Carrington v. The Pacific Mail Steamship Co.

By the Court,

Bennett, J. The plaintiff made a contract with the defendants to carry him from Hew Orleans, on their steamer, which was to leave that city for Chagres on the 15th day of December, 1849. He arrived at Hew Orleans on that day, and, apon ascertaining that the ticket which he had bargained for, was not a “ through ticket” to California, bat was only for his conveyance to Chagres, he desired to exchange it for a through ticket on the steamer which was to leave Hew Orleans on the 15th day of January. The agents of the defendants, Messrs. Paradise, Laurisson & Co., assented to this, but refused to release the plaintiff from his engagement to take passage by the steamer of December 15th, unless he would pay them ten dollars. The plaintiff accordingly paid the ten dollars.

The agents then informed the plaintiff, that on the 17th day of December, they would sell to the first applicants, forty through steerage tickets for the steamer which was to sail from Hew Orleans on the 15th day of January, and the plaintiff* then made a deposit with the agents of two hundred dollars in payment for one such ticket for that steamer. On the morning of the 17th day of December, the plaintiff applied at the office of the defendants for the ticket which he had thus paid for, and was the first applicant, but was informed that the tickets had not arrived from Hew York, and that he could not be furnished with one at that time. They accordingly gave him a receipt acknowledging the purchase of, and payment for, one such ticket.

On the 9th of January, the plaintiff presented his receipt at the office of the defendants, and demanded his ticket, when he was told by their agents that all the tickets had been given out; and that they could not furnish him with a through ticket on the steamer Oregon, which was to connect on the Pacific side with the steamer which was to leave Hew Orleans on the 15th of January, but that they could furnish him with a ticket by ⅛⅜ last named steamer for Chagres, and with a ticket from Pa-[477]ñama by the steamer Tennessee, which was the next in the line after the Oregon. The plaintiff urns obliged to accept of this last proposition. Tie arrived in Panama in time to take the steamer Oregon, and would have taken it, if the defendants had fulfilled their original contract with him, but, in consequence of their violation of their contract, he was detained in Panama from the 1st of February to the 24th of March, on which last day he sailed from there on the Tennessee, and, on his arrival at San Francisco, instituted this action to recover damages for the breach of the contract made with the defendants. It appeared on the trial, in addition to the facts above stated, that the plaintiff was taken sick at Panama, and was sick most of the time while he remained there, as well as during his voyage from there to San Francisco ; and that the defendants, on the passage from Panama to San Francisco, neglected to provide him with a berth, as they were required by their contract to do. The cause was tried before a jury, who found a verdict of $1000 in favor of the plaintiff.