Grover v. Western Union Telegraph Co.

RICHARDS, J.

Thisis an appeal from a judgment in the defendant’s favor in an action on the part of the plaintiff to recover damages arising by reason of a delayed telegram. The case was presented at the trial and on appeal upon an agreed statement of facts, which may be briefly summarized as follows: During the month of September, 1915, the plaintiff and one Bergthold were the owners of a business at Fort Bragg, Mendocino County, California,

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known as “Fort Bragg Chronicle,” and a certain other property connected therewith, and were negotiating a sale of said business and property to one M. J. Beaumont for the sum of two thousand six hundred dollars. These negotiations had progressed to the extent that said Beaumont had written a letter, dated September 24, 1915, addressed to the plaintiff, offering the sum of two thousand six hundred dollars for said property and business. This letter was written from San Francisco; California, and closed with this sentence: “Advise me by return mail your decision.” This letter was received by the said plaintiff at Fort Bragg on September 25, 1915, in the regular course of the mail. On September 26, 1915, the plaintiff telephoned to the defendant at its Fort Bragg office the following message for transmission by it by telegraph:

“Fort Bragg, California, Sept. 26, 1915. “M. J. Beaumont, care Baldwin Hotel, San Francisco, Cal.

“Your letter received. Proposition perfectly satisfactory. Letter to follow.

“(Signed) L. F. Gboveb.”

The defendant accepted said message and the charges for its transmission, which the plaintiff paid thereon, and undertook to promptly transmit and deliver the same to said Beaumont. On September 26, 1915, after sending said message, the plaintiff wrote a letter to said Beaumont at the same address to which said message had been directed, in which he confirmed his said telegram and accepted the offer of Beaumont. This letter the plaintiff mailed on said twenty-sixth day of September, and in the regular course of the mail it should have reached San Francisco on' the evening of September 27, 1915, and been delivered to said Beaumont at his address in said city on the morning of the 28th of September, 1915. It was not, however, received by said Beaumont at his said address until the 29th of September, 1915. In the meantime the telegram had not been delivered to nor received by said Beaumont, for the reason that upon its transmission from the defendant’s Fort Bragg office to its San Francisco office and its receipt at the latter on said twenty-sixth day of September, 1915, at about 10:40 o’clock A. M. of said day, it was by a mistake of the said defendant’s agents at the latter place delivered to