Louisville Nashville R. R. Co. v. Dickson ( 1916 )

BROWN, J.—

(1, 2) Where the evidence shows that there is no market value of property in question at the place which under the general rule governs in fixing the damages for its loss or injury, it is permissible to show the market value at other places, “with cost of transportation or other facts that will enable the jury to deduce the value at the place in question.” However, evidence of the market value at other places than the places usually governing in such matters is not admissible where the evidence is clear that there is a value at that place. — Comer & Co. v. Way & Edmundson, 107 Ala, 310, 19 South. 966, 54 Am. St. Rep. 93; Johnson & Thornton v. Allen & Jemison, 78 Ala. 392, 56 Am. Rep. 34.

(3, 4) The record (page 17) recites that, plaintiff’s witness George McCurdy “being asked to state the market value of the five dogs about which he had been testifying as compared with the others at Tyson on November 22, 1913, the witness answered that the only way he could figure the value was what anything would bring on the market, and the dogs that he named there would have probably brought $100 apiece on that date, and he thought $50 apiece would have been a market value for the other three dogs, Rock, Grace, and Henry.”

This testimony was given without objection; and, while it tends to show the market value of the dogs at Tyson, there was other evidence that the dogs had no market value at Tyson. Therefore it cannot be said that the evidence is clear that the dogs had a market value at Tyson; and, under the rule stated above it was the plaintiff’s right to make proof of the market value of the property at the nearest market to Tyson. — Johnson & Hubbard, 69 Ala. 379. And while it was incumbent on the plaintiff to go further and show the cost of transportation from Tyson to Prattville, the evidence was not irrelevant to the issues in the case; and, this being the only objection urged, the ruling of the court on the objection interposed was correct. — McDaniel v. State, 97 Ala. 14, 12 South. 241.

(5, 6) The hypothetical question to the witness Dr. Haygood was supported by the testimony that had been adduced, and his answer was responsive.- — Jones on Evidence, §§ 370-374. Furthermore, there was no objection interposed to the question, and it was not error for the court to overrule the motion to exclude the answer. — Yolande Coal Co. v. Norwood, 4 Ala. App. 390, 58 South. 118.

(7) The litigated fact in the case was whether the dogs were poisoned before or after they were delivered to the defendant and accepted by it. This necessarily involved the inquiry as to whether the circumstances and the conduct of the defendant’s servants were such as to afford an opportunity to any one so disposed to administer poison to the dogs without being detected. This was one of the questions for the jury to solve, and it was not error for the court to sustain the objection to the question propounded to the witness Levine. In view of the testimony of this witness showing that the baggageroom was open to the public and the witness was not in the baggageroom all the time, but that he was engaged otherwise, the answer to the question would have amounted to a surmise or guess, and the objection was properly sustained and the question left to the jury. — Brandon v. Progress Distilling Co., 167 Ala. 365, 52 South. 640. Furthermore, he was allowed to testify that, so far as he could see, nothing was given to the dogs after they were put in the baggage-room.

(8-10) The evidence shows without dispute that the plaintiffs owned the dogs in question; that they were partners in their ownership; that McCurdy purchased and paid for all of the tickets and paid the excess baggage; that these tickets and the payment of the baggage was for the transportation of the entire party who had accompanied the plaintiffs on a hunting expedition.; that the contract, so far as it relates to the liability here involved, was for the sole benefit of the plaintiffs, the owners of the dogs. Hence they may sue either ex contractu or ex delicto for their loss. — McGehee v. W. U. Tel. Co., 169 Ala. 109, 53 South. 205, Ann. Cas. 1912B, 512. The undertaking to carry the dogs is separable from the undertaking to carry the party. — A. G. S. R. R. Co. v. Knox, 184 Ala. 485, 63 South. 538, 49 L. R. A. (N. S.) 411. In the case just cited, the court said: ■“It matters not whether the failure of the plaintiff to use the ticket as a passenger rendered the defendant a carrier of her trunk as freight instead of baggage, for, if there is a distinction, it is without a difference, as the duty and liability are the same, and the fact remains that, when defendant’s agent sold the plaintiff the ticket to Birmingham, it agreed to transport her and her trunk, one or both, for the price paid, and the fact that the plaintiff did not use the ticket, or did not intend to, did not render the defendant a gratuitous bailee of her trunk.”

When we apply the reasoning in that case to this, the result is that, when the defendant’s agent sold McCurdy the tickets, it agreed to transport the party and the dogs, and McCurdy having, by his relation with the plaintiff Dickson, authority to act for Mm in the transportation of the dogs, the liability for their loss, if liability there was, is to the plaintiffs.

(11, 12) If the owner of baggage does not deliver it to the carrier, but retains it in his custody “he thereby assumes the responsibility, and cannot hold the carriér for the loss of it, ■unless the loss occurs from the negligence or fault of the carrier, in which event he would be liable, not as a common carrier, but as an ordinary bailee for hire.” — 1 Hutchinson on Carriers, § 109.

“In such case the owner, so far from having made delivery to the carrier, has purposely withheld it. He has not trusted the carrier, and where there has been no trust reposed, there can be no liability; for trust is the very basis of liability.” — 1 Hutchinson on Carriers, § 110.

Charge 10, refused to the defendant, does not assert this proposition. It asserts: • “If after the dogs were delivered to the defendant and checked,” the jury were reasonably satisfied that plaintiff’s servants were left in charge with instructions to look after the dogs, and took charge of them under such instructions, then the defendant was not liable. The charge assumes that the facts hypothesized, although the dogs had been delivered to the defendant and accepted by it, would deprive the defendant of its custody and relieve it from any duty in the premises, notwithstanding its servants were negligent in respect to the protection of its custody and as a proximate consequence the injury occurred. The charge was properly refused.

(13) The testimony of the witness George McCurdy herein-above quoted tends to show the market value of the dogs at Tyson; and, in view of this evidence, charge 11 was properly refused.

(14) The insistence, in brief, relating to the refusal of a new trial is: “The great weight of the testimony was in favor of the defendant, and the court below erred in refusing to grant defendant’s motion for a new trial.”

This, under the repeated rulings of the Supreme Court, does not “rise to the dignity of an argument,” and will be treated as a waiver of the assignment of error. — Georgia Cotton Co. v. Lee, 196 Ala. 599, 72 South. 158; Republic Iron & Steel Co. v. Quinton, 194 Ala. 126, 69 South; 604; W. U. Tel. Co. v. Benson, 159 Ala. 254, 48 South. 712.

We have treated all questions argued, and, finding no error in the record, the judgment of the circuit court will be affirmed.

Affirmed.