100 Tenn. 429 | Tenn. | 1898
This is an action brought by John Mellon against the plaintiff in error, .to recover dam
In this cause, at the December term, 1895, of this Court, a written opinion was delivered, which disposed of the various contentions there made by the respective parties. This will be found reported in 96 Tenn., 66. We refer to that opinion as settling most of the questions of law made by plaintiff in error on the present trial, and, being entirely satisfied with the conclusions there announced, without restating or rearguing the points, then considered, we reaffirm them, and now content ourselves with a brief reference to one or two matters not then explicitly settled.
The telegraph company now assigns for error that the Circuit Judge improperly sustained a demurrer to its third plea. In that plea it was averred that Mellon ‘ ‘ did not present his claim in writing within
It is also assigned for error that the trial Judge declined to permit the defendant below to file certain pleas, in which it was averred that it was a telegraph company, organized as a corporation and doing business under the laws of New York, and that, in 1867, it had filed with the Postmaster General of the United States its written acceptance of all the restrictions and obligations imposed by the Act of Congress of July 24, 1866, in regard to such companies; and that the message sent from Texas to Clarksville, for the nondelivery of which, and its resulting injuries to plaintiff, this suit was brought, was an act of interstate commerce, and that in so far as the statutes of the State, relied .upon by plaintiff, undertook to impose a duty upon the company with regard to this telegram, they were unconstitutional and void. The same idea, expressed in their rejected pleas, was embodied in certain special requests, which, when asked to give in charge to the jury, the trial Judge declined, and his action in this regard is also complained of as error.
While it is true that this telegraph company does enjoy superior privileges under this Act of Congress, and discharges most important duties at times as. a federal agent, as well as in the conduct of commerce between the States, yet it “is not beyond the operation of the laws of the State” in which it resides
The statutes called in question by these pleas and requests, unlike the law held to be unconstitutional in the case of Western Union v. Pendleton, 122 U. S., 347, were not intended to have any extraterritorial effect. In addition, the duty of diligence, for the breach of which the present suit was brought, was a common law duty, and might be enforced independent of all statutory provision. When it was once determined, as was done in our former opinion, that the defendant in error was a “ party aggrieved ’ ’ by the nondelivery of this telegram, it followed that he had a right to seek the Court for a redress of his grievance against this company, growing out of its breach of duty as a bailee. In such case the doctrine of interstate commerce can no more be invoked for the protection of plaintiff in error, than it could by a common carrier engaged in such commerce, who brought perishable goods from New Orleans into this State, and negligently permitted them, without notice to the consignee,
It follows that the assignments of error are not well taken, and the judgment of the lower Court is affirmed.