made because the hauling w'as to be done for Lovett individually, or was assumed by him as
See also authorities cited in footnote on p. 127 upon this subject. See also 6 Cyc. 424, 426 (v). As between Lovett and Mrs. Orr the delivery of the hill of lading amounted to a delivery of the quantity of guano called for by the bill of lading. A bill of lading is symbolic of the goods shipped, and if, by the “giving” or delivery of the bill of lading, the consignee places another in a position where he can procure the shipment from -the carrier (and it appears in this case that the railroad did not make any point on Mrs. Orr’s right to take possession of the guano), certainly in such case the party who received the shipment by virtue of the possession of the bill of lading is in no position to insist that the assignment of the bill of lading was defective for lack of formality, or insufficient by reason of the fact that it was not reduced to writing. While bills of lading are not in a strict sense negotiable instruments (because they do not represent money), they are for many purposes representative of the shipment to which they purport to refer. It is true, as insisted by counsel for plaintiff in error, that in the case of Branan v. A. & W. P. R. Co., 108 Ga. 70 (33 S. E. 836, 75 Am. St. R. 26), the Supreme Court was dealing with the consignors* right of stoppage in transitu, and it was said that where the purchaser had an -assignment of the bill of lading from a bona fide purchaser, a right of stoppage in transitu would not exist; but, we do not construe this as a ruling that it is indispensable that there should he in every case a written assignment of a bill of lading, in order to pass title to the shipment which the bill of lading symbolizes; because the decision in that case realty turned upon the fact that the carrier had never parted with the possession of the shipment up to the time that it had received notice not to deliver.
In our view of the case, the trial was fair, and its result was authorized by the law and the evidence. Judgment affirmed.