EVANS, P. J., IN OCEAN STEAMSHIP CO. OF SAVANNAH v. SAVANNAH LOCOMOTIVE WORKS AND

SUPPLY CO.

131 Ga. 831. 1909.1

At common law a carrier's duty to receive goods was limited to his facilities for transportation. The owner of a single ship may hold himself out to the public to carry certain goods for hire. As to the goods he proposes to carry, he is a public carrier; but he is under no obligation to provide other ships because his vessel is inadequate to transport all goods which may be offered him. Such a carrier does not owe to the public all the duties imposed by the law on railroad companies and similar public institutions to furnish adequate transportation facilities for all goods which may be tendered. Railroad companies are public institutions, and are granted certain exclusive franchises and rights which naturally impose correlative duties. They are invested with the power of condemnation, by the exercise of which sovereign right they acquire an exclusive privilege to carry on their business over the highway constructed by them. They are endowed with special and unusual powers, with an express view to their rendering to the public adequate service. The conference of these unusual powers raises an obligation, not only to serve the public impartially, but to serve the public efficiently. Upon them the law imposes the obligation to furnish sufficient facilities for the reasonably prompt transportation of goods tendered for carriage; and they

148. It is a relation, moreover, which cannot be defined with exactitude in matters of detail, for it may be one thing in a mining camp, or in the remote and sparsely settled portions of a country. It may be another thing in the tavern by the rural wayside, and yet another in the modern urban palace called a hotel. Between the extreme of rugged simplicity on the one hand and of palatial magnificence on the other, there are numberless gradations of service, attention, convenience, and luxury which must necessarily give the relation of innkeeper and guest such flexibility as will render it adaptable to varying conditions and circumstances. But underneath all these differing conditions there is, of course, a basic legal principle which gor. erns the general relation of innkeeper and guest. The innkeeper holds himself out as able and willing to entertain guests for hire; and, in the absence of a specific contract, the law implies that he will furnish such entertainment as the character of his inn and reasonable attention to the convenience and comfort of his guests will afford."

As to right of innkeeper to make and change assignment of rooms see Doyle. Walker (1867), 26 U. C. Q. B. 502: Harvey v. Hart (1906). 149 Ala. 604. Cf. as to sleeping cars Mann Boudoir Car Co. v. Dupré (1893). 54 Fed. 646, and Pullman Palace Car Co. v. Taylor (1879), 65 Ind. 153. 1 Only an extract from the opinion is here reprinted.— ED.

are bound to provide sufficient cars for transporting, without unreasonable delay, the usual and ordinary quantity of freight offered to them, or which might reasonably and ordinarily be expected. 5 Am. & Eng. Enc. L. (2d Ed.) 167. A navigation company like the defendant, which receives no franchise from the state to use the open sea, and which enjoys no monopoly or right of eminent domain, owes no duty to the public to furnish adequate facilities to transport all of the traffic of the ports of its termini. It is under no obligation to buy other ships because it does not undertake to carry any more goods than its vessels will safely accommodate. If there is a demand for more ships, the commercial necessities will regulate the deficiency in transportation service, either by voluntary enlargement of the facilities of existing ship lines or the establishment of new ones.

A carrier, not a public or quasi public institution, may select the class of goods which he proposes to carry. Whether the right of selection may include the right to limit the quantity of any commodity he proposes to carry, provided he gives notice of the limitation, is not before us.

121 Mo. 1. 1894.1

the receivers of the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railway Company,

P

MACFARLANE, J. This is a suit prosecuted by plaintiff against p falls appointed by a United States circuit court, to recover damages for though injuries received by reason of falling into a hole in the depot plat-hole. form of said company at New Madrid, Mo. Plaintiff charged defendants with negligence in not keeping the platform in a reasonably safe condition, by reason of which, on leaving a train at

in

and sus

platform said station, upon which he had been a passenger, he was precipi- for damper.

tated into the hole in the platform, and was thereby injured.

It appeared from the evidence that the platform was one about four feet above the ground, and from which one plank, about six feet long and eight inches wide, had been broken out. The agents of defendants testified that the plank had been broken by one of themselves in moving a heavy box of goods, at least four days before the injury. Other evidence tended to prove that it had been out as long as two weeks. Plaintiff arrived on the train in the nighttime, neither the station nor the platform being lighted,

1 The argument of counsel is omitted, and only part of the opinion is reprinted.-ED.

and, after leaving the cars, walked across the platform to take a hack to an hotel, and not knowing of the hole, and being unable to see it, he fell therein, by which he received the injuries for which he sued...

A carrier of passengers owes, to those approaching or leaving its trains, the duty of keeping its station platforms in reasonably safe condition for convenient use, and is liable to such persons, who are themselves duly careful, for damages sustained by reason of its negligence in not observing this duty. This duty and the liability of the carrier for its neglect are well settled. Hutch. Carr.

§ 517; Ror. R. R. 476.

It also follows, from this obligation imposed by law, that a passenger, in leaving a train, has the right to assume, in the absence of information to the contrary, that he can safely pass across the depot platform to take a conveyance to his destination; and there was no error in the instruction which told the jury that plaintiff had the right to assume that the platform was reasonably safe and convenient for his use.

It being the duty of the receivers of this corporation to use reasonable care to see that their platform was kept in a safe and convenient condition for use, it was gross negligence to allow a hole, eight inches wide and six feet long, to remain in the floor of that part of the platform commonly used by passengers, for the period of four days after knowledge thereof by their agents. Hutch. Carr., supra; Shear. & R. Neg. § 411.2

2 Judgment was reversed because of error in the instruction of the trial court on the subject of damages.- ED.

Liability for failure to properly heat waiting rooms see Note, 6 Michigan L. Rev. 150.

With regard to the liability of railroads for defective Pullman cars see Robinson v. Chicago & A. R. R. Co. (1903), 135 Mich. 254.

As to duty to heat passenger cars see St. Louis & S. W. Ry, Co. v. Campbell (1902), 30 Tex. Civ. App. 35; Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Harrison (1904), 97 Tex. 611.

In Dunn v. Western Un. Tel. Co. (1907), 2 Ga. App. 845, an action for damages for "disrespectful, humiliating, and insulting treatment," the court, after declaring it to be the duty of one engaged in public service to furnish safe and decent access to the places opened up for the transaction of the business in question," continued: "This safety does not mean mere physical safety, nor this decency mere absence of obscenity; but by the employment of the expression 'safe and decent access' it is intended to connote also the notion of freedom from abuse, humiliation, insult, and other unbecoming and disrespectful treatment. A member of the public is not to be deterred from transacting or offering to transact the business which the law compels a telegraph company to accept impartially from every person by reason of the fact that he cannot enter the public office without being subjected to insult or personal affront. A violation of this duty has occurred whenever a person entering the telegraph office for the purpose of sending a message has been met with disrespectful or insulting treatment at the hands of the company's agents. It is immaterial that the person thus injured had no personal interest in the message, or that he was the mere agent of another;

GALENA AND CHICAGO UNION RAILROAD CO. v. RAE. 18 Ill. 488. 1857.1

SKINNER, J. This was an action on the case against the railroad company, as common carriers, for refusal to carry, and for delay in carrying, the grain of the plaintiff below from Rockford to Chicago. The cause was tried by jury, who returned a verdict of $4,950 against the company, upon which the court rendered judgment, refusing to grant a new trial.

The evidence is very voluminous, and, in the opinion of the court, is insufficient to sustain a verdict for the amount found.

The instructions in the record, and involved in the assignments of error, are seventeen in number, and a critical examination of each in our opinion would embrace almost the entire law relating to common carriers. This court is under no obligation to write a treatise upon this branch of the law, nor was the court below bound to act upon instructions not necessary to enlighten the jury of the law arising upon the evidence properly before them.

As the cause will be again for trial, we will state those rules of law in controversy which are material to the case made by the record.

The evidence shows that the company had the necessary means and facilities for transporting with dispatch the amount of freight ordinarily for carriage, and that at the period when the wrong is charged to have been committed there was an unusual and extraordinary quantity of grain for shipment, owing to the great harvest of that year and want of facilities for storage in the country. In this respect the company was not in default, in regard to that duty it owed the public, of affording reasonable facilities for the transfor there is no such requirement as that persons desiring to transact business with public utility corporations shall do so in person. The fact that the right of respectful treatment, while attempting to do business with a public service company, follows as the natural sequence from the right to be served impartially and at all reasonable times, seems to render the citation of authority as to the existence of this right of respectful treatment unnecessary. We do, however, call attention to the Georgia cases of Gasway v. Atlanta & West Point R. Co., 58 Ga. 216, 221, and Georgia R. Co. v. Richmond, 98 Ga. 495, 502, 25 S. E. 565. It will be noted that, while these were actions against carriers, in neither case did the liability depend upon the fact that the plaintiff was a passenger. In Gasway's case he was attempting to check baggage as agent for his wife. In Richmond's case he had called at the passenger station to see about certain trunks, and the court in deciding the case, took pains to call attention to the fact that the relation of carrier and passenger did not exist at that time. We might multiply citation of precedents, but these are sufficient. The telegraph company, therefore, violated its duty towards the plaintiff, in that it did not afford him safe and decent access to its office."

1 Part of the opinion is omitted.-ED.

portation of freight. Neither the common law nor the statute requires anything more than that the company shall furnish reasonable and ordinary facilities of transportation-such as are adapted to its mode of conveyance, and will meet the ordinary demands of the public. The company was not bound to provide in advance for or anticipate extraordinary occasions, or an unusual influx of freight to the road. Wibert v. New York & Erie Railroad Company, 19 Barbour's S. R. 36; Statutes 1856, p. 1070.

Corporations for carrying are created for the public good, and powers and privileges are given them in consideration of the benefits they are expected to confer upon the public. Their obligations to the public require the use of their facilities fairly, and in such manner as is best calculated, in the prosecution of their business, to afford the largest public benefit. An honest and fair endeavor, in the course of their legitimate enterprise, to accomplish this is all that can be legally required of them..

There is no proof in the case that the grain was lost or damaged by being detained at Rockford, and the jury, probably, based their verdict upon the hypothesis that the company was bound to be ready, at all events, to carry whatever amount of freight was for transportation, and when required.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

Judgment reversed.

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD CO. v. RIVER AND RAIL COAL AND COKE CO.

CARROLL, J.... The River & Rail Coal & Coke Company is a corporation engaged in mining coal in Union county, and its mine is located on a line of railway controlled and operated by the appellant railroad company. This suit was brought by the coal company to recover damages for the failure of the railroad company to furnish it cars for the transportation of coal produced at its mine. It was averred in the petition that on several named days in October, 1910, the railroad company failed to furnish it any cars in which to load coal, although the railroad company was given timely and sufficient notice of the number of cars that would be needed on those days. It was further averred that by reason of the failure to furnish the cars ordered, or any cars, on the days mentioned, operations at the mine had to be suspended, thereby 2 See Yazoo & M. V. R. R. Co. v. Blum (1906), 89 Miss. 242.

1 Part of the opinion is omitted.- ED.