102 Tenn. 298 | Tenn. | 1899
J. R. Craig obtained a verdict and judgment against the Illinois Central ■ Railroad Co. for the sum of $250, as damages for injury to his soda fountain while being transported over the defendant’s line of road from Dyersburg to Obion Station. The injury to the soda fountain consisted in the breaking of its valuable and indispensable marble parts into numerous small and worthless pieces. At the trial below the company sought to introduce before the jury a bill of lading under which it claimed the shipment was made, and which recited upon its face, in explicit terms that the company would not, in any event, be liable for loss or damage resulting from the breakage of marble. The refusal of the trial Judge to permit the introduction of that instrument is -the principle ground on which the company asks a review and reversal of the lower Court’s action. The proposed evidence was rightly rejected and withheld from the jury. The goods were, in fact, shipped without a bill of lading of any kind, and the paper in question did not contain the real contract of shipment or shed any true light upon it. This paper was issued after the transit had been completed and the damage done, and that, too, without any knowledge on the part of the shipper of a purpose or desire on the part of the company, at any time, to limit its common law liability in any manner whatever.
When the goods were delivered to the company at Dyersburg, and by it there accepted for trans
After the soda fountain reached its destination and was discovered by Craig to be in a dilapidated and ruined condition, he procured a friend at Dyers-burg to call on the company’s agent there for the promised bill of lading or receipt, and, on the request of that friend, the paper here in question was made out and delivered to him, and by him sent to Craig. Soon thereafter, and without in any manner ratifying the terms of the bill of lading so furnished him, Craig notified the company of his damage and demanded full and unconditional indemnity therefor, and upon the company’s failure to make payment he brought this action.
From this brief statement of the attendant facts • it is entirely manifest that the present shipment was made without a bill of lading of any kind and without a contract limiting the company’s responsi-
It is well settled that a common carrier may, by a stipulation in its bill of lading, limit its common law liability for loss or damage of freight not caused by its own negligence. But this cannot be validly done unless the carrier, at the time, holds
The company sued in the present case does not bring itself within the imperative, requirement of this rule. On the contrary, it affirmatively shows by the testimony of its agent, just quoted, that it used but one bill of lading for this class of freight, submitted no alternative to the plaintiff, and would not have shipped his goods at all if he had refused to accept its bill of lading providing for limited liability. Such a provision, so obtained, was necessarily invalid, and, being so, it was not competent evidence for any purpose.
The several other matters urged against the judgment of the Court below have been thoroughly considered and will be treated orally ' from the bench without specific mention in this opinion. None of them are of such nature as to stand in the way of an affirmance, which is ordered.