7 Watts 542 | Pa. | 1838
The opinion of the Court. uras delivered by
The two errors first assigned, which raise the principal if not the only question in the case, allege a want of jurisdiction in the justice of the peace, before whom the suit was originally commenced. The act of 1810 gives justices of the peace “jurisdiction of all causes of action arising from contract, either express or implied, in all cases where the sum demanded is not above 100 dollars, except in cases of real contract, where the title to lands or tenements may come in question, or action upon promise of marriage.” These are the words of the act; and seeing they expressly embrace all causes of action arising from contract, either express or implied, when the sum demanded is not above 100 dollars, except in cases of real contract, where the title to lands or'tenements may come in question, or cases founded upon breaches of promises of marriage, the present case, being one of bailment, would seem to be clearly included and brought within the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, because every species of bailment is grounded upon contract, either expressed or implied. “ Bailment,” says Sir William Blackstone, 2 Bl. Com. 451, “ from the French bailler, to deliver, is a delivery of goods in trust, upon a contract expressed or implied, that the trust shall be faithfully executed on the part of the bailee;” or, as Mr Justice Story has it, “for some special objector purpose,and upon a contract expressed or implied.” All the writers, as also all the authorities on this head, concur in laying it down that ever}' species of bailment is founded upon a contract, either expressed or implied; thus using almost the identical terms employed in the act, for the purpose of defining the extent of the jurisdiction thereby given to justices of the peace. See Jones on Bailment 1, 90, 117 ; 2 Kent’s Com., sec. 40, p. 437; Coggs v. Bernard, 2 Lord Raym. 909 ; 3 Chitty’s C. L. 354. Bailment, according to Sir William Jones, consists of, or may be divided into, five sorts: 1. Depositum, or deposit; 2. Mandatum, or commission without recompense ; 3. Corpmodatum, or loan for use without pay ; 4. Pignori acceptum, or pawn ; 5. Locatum, or hiring, which is always with reward. The case before us falls within the third species of bailment, which is a loan for use, that is, a bailment or loan by the plaintiff below of his mare to the defendant, to be used by the
The third error does not clearly appear to be well founded in point of fact: for upon a fair construction of the charge of the court to the jury it would seem to have been left to the jury to decide what was the occasion of the mare’s death ; and if they should be of opinion that it arose from want of proper attention and care on the part of the defendant below, or in other words from neglect, though but slight, he was liable and ought to pay the value of the mare, if they should find also that he had borrowed her for his own use, without, reward. It, would rather appear from the charge of the court, and it is all we have to judge from, as the evidence given on the trial has not been brought up with the record, that, the contested point was not whether the mare died of the apparent, injury she had received, but whether it was occasioned or not, through the neglect of the defendant below. It would seem from the charge of the court not to have been seriously denied that the mare died of the wound inflicted upon her by the kick of another animal of her kind, as was supposed, but earnestly insisted on that if. had not happened through any neglect whatever on the part of the defendant below.
There is nothing in the fourth error. It would be strange indeed if the circumstance of the plaintiff’s getting a farrier, or other person whom he considered capable of rendering relief, by advice or otherwise in such case, to examine the wound or injury upon the mare, should exonerate the defendant from his responsibility, if the death of the mare was occasioned by his neglect. Even had the plaintiff below taken his mare from the defendant, as soon as he discovered that she was hurt, and done all he could with a view to cure her,
Judgment affirmed.