Haake v. Missouri Pacific Railroad

443 S.W.2d 206
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 13, 1969
DocketNo. 33297
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 443 S.W.2d 206 (Haake v. Missouri Pacific Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Haake v. Missouri Pacific Railroad, 443 S.W.2d 206 (Mo. Ct. App. 1969).

Opinion

DOERNER, Commissioner.

Plaintiff brought an action to recover damages of $683.31 for the loss of wheat shipped by him over the lines of defendant railroads. Defendants denied liability, and filed a counterclaim in which they alleged that plaintiff had been unjustly enriched at the expense of defendants in the amount of $663.16 through a mistaken payment to plaintiff on an entirely different and unrelated shipment. Prior to the trial of the case the court sustained plaintiff’s motion to dismiss defendants’ counterclaim. The trial of the plaintiff’s claim before the court sitting without a jury culminated in a judgment in favor of plaintiff for $683.31, and from that judgment, as well as from the order dismissing defendants’ counterclaim, defendants seek to prosecute this appeal. Following the example set by the parties in their briefs, to avoid confusion we will consider plaintiff’s claim and defendants’ counterclaim separately since they relate to completely different transactions.

As gathered from the pleadings and the undisputed evidence the essential facts are these: Defendants furnished plaintiff with a car at plaintiff’s elevator in Huegely, Illinois, and with a set of paper grain doors necessary to prevent grain from spilling out of the usual car doors. Plaintiff installed the paper grain doors and loaded the car with wheat, closed the car doors and placed seals thereon, and defendants began the movement of the car over their lines on August 27, 1962. The loaded car, consigned to the Toberman Grain Company at East St. Louis, Illinois, was weighed by defendants at Sparta, Illinois, on August 28, and the contents found to weigh 113,800 lbs. At that time there was no indication of leakage. The car arrived in the East St. Louis Terminal on August 28, and was held for grai’h inspection at Valley Junction, Illinois. The next day, August 29, a representative of the Merchants Exchange of St. Louis inspected the car and made a report to the consignee for which it charged the consignee a fee. The defendants had nothing to do with that inspection. According to the Merchants Exchange report of August 29, the original seals applied by plaintiff were intact at the time the inspector broke one and opened one door, which he replaced with another seal after closing the door. The report also stated that grain was leaking from the bottom part of one door.

The record indicates, in a most casual way, that while the car was at Valley Junction an Illinois state grain inspector also opened at least one car door to obtain a sample of the wheat for grading purposes. Neither side called the inspector as a witness nor introduced his report into evidence, so that there was no direct evidence as to precisely when that inspection was made. Furthermore, there was no evidence, direct or indirect, as to whether or not the Illinois state grain 'inspector applied a new seal after making his inspection, or even that he closed the door. The most that can be said is that since the original seals applied by plaintiff were intact when the Merchants Exchange inspector opened the door an inference may be drawn that the inspection made by the Illinois state grain inspector occurred subsequent to the one made by the Merchants Exchange Inspector.

While the car was at Valley Junction, Toberman Grain Company, the original consignee, reconsigned the shipment to Continental Grain Company at Carondelet, St. Louis, Missouri. It reached that point on September 1, and on September 2, 1962, at 11:00 A.M., was placed on the unloading track of Continental. Two days later, on September 4, the wheat was unloaded from the car and weighed, and an employee of Merchants Exchange prepared a certificate showing that the grain weighed 92,280 pounds. The employee also stated in the [208]*208certificate that he observed that there had been a bad leak of grain onto the ground, that one car door was open, and that the seal was missing from the other side. It is undisputed that after allowances were made for normal shrinkage in transit and the weight of the paper grain doors, the wheat lost weighed 21,298 pounds.

In their first point defendants complain that the court erred in admitting over their objections plaintiff’s Exhibits D and E, the reports made by the Merchants Exchange inspectors on August 29, at Valley Junction, and on September 4, at St. Louis. Plaintiff argues that the point is not properly before this court for review since defendants did not file a motion for a new trial. Defendants reply that as this was a court-tried case no motion was required. Superficially, at least, there would seem to be a conflict between the broad and unqualified ruling in Russell v. Russell, Mo., 427 S.W.2d 471, 475, that “* * * no motion for new trial is necessary for appellate review of a case tried without a jury. * * * ” and the line of cases which hold that by Civil Rule 79.03, V.A.M.R., the filing of a motion for a new trial in all civil cases is a mandatory prerequisite in order to preserve allegations of error for review, except for those issues specified in the Rule. Glassburner v. Burtrum, Mo., 418 S.W.2d 119, 121; State ex rel. McNutt v. Northup, Mo., 367 S.W.2d 512, 514; Adams v. Richardson, Mo., 337 S.W.2d 911, 915. However, in the present case the question is academic, because we are of the opinion that at least one, if not both, exhibits were properly admitted under the Uniform Business Records as Evidence Act, § 490.680 et seq., RSMo 1959, V.A. M.S., and because the substance of what those reports showed was conceded in defendants’ answer and counterclaim.

Defendants’ remaining point requires a reference to the pleadings. In his petition, after alleging the shipment of the car over defendants’ lines, the weighing of the car, its inspection by the Merchants Exchange at Valley Junction and the leaking there discovered, the unloading on September 4 at St. Louis and the result of the weighing and inspection there made, plaintiff pleaded:

“8. Plaintiff further states that the wheat was lost while in the possession of the defendants and that the defendants were negligent in the handling of the said car of wheat by allowing the wheat to leak out of the said car and also by allowing the car door to be opened during transit.”

Had the plaintiff confined his allegation to the averment that the wheat was lost while in the possession of defendants, the equivalent of a charge of failure to deliver the grain, the cause of action stated would have been one upon the common law liability of a carrier. Davis v. Wabash, St. L. and P. Ry. Co., 89 Mo. 340, 1 S.W. 327. But here plaintiff went further and alleged that the wheat was lost through the specific acts of negligence of defendants in the handling of the car and in allowing the car door to be opened during transit. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled in such a situation that it is incumbent upon a plaintiff to prove the negligence charged and that a plaintiff cannot rely simply on the presumption against common carriers. State ex rel. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Trimble, 302 Mo. 8, 257 S.W. 104; E. O. Stanard Milling Co. v. White Line Cent. Transit Co., 122 Mo. 258, 26 S.W. 704; Witting v. St. Louis & S. F. Ry. Co., 101 Mo. 631, 14 S.W. 743.

Defendants assert that the evidence failed to sustain the charges of specific negligence alleged. We agree.

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Bluebook (online)
443 S.W.2d 206, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/haake-v-missouri-pacific-railroad-moctapp-1969.