Story Case

The New York Daily Press made a contract with the New York & Eastern Railway Company, whereby it guaranteed a revenue of $200 a day from a new train, placed in operation by the railroad company, at the newspaper company's special request. It was agreed that the train should leave New York for Connecticut points, each day, at 5 A. M. and should be a special carrier of packages for the New York Daily Press. The railroad company agreed not to carry any other newspaper in its express cars on this train. After the train was installed, the New York Free Press demanded that the railroad company carry its packages of papers to its several agents, on this same train. The company refused to do this, on the ground that, as to this train, it was not a common carrier, but a private carrier of newspapers. The company conceded that this train was partly a public carrier, but only as to people and their baggage. It was the revenue from this source that was guaranteed by the New York Daily Press. Can the railroad company rightfully refuse the demands of the New York Free Press?

Ruling Court Case. Kansas Pacific Railway Company Vs. Nichols, Kennedy & Company, Volume 9 Kansas Reports, Page 162

Action was brought against the Kansas Pacific Railway company by Nichols, Kennedy & Company to recover the value of twenty-one head of cattle which had escaped from the cars of the railway company while being shipped from Abilene to the state line. It was alleged that the cattle were lost, because of the carelessness and negligence of the railway company in failing to provide suitable yards for the cattle en route. The railway company resisted the claim, chiefly on the ground that it was not a common carrier of cattle.

Justice Valentine said: "The main question in this case is whether the railway company, when it took the cattle of the plaintiffs for the purpose of transporting them over its road, assumed the responsibilities of a common carrier. "We think it did. A railway company that transports cattle and livestock for hire, for such persons who choose to employ them, thereby assume the relation of common carrier. They are none the less common carriers of livestock from the fact that that is not their principal business. At Common Law, the character of the carrier was not determined by the kind of property that he carried. Whether he was a common carrier depended wholly upon whether he held himself out to the world as such, and not upon the kind of property he carried. He was one who convey property. Railroads hold themselves out as common carriers in their very creation and organization, and are, therefore, presumed to be carriers of all sorts of property usually transported on railroads." Judgment was given for Nichols, Kennedy & Company.

Ruling Law. Story Case Answer

A carrier is under obligations to the public to accept for transportation any article which it is in the business of carrying. When a corporation applies to the state for a charter as a railroad, it is naturally presumed that it will transport generally, all goods, merchandise, and other freight, as well as passengers. That is the usual business of a railroad today. To be sure, it may expressly limit the scope of its activity in its application for a charter. It may be chartered as a carrier of passengers only, or as a carrier of freight only. But in the absence of such limitation, it is bound to accept for transportation everything which is usually carried by companies of like nature.

A railroad carrying all kinds of goods, cannot become a special carrier with reference to a particular business, and thereby discriminate against another engaged in the same line of business. A common carrier might become a private carrier for hire, when, as a matter of special contract, it agrees to carry something which is not its business to carry. Thus, a company holding itself out merely as an oil carrying company, might carry country produce as a specialty.

But, in the Story Case, the company was a common carrier of all kinds of freight, including newspaper packages, and, therefore, must carry the packages of the New York Free Press on the train leaving New York at 5 A. M.