56 Fla. 735 | Fla. | 1908
(After stating the facts.) — The question presented by the assignments of error is, whether the special damages claimed by the plaintiff may be recovered from the defendant company. We have had occasion to declare over and over again, that before liability can arise it is necessary that a causal relation, such as the law recognizes as being sufficient, should exist between the damage which is complained of and the act alleged to have occasioned the damage. If such a relation does not exist, the damage is said to be remote and cannot be recovered. If such a relation does exist, then the damage is said to be a proximate result of the wrongful act to which it is attributed, and conversely the wrongful act is said to be the proximate cause of the damage.
In Benedict Pineapple Co. v. Atlqptic Coast Line R. Co., 55 Fla. 514, 46 South. Rep. 732, the negligent act or omission for which a party is liable in damages is said to be one that proximately, i. e., in ordinary, natural sequence, causes or contributes to causing an injury to another, when no independent, efficient cause intervenes, and the injured party is not at fault.
In Moore v. Lanier, 52 Fla. 353, 42 South. Rep. 462, we said: “Proximate cause is that which naturally leads
In Brock v. Gale, 14 Fla. 523, this court held that only such damages may be recovered as were contemplated or might reasonably be supposed to have entered into the contemplation of the parties to the contract of carriage. On page 532 of the opinion, the court said: “If the owner of the goods would charge the carrier with any special damages, he must have communicated to the carrier all the facts and circumstances of the case which do not ordinarily attend the carriage or the peculiar character and value of the property carried, for otherwise such peculiar circumstances cannot be contemplated by the carrier.” The opinion then proceeds to quote from the famous case of Hadley v. Baxendale, 9 Exch. 341: “For had the special circumstances been known, the parties might have expressly provided for the breach of the contract by special terms as to the damage in that case, and of 'this advantage it would be very unjust to deprive them.” And then the opinion quotes the' following language of Judge Selden, in Griffin v. Colver, 16 N. Y. 489: “The damages must be such as may fairly be supposed to have entered into the contemplation of the parties when they made the contract ■ — -that is, they must be such as might naturally be expected to follow its violation, and they must be certain, both in their nature and in respect to the cause from which they proceed.”
With these principles of the law to guide us, we must
Although the declaration alleges generally that the defendant knew the purpose for which said orange boxes were to be used and the danger in which the oranges were from cold and the necessity of guarding against such danger, it does not allege that defendant knew that men had been employed to pick the oranges, or the time within which the oranges were to be picked. And the contract did not fix any. specific time for the ■■transportation and delivery of the boxes.
This element of damage is not the natural, direct or proximate result of the breach of this contract and was properly stricken on motion. As the Supreme Court of Kansas said, in Johnson v. Mathews, 5 Kan. 118,
We do not think the allegations of the plaintiff’s loss or damage caused by his inability to pack and ship his oranges for the Christmas market are stated with such certainty as to show the liability of the defendant therefor.
This allegation of the declaration, however, that “by reason of the premises the plaintiff incurred loss and damage * * * in being unable to pack and ship part of his oranges for the Christmas market” does not seem to be so wholly irrelevant as to be amenable to a motion to strike, though it may be subject to compulsory amendment under the statute. If the breach of duty by unreasonably delaying the transportation of the orange boxes as alleged proximately caused a failure to reach an advantageous market and a loss ensued which should reasonably have been contemplated, the carrier may be liable in damages for such losses as are capable of definite ascertainment that were proximately caused by the delay and not by the intervention of another efficient
It is clear that the defendant cannot be held liable for the freezing of plaintiff’s orange crop.
The defendant did not agree to deliver the orange boxes within any specified time. And the declaration does not charge that the defendant knew the plaintiff would leave the oranges on the trees, exposed to the dangers of the cold, until the orange boxes were delivered. The defendant could not contemplate that the plaintiff would thus expose his fruit beyond a reasonable time for the delivery of the boxes. The declaration does allege that the defendant knew the danger in which plaintiff’s oranges were from cold and the necessity of guarding them against such danger by packing and shipping them without delay, but the plaintiff knew all this as well as the defendant knew it.
If the carrier wrongfully delayed the transportation and delivery of the orange boxes, the shipper could not leave the oranges exposed to the weather at the carrier’s loss; it would still be his duty to preserve the property and house, or protect the same from damage by cold, if it could be reasonably done, and it would be his right to recover of the carrier the reasonable expense therefor, together with the proximate damages for the delay. St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas R. Co. v. Neel, 56 Ark. 279, 19 S. W. Rep. 963, 55 Am. & Eng. R. R. Cases 428.
In order for a shipper or consignee to recover of a
Under th'e allegations of the declaration the freezing of plaintiff's oranges on the trees was not the natural, direct or proximate result of the failure of the railroad company to deliver the orange boxes within a reasonable time.
The delay in the transportation of the orange boxes cannot be said to have directly caused or contributed directly to causing the result — the loss of the oranges— without the intervening of an independent efficient cause —the freezing of the oranges. In this connection, the Supreme Court of Michigan, in Michigan Central R. R. Co. v. Burrows, 33 Mich. 6, text 14, said: “The contract which the defendant entered into in this case was to carry the property safely and deliver it within a reasonable time to the next carrier at Chicago. The only breach of this agreement complained of was the failure to deliver within a reasonable time. Are, then, the damages claimed the natural and proximate consequence of such breach? We think not. To be so the loss must be immediately connected with the supposed cause of it. The loss in this case might or might not have occurred even had there been no delay. If in the ordinary course of events a certain result usually follows from a given cause, then we may well consider the immediate relation of the one to the other to be established. Cold,, freezing weather does not, however, in the ordinary course of events, follow from mere delay; such is not the natural and direct result of the delay. It is true that in certain climates, and at certain seasons, such an injury would be much more likely to result from delay, while at others there would be not even a possibility of
The case of Benedict Pine Apple Co. v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 55 Fla. 514, 46 South. Rep. 732, is not inconsistent with the holding in the instant case. That was a case where a canvas cover was put over growing plants and fruit by the owner thereof to protect them from ordinary and usual cold and frost that would probably occur, and such cover was burned by the negligence of the defendant, without the fault of the owner, and the plants and fruit were injured by such cold and frost-before the burned cover could by reasonable diligence have been restored; and this court held such injury to the plants and fruit was not such an act of God, or such an independent, efficient cause as would relieve from liability the party who negligently burned the cover.
In that case the owner was not at fault, and the plants
In the instant case, the owner of the oranges was at fault. The boxes were delivered to the defendant on the 7th day of December, 1904, and it should have delivered them to the plaintiff in five days, or on the 12th day of December, and although they were not delivered for forty-two days, or until the 24th day of January, 1905, the plaintiff does not appear to have made any attempt to procure other boxes and made no effort to protect the oranges; but he left the oranges on the trees all that time, exposed to the dangers of the cold, when he might have gathered the crop and housed the same, and perhaps under a proper showing might have a just claim against the defendant for the extra expenses of thus protecting the same. And the defendant company, unlike the defendant in the Pineapple case, was not the active, moving, efficient cause of the destruction of fruit that had been properly protected by the owner, but merely delayed the transportation and delivery of boxes intended for' the shipment of the oranges. This is not a case where a railroad company, having possession of oranges for transportation, negligently unloaded and exposed' the same so that they were destroyed by freezing weather.
As the allegations of the declaration show that the legal right of the plaintiff to have his orange boxes carried and delivered within a reasonable time has been invaded, he may recover at least some damages, and for this reason the demurrer should have been overruled.
The judgment is reversed.