Wilson v. Southern Pacific Railroad

Appeal from a judgment against the defendant in the Superior Court of the County of San Benito, and from an order denying a motion for new trial. Breen, J.

Action against the defendant as warehouseman for negligence. On the thirty-first day of October, 1875, the plaintiff owned and stored with the defendant, in its warehouse at Hollister, in the County of San Benito, sixty-four bales of wool, weighing in the aggregate twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-five pounds. On January 5, 1876, the warehouse was consumed by fire and all the wool was burned, except three bales saved uninjured, and about three hundred and seventy pounds in a damaged condition.

There was evidence showing or tending to show that the wool at the time it was burnt was worth thirteen cents a pound, and that the three hundred and seventy pounds after the fire were worth three or four cents a pound. The action was tried before a jury, in April, 1880, and the verdict was for the plaintiff in the sum of three thousand five hundred and eighty-nine dollars and seventy-one cents. As a part of the cause of action the complaint alleged that the defendant was a railroad corporation, duly incorporated, and at the several dates mentioned in the complaint owned and operated a railroad in the County of San Benito, which road ran through the town of Hollister. A motion was made by the defendant in the Court below to strike out all of these allegations, on the ground that they were irrelevant, immaterial, and redundant. The motion was denied, and the defendant presented and filed its bill of exceptions.

On the trial the Court below, on its own motion, after giving the instructions asked. , by defendant, gave with other instructions the following: “In this ease the principal question you will have to determine is this: Was the defendant or its servants guilty of culpable negligence in respect to the burning of the wool ? This question you will have to determine from the proofs and circumstances of this ease, measured, as they must be, by rules of law, as you have laid down to you.

“As an abstract principle it is somewhat difficult to locate exactly the point where due care ends and culpable negligence begins; but the line must be drawn somewhere.

“In some cases the law exacts the utmost diligence and care, while in others the rigor of the rule is relaxed, as, for instance, if a warehouseman received for safe keeping or storage a valuable package, known to contain diamonds, he would not be permitted to excuse himself for .their loss by showing that he had exercised the same degree of care or diligence in protecting them from loss, as he and ordinarily prudent and careful warehousemen were in the habit of bestowing on less valuable and heavier articles of merchandise, such as are generally committed to the care of warehousemen; so the locality and other surrounding circumstances are frequently important factors to be considered by a jury in actions of this kind. By way of illustration I will say that, at the present time, the law would exact from a warehouseman doing business in a populous city like San Francisco, a greater degree of care and circumspection than from one doing business in a rural town like Hollister; because, judging from the public acts and utterances of certain individuals, it would be reasonable to infer that there is a more disturbed and feverish social condition there than here, and, consequently, the danger to property from riotous acts would be more imminent in the city than in the country; and the person of ordinary care and prudence would be expected to govern himself accordingly, and increase his precautions against loss that might occur from the condition just referred to.