Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Hyer Bros.

Citations

• 22 Fla. 637

Syllabus

<p>1. When a telegram is delivered to an operator, employed by a telegraph company, for transmission and delivery to the person to whom it is addressed, and the consideration for said service is paid to and accepted by such operator, the law enjoins on such company prompt and skillful performance of their undertaking.</p> <p>2. If a telegraph company, to whom a telegram has been delivered, as above, fail to transmit or to deliver the same to the person to whom it is addressed, within a reasonable time, such company is responsible for such failure, to the person injured, whether he he /the sender or the person indioated in such telegram as the one to whom it was to he sent, for such damages as are proximate and reasonable and naturally result from such failure.</p> <p>3. It is no defence for said company, when sued for failure to transmit and deliver a telegram, as above, that the sender did not inform them or their operator of its importance, when they fail to show that if they or their oper-ator had received such information, it would in any respect have changed the method of its transmission, or the time in which it was to be sent, the agency employed, the price demanded therefor, or the degree of skill used in its transmission.</p> <p>4. Nor is it any defence of said company that such message is in cipher or words, the meaning of which the operator does not know ; provided, such message is plainly written and the words therein are in the letters of the English alphabet.</p> <p>5. The appellees, ship brokers, residing in Pensacola, having been engaged by a customer to charter a vessel to carry a cargo of lumber from Pensacola to the United Kingdom, sent a telegram to their correspondent in Barbadoes, making an offer for the charter of a vessel, the offer was accepted and a telegram sent appellees, which was received at the defendant company’s office in Pensacola the next day, but which was never delivered to appellees. Their correspondent in Barbadoes, as their ag