Michigan Cent Company v. Myrick/Opinion of the Court

by Stephen Johnson Field

United States Supreme Court

107 U.S. 102

Michigan Cent Company  v.  Myrick

The principal question presented by the instruction requested by the defendant has been elaborately considered and adjudged by this court. It is only necessary, therefore, to state the conclusion reached.

A railroad company is a carrier of goods for the public, and as such is bound to carry safely whatever goods are intrusted to it for ransportation, within the course of its business, to the end of its route, and there deposit them in a suitable place for their owners or consignees. If the road of the company connects with other roads, and goods are received for transportation beyond the termination of its own line, there is superadded to its duty as a common carrier that of a forwarder by the connecting line; that is, to deliver safely the goods to such line-the next carrier on the route beyond. This forwarding duty arises from the obligation implied in taking the goods for the point beyond its own line. The common law imposes no greater duty than this. If more is expected from the company receiving the shipment there must be a special agreement for it. This is the doctrine of this court, although a different rule of liability is adopted in England and in some of the states. As was said in Railroad Co. v. Manufacturing Co.: 'It is unfortunate for the interests of commerce that there is any diversity of opinion on such a subject, especially in this country, but the rule that holds the carrier only liable to the extent of his own route, and for the safe storage and delivery to the next carrier, is in itself so just and reasonable that we do not hesitate to give it our sanction.' 16 Wall. 324. This doctrine was approved in the subsequent case of Pratt v. Railroad Co. 22 Wall. 123, although the contract there was to carry through the whole route. Such a contract may of course be made with any one of different connecting lines. There is no objection in law to a contract of the kind, with its attendant liabilities. See, also, Ins. Co. v. Railroad Co. 104 U.S. 157.

The general doctrine, then, as to transportation by connecting lines, approved by this court, and also by a majority of the state courts, amounts to this: That each road, confining itself to its common-law liability, is only bound, in the absence of a special contract, to safely carry over its own route and safely to deliver to the next connecting carrier, but that any one of the companies may agree that over the whole route its liability shall extend. In the absence of a special agreement to that effect, such liability will not attach, and the agreement will not be inferred from doubtful expressions or loose language, but only from clear and satisfactory evidence. Although a railroad company is not a common carrier of live animals in the same sense that it is a carrier of goods, its responsibilities being in many respects different, yet when it undertakes generally to carry such freight it assumes, under similar conditions, the same obligations, so far as the route is concerned over which the freight is to be carried.

In the present case the court below held that by its receipt, construed in the light of the circumstances under which it was given, the Michigan Central Railroad Company assumed the responsibility of transporting the cattle over the whole route from Chicago to Philadelphia. It did not submit the receipt with evidence of the attendant circumstances to the jury to determine whether such a through contract was made. It ruled that the receipt itself constituted such a contract. In this respect it erred. The receipt does not, on its face, import any bargain to carry the freight through. It does not say that the freight is to be transported to Philadelphia, or that it was received for transportation there. It only says that it is consigned to the order of Paris Myrick, and that the Blakers at Philadelphia are to be notified. And, after the description of the property, it adds: 'Marked and described as above (contents and value otherwise unknown) for transportation by the Michigan Central Railroad Company to the warehouse at _____,' leaving the place blank. This blank may have been intended for the insertion of some place on the road of the company, or at its termination. It cannot be assumed by the court, in the absence of evidence on the point, that it was intended for the place of the final destination of the cattle. On the margin of the receipt is the following: 'NOTICE.-See rules of transportation on the back hereof.' And among the rules is one declaring that goods consigned to any place off the company's line, or beyond it, would be sent forward by a carrier or freightman, when there are such, in the usual manner, the company acting for that purpose as the agent of the consignor or consignee, and not as carrier; and that the company would not be responsible for any loss, damage, or injury to the property after the same shall have been sent from its warehouse or station. Though this rule, brought to the knowledge of this shipper, might not limit the liability imposed by a specific through contract, yet it would tend to rebut any inference of such a contract from the receipt of goods marked for a place beyond the road of the company.

The doctrine invoked by the plaintiff's counsel against the limitation by contract of the common-law responsibility of carriers, has no application. There is, as already stated, no common-law responsibility devolving upon any carrier to transport goods over other than its own lines, and the laws of Illinois restricting the right to limit such responsibility do not, therefore, touch the case. Nor was the common-law liability of the defendant corporation enlarged by the fact that a notice of the charges for through transportation was posted in the defendant's station-house at Chicago. Such notices are usually found in stations on lines which connect with other lines, and they furnish important information to shippers, who naturally desire to know what the charges are for through freight, as well as for those over a single line. It would be unfortunate if this information could not be given by a public notice in the station of a company without subjecting that company, if freight is taken by it, to responsibility for the manner in which it is carried on intermediate and connecting lines to the end of the route. Nor was the liability of the company affected by the fact that the notice on the margin of the receipt stated that the ticket given might be 'exchanged for a through bill of lading.' It would seem to indicate that the receipt was not deemed of itself to constitute a through contract. The through bill of lading may also have contained a limitation as to the extent of the route over which the company would undertake to carry the cattle. Besides, if weight is to be given to this notice as characterizing the contract made, it must be taken with the rule to which it also calls attention, that the company assumed responsibility only for transportation over its own line. It follows from the views expressed that the court below erred in its charge that the ticket or bill of lading was a through contract, whereby the defendant company agreed to transfer the cattle to Philadelphia, and safely deliver them there to the order of Myrick.

Our attention has been called to some decisions of the supreme court of Illinois which would seem to hold that a railroad company which receives goods to carry, marked for a particular destination, though beyond its own line, is prima facie bound to carry them to that place and deliver them there; and that an agreement to that effect is implied by the reception of goods thus marked. Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Frankenberg, 54 Ill. 88; Same v. Johnson, 34 Ill. 389. Assuming that such is the purport of the decisions they are not binding upon us. What constitutes a contract of carriage is not a question of local law upon which the decision of a state court must control. It is a matter of general law, upon which this court will exercise its own judgment. Chicago City v. Robbins, 2 Black, 429; Railroad Co. v. Nat. Bank, 102 U.S. 14; and Hough v. Ry. Co. 100 U.S. 213.

If the doctrine of the supreme court of Illinois, as to what constitutes contract of carriage over connecting lines of roads, is sound, it ought to govern, not only in Illinois, but in other states; and yet the tribunals of other states, and a majority of them, hold the reverse of the Illinois court, and coincide with the views of this court. Such is the case in Massachusetts. Nutting v. Railroad Co. 1 Gray, 502; Burroughs v. Railroad Co. 100 Mass. 26. If we are to follow on this subject the ruling of the state courts, we should be obliged to give a different interpretation to the same act-the reception of goods marked for a place beyond the road of the company-in different states, holding it to imply one thing in Illinois and another in Massachusetts.

The judgment must be reversed, and the case remanded for a new trial; and it is so ordered.

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