To this it is replied that Meir & Co. expressly stipulated
for bills of lading to be given them, had abundant opportunity to
examine all the provisions of those subsequently delivered, and did
in fact read some portion of each one; that their failure to read
all the provisions was their own fault; and, since the bill of
lading contains an express notice that
"in accepting this bill of lading the shipper or other agent of
the owner of the property carried expressly accepts and agrees to
all its stipulations, exceptions, and conditions,"
the law will not now permit Meir & Co. to plead their own
negligence, or to say that its provisions were not binding upon
them.
Whether the one or the other of these positions is correct it is
not necessary to determine, since there are other controlling
questions, touching which there is entire unanimity in the court,
and upon the determination of which our decision may rest.
Waiving, therefore, any expression of opinion as to whether,
Page 104 U. S. 156
upon the findings in this case, the bills of lading expressed
the contract between Meir & Co. and the dispatch company, or as
to whether the railroad company can take shelter under the special
provisions, to which reference has been made, and assuming, for the
purposes of our decision -- as the plaintiff in error insists we
must do -- that the defendant cannot claim the benefit of those
provisions, we proceed to an examination of other grounds upon
which it is sought to hold the defendant liable for the value of
the cotton burned in Jersey City.
The main proposition advanced upon this branch of the case by
the plaintiff's counsel is that, in these transactions, the
dispatch company was the agent of the defendant and of the other
railroad companies over whose lines the cotton was carried. If by
this is meant that the dispatch company was an agent of the
defendant, with general authority to bind the latter by contracts
for transportation, it is sufficient to say that there is no
justification in the findings for any such position. It nowhere
appears that the dispatch company assumed to have, or that the
defendant recognized it as having, any such unlimited authority.
The dispatch company and the defendant had, it is true, certain
business relations; but those relations did not necessarily involve
an agency upon the part of the former for the latter in the making
of contracts for transportation. The agreement between those
companies only bound the railroad company to "receive, load and
unload, deliver and waybill," such freight as was sent to it by the
dispatch company; and at the rates established not by the latter,
but by the defendant and other railroad companies. The dispatch
company could not itself make a contract, or fix any rate for the
carriage of goods over the defendant's road, except as authorized
by the defendant. It is expressly so stated in the special finding.
So far from the dispatch company being authorized to impose upon
the defendant obligations for the safe carriage of goods over the
lines of other carriers, the agreement of the defendant with that
company was, while assuming all the risks of common carriers, "to
pay all damages to or loss of property, while on their line of road
or in their possession." The contract obligation of the defendant
to receive and transport
Page 104 U. S. 157
the freight of the dispatch company, at the established rates,
did not impose upon the former an obligation to carry beyond its
terminus, or subject it to liability for the negligence of other
carriers. Whether the defendant should undertake for the safe
transportation of goods beyond its own line was not a matter left,
in any degree, for the determination of the dispatch company, and
was not within any authority it had. The liability of the defendant
for the safe carriage of the cotton, after its delivery to the next
succeeding carrier on the prescribed route to New York, must
therefore depend upon the inquiry whether the defendant, in any
form, assumed, or held itself out to the public as assuming, any
such responsibility. The legal proposition involved in this inquiry
was considered by this Court in
Railroad Company v.
Manufacturing Company, supra. Speaking by Mr. Justice Davis,
we there gave our sanction to the rule, adopted in most of the
courts of this country, that the carrier, in the absence of a
special contract, express or implied, for the safe transportation
of goods to their known destination, is only bound to carry safely
to the end of its line, and there deliver to the next carrier on
the route. This principle was subsequently recognized in
Railroad Company v.
Pratt, 22 Wall. 123, although in that case the
waybill or receipt of the carrier was held to import an undertaking
for the safe carriage of the goods as well over its own line as
over the lines of other carriers. Was there, we then inquire, in
the present case, a special contract or undertaking by the
defendant to carry beyond its route? A careful consideration of the
facts set out in the finding satisfies us that there was no such
contract or undertaking. The defendant received the cotton without
executing bills of lading therefor. It had never given bills of
lading for goods shipped by the Erie and Pacific Dispatch Company.
Its custom was to make a waybill only over its own road. That
course was pursued in this case, and defendant only collected and
received pay for carrying to Indianapolis. It is true the waybills,
upon their face, indicated that the cotton was consigned to C. G.
Meir & Co., London. But that circumstance is not, of itself,
controlling or conclusive. The reference in the waybill to the
consignees was mere description to show the ultimate destination of
the
Page 104 U. S. 158
cotton. Each waybill, executed by the defendant, purported to be
nothing more than a "manifest of freight from St. Louis to
Indianapolis," and fails to show an undertaking by it to transport
beyond the latter city.
A special undertaking to carry beyond its terminus cannot be
implied, against the defendant, from the arrangement already
referred to, between the dispatch company and sundry railroad
companies whose lines terminated at New York, whereby the latter,
separately, agreed to carry all goods for the transportation of
which the former should contract, at the established tariff rates,
or at any special rates furnished by the railroad companies.
Such an arrangement did not, in our opinion, involve joint
liability upon the part of the railroad companies, or make them
partners either inter sese or as to third persons. Each company
bore the general expenses of its own route and of all
transportation over it. The division, upon the basis merely of
distance, of the aggregate pay for the entire route covered by the
roads of these companies gave each one no greater amount than
perhaps it would have earned had the dispatch company contracted
with each, separately, for the transportation of the cotton. The
arrangement in question was one simply of convenience both for the
shipper and carrier. Under it Meir & Co. were enabled to
contract, at St. Louis, for a through rate for the transportation
of the cotton by the dispatch company. The latter, in order to meet
its obligations to the owners of the cotton, used the road of the
defendant, receiving from the latter nothing more than its waybill
to Indianapolis, which showed upon its face the proportion of the
aggregate pay to which the defendant would be entitled. The
defendant received compensation only for transportation over its
road, and settled separately with the dispatch company. It
undertook, and was only bound, to transport over its own line and
deliver to the succeeding carrier. That duty was discharged, and
the loss occurred while the cotton was held by another carrier. The
mere fact that it joined with other companies in establishing a
through rate from St. Louis to New York, to be divided between
themselves, upon the basis, not of expenses incurred, or investment
made, but of distance simply, although competent
Page 104 U. S. 159
as evidence, does not, of itself, imply an undertaking to
transport beyond its line, or to become bound for any default or
negligence of other carriers.
In view of the conclusion thus indicated, it is unnecessary to
determine the rights of the plaintiff in error as against the
dispatch company, or to inquire whether the detention of the cotton
in Jersey City, under the circumstances disclosed in the record,
was negligence upon the part either of the dispatch company or of
the Erie Railway Company, or of both. Nor need we inquire whether
the destruction of the cotton, by an accidental fire, was, in a
legal sense, the result of its detention, in Jersey City, for an
unreasonable length of time without delivery to the ocean
steamship. Those questions are not material upon the present
issues.
Upon the whole case the law is for the defendant.
Judgment affirmed.