Smith v. Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co.

170 S.W. 324, 183 Mo. App. 180, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 466
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 5, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 170 S.W. 324 (Smith v. Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co.) 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
Smith v. Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co., 170 S.W. 324, 183 Mo. App. 180, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 466 (Mo. Ct. App. 1914).

Opinion

TRIMBLE, J.

This is an action to recover $1497.60 as damages sustained in the shipment of certain perishable freight, consisting of dressed turkeys, from Pleasant Hill, Missouri, to Armour & Co. in Kansas City, Kansas. Of said amount, $1437.18 was specified in the petition as having been lost by reason of negligent delay in transportation, $52.42 was for overcharge in freight and $8 was for expenses in looking after shipment, necessarily incurred and caused by the delay.

These various items thus specified in the petition aggregate the sum sued for, to-wit, $1497.60!, and are particularly set forth here because they show that the petition did not declare upon a fourth item of damages, namely, a loss of 326 pounds of turkeys which were never delivered because the car was broken into and robbed while in transit.

A controversy exists between plaintiff and defendant as to whether the petition covers a failure to deliver by reason of loss of turkeys in transit. The petition alleges; that the car was loaded with 20,569 pounds of No-. 1 dressed turkeys of the value of fourteen cents per pound, 696 pounds of “Old Tom” turkeys at twelve cents, 528 pounds of No. 2 turkeys at [182]*182eleven cents and 71 pounds of “cull” turkeys at five cents per pound. The petition then goes on to allege that by reason of tbe negligent delay only 4006 pounds of No. 1 turkeys were in good condition, ‘ ‘ and that all tbe balance of said turkeys delivered, to-wit, 17,532 pounds were in a green and spoiling condition.” A careful arithmetical calculation of the various numbers of pounds stated in the petition will disclose that the number of pounds loaded into the car was 21,864, and when 17,532 pounds are deducted therefrom, there are still 326 pounds unaccounted for. Plaintiff contends that, because of this, the petition includes damages for failure to deliver the 326 pounds. This contention cannot be sustained. The petition contained no allegation that the defendant lost, or failed to deliver, any turkeys. On the contrary, it alleges that the loss of $1437.18 was “a loss and damage to plaintiff through said delay,” and this loss occasioned by delay was everywhere in the petition alleged to be by reason of the turkeys spoiling. Section 1794, Revised Statutes 1909, requires the petition to contain “a plain and concise statement of the facts.” The petition did not cover this item of damages.

The greater portion of the turkeys, all but 4000’ pounds, was purchased by plaintiff of a Mr. Shelton at Windsor, Missouri. The latter loaded his turkeys for plaintiff into the car at that point and the car was billed from there to Kansas City with directions to-stop at Pleasant Hill where plaintiff would finish loading it with turkeys from his poultry house.

■ Windsor is a station on defendant’s line about forty miles from Pleasant Hill, and the latter is an intermediate point between Windsor and Kansas City, being from thirty-four to forty miles distant from the said city. The time ordinarily required to make the run from Pleasant Hill to Kansas City was three or four hours. A local freight ran every day. leaving Pleasant Hill at any hour between 3 p. m. and dark [183]*183and would arrive in Kansas City in time to deliver freight the next morning.

Plaintiff did not attend to the loading of the turkeys at Windsor. He loaded only the 4000' pounds put on the car at Pleasant Hill. When the car reached this point plaintiff opened six- or eight barrels of the Shelton turkeys therein and found them to be in good condition but did not examine the rest of them. When the car was finally delivered to Armour & Co. it was found that 4006 pounds of turkeys were still good notwithstanding the delay. This practically corresponds with the number of pounds plaintiff loaded at Pleasant Hill.

Defendant urges that its demurrer to the evidence should have been sustained. This view rests upon the claim that there is no testimony as to the number of turkeys loaded at Windsor, nor their condition at that time, nor how they had been treated prior to that time; and since the. number of pounds of good turkeys at the end of the journey is-the same, or practi-' cally so, as those loaded by plaintiff himself at Pleasant Hill, defendant contends that the spoiling of the turkeys must have been in those loaded at Windsor, and that the evidence did not show the turkeys were spoiled by the alleged negligent delay. It is no doubt true that in order for plaintiff to make out a case for negligent delay he must, in addition to such delay,, show that the shipment was in good condition when delivered to defendant and that it was in bad condition when delivered to Armour & Co. But we cannot agree with defendant that there was no substantial evidence of these facts sufficient to enable plaintiff to go to the jury.

As to the number of pounds loaded at Windsor, there was ample evidence to show that. Plaintiff put in 4000 pounds at Pleasant Hill. He saw one-third of the car weighed at Armour’s. He was an experienced poultry dealer. He showed the number of pounds of good turkeys sold out of the car and the [184]*184number of pounds of spoiled turkeys sold and for ■which he received the money. The hill of lading specified a larger number of pounds than he claimed, and defendant’s correspondence showed this excess in weight, above what plaintiff claimed, to be an error in the bill. This was sufficient to show the number of pounds put in the car at Windsor.

The car was set on the loading track at Windsor at 7 a. m. Saturday, December 14th. Mr. Shelton loaded the car between that hour and 1 p. m. of that day, for the car left Windsor for Pleasant Hill at that time. It arrived at Pleasant Hill the same afternoon about three or four o’clock. Plaintiff immediately had the car iced and then examined the turkeys to see what condition they were in. He opened six or eight barrels “skipping around over the car” and took out half of the turkeys in each barrel and looked them over carefully. They were properly packed and in first-class condition. This would tend to show they were properly treated and cooled before putting them into the car at Windsor since they had not been in long enough to have hidden that fact from plaintiff. If they had been put in warm they would have still showed it to an experienced poultry man. The barrels held from twelve to twenty-four turkeys, so that plaintiff must have examined at random somewhere between thirty-six and ninety-six turkeys in the car. He also' found the temperature of the car was good. When the shipment was examined at Armour’s it was found that about as many, in proportion, of the turkeys loaded at Pleasant Hill were spoiled as were those of the Windsor turkeys. There were good and bad ones in both. The good ones were found here and there throughout the car in the same ratio, whether in those first or last loaded. When the turkeys were examined at Armour’s they disclosed symptoms of spoiling different from those manifested when turkeys are packed before being properly cooled. Plaintiff examined much more [185]*185than one-third of the car by opening the barrels and noting the spoiled condition, although he did not see but one-third of them weighed. All this was evidence from which the jury could find that the spoiling of the turkeys was not because of their treatment or condition when they were loaded at Windsor. Of course, plaintiff would have had still stronger proof had he put Shelton on the stand and showed by him, or whoever treated and loaded the turkeys, that they were in good condition.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
170 S.W. 324, 183 Mo. App. 180, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 466, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smith-v-chicago-rock-island-pacific-railway-co-moctapp-1914.