Lloyd v. Haugh

Citations

• 223 Pa. 148
• 72 A. 516
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 495

Syllabus

<p>Common carriers — Warehouse and storage company — Moving household goods.</p> <p>1. Anyone who holds himself out to the public as ready to undertake for hire or reward the transportation of goods from place to place, and so invites the custom of the. public, is in the estimation of the law a common carrier.</p> <p>2. Where an incorporated company chartered to do a general warehouse and storage business holds itself out to the public by various methods of advertising as engaged in the general moving and hauling of household goods, it is a common carrier within the meaning of the law, and this is the case although it claims the right to select those whom it will serve, and its custom is to discriminate, accepting some and rejecting others, as it may choose.</p> <p>3. Where such a company is sued for the loss of goods the burden is on it, in seeking to escape liability, to show that the loss is to be referred to some one of the exceptions to the common-law rule. '</p> <p>4. Where a common carrier makes a contract with a husband for transportation of his own household effects without mention being made of his wife’s goods, and the carrier accepts the wife’s goods without distinguishing them from those of the husband, it is liable for the loss of the wife’s goods as well as those of the husband.</p> <p>5. The right of action against a common carrier for goods lost or damaged while in the carrier’s custody follows ownership of the goods, and anyone having a beneficial interest in them may maintain the action. If the action is in tort it should be brought by the owner of the goods, whether he be consignor, consignee or a third person. Anyone having a beneficial interest in the goods may maintain an action for damages thereto.</p> <p>6. It is a matter of no consequence at whose hands a common carrier may have received goods for transportation, and it does not concern him to know who is the real owner of the goods.</p> <p>7. In an action against a common carrier to recove