landlord, therefore, sells under a distress, he should sell no Exch. of Pleas, more than the tenant could himself dispose of. ALDERSON, B.-The plaintiff complains that he has sustained damage by his landlord having sold his goods in an undue and improper manner. But it is clear that he could not himself have disposed of the goods on any other terms than those on which the landlord has sold them: how then can he complain of any damage? GURNEY, B., concurred. ROLFE, B.-I am of the same opinion. It seems to me that the statute which has been referred to, the 56 Geo. 3, c. 50, throws some light upon this point: for the 3rd section provides, that on an execution against the tenant, the sheriff may dispose of the produce of the land to any person who shall agree in writing to expend it on the land, according to the custom of the country, where no covenant or written agreement shall be shewn, otherwise according to such covenant or written agreement; and the 6th section enacts, that the landlord shall not distrain for rent on any such produce which shall have been severed from the soil, and sold subject to such agreement. Rule discharged. 1841. ABBEY v. PETCH. MUSCHAMP v. THE LANCASTER AND PRESTON JUNCTION CASE. The declaration stated, that, after the passing of a certain act of Parliament, intituled "An Act for May 28. A parcel was delivered, at Lancaster, to the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway Company, directed to a person at a place in Derbyshire. The person who brought it to the station offered to pay the carriage, but the book-keeper said it had better be paid by the person to whom it was directed, on the receipt of it. The Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway Company were known to be proprietors of the line only as far as Preston, where the railway unites with the North Union line, and that afterwards with another, and so on into Derbyshire. The parcel having been lost after it was forwarded from Preston:-Held, that the Lancaster and Preston Railway Company were liable for its loss 1841. Each. of Pleas, making and maintaining a Railway from the Town of Lancaster to the Town of Preston, in the County Palatine of MUSCHAMP Lancaster," the defendants were the proprietors of a certain LANCASTER railway, to wit, &c., and of certain engines and carriages บ. AND PRESTON JUNCTION RAILWAY Co. used thereon; and the plaintiff, on &c., caused to be offered and delivered to the defendants, to wit, as common carriers, and the defendants received as such carriers, a certain box, and divers goods and chattels contained therein, of the plaintiff, to be safely and securely carried and conveyed for the plaintiff by the defendants, from Lancaster aforesaid, upon the said railway, and upon other railways, and to be caused by the defendants to be left at a certain other place, to wit, at a certain place called the Wheatsheaf, Bartlow, near Bakewell, Derbyshire, for the plaintiff, for certain reward to be therefore paid by the plaintiff to the defendants: yet the defendants, contriving, &c., did not nor would convey the said box, &c., upon their said railway, or upon other railways, or cause the same to be left at the said Wheatsheaf, &c., for the plaintiff; but through the negligence, carelessness, &c., of the defendants, the said box, goods, and chattcls were wholly lost to the plaintiff. Pleas, first, not guilty; secondly, that the plaintiff did not cause to be delivered to the defendants, nor did the defendants accept and receive, the said box, &c., for the purpose and in the manner and form as the plaintiff hath in his said declaration alleged:-on which issues were joined. At the trial before Rolfe, B., at the last assizes at Liverpool, the following facts appeared in evidence:-The defendants are the proprietors of the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway, and carry on business on their line between Lancaster and Preston, as common carriers. Preston the line joins the North Union Railway, which afterwards unites with the Liverpool and Manchester Railway at Parkside, and that with the Grand Junction Rail At 1841. MUSCHAMP บ. LANCASTER AND PRESTON JUNCTION RAILWAY Co. way. The plaintiff, a stonemason living at Lancaster, had Exch. of Pleas, gone into Derbyshire in search of work, leaving his box of tools to be sent after him. His mother accordingly took the box to the railway station at Lancaster, directed to the plaintiff, "to be left at the Wheatsheaf, Bartlow, near Bakewell, Derbyshire," (a place about eight miles wide of the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway), and requested the clerk at the station to book it. In answer to her inquiries, he told her that the box would go in two or three days; and on her asking whether it would go sooner if the carriage were paid in advance, he inquired whether any one was going with it; on her answering in the negative, and that the person for whom it was intended would be ready at the other end to receive it, he said the carriage had better be paid for by that person on the receipt of it. It appeared that the box arrived safely at Preston, but was lost after it was dispatched from thence by the North Union Railway. Upon these facts, the learned Judge stated to the jury, in summing up, that where a common carrier takes into his care a parcel directed to a particular place, and does not by positive agreement limit his responsibility to a part only of the distance, that is primâ facie evidence of an undertaking on his part to carry the parcel to the place to which it is directed: and that the same rule applied, although that place were beyond the limits within which he in general professed to carry on his trade of a carrier. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, damages 167. 1s. In Easter term, Cresswell obtained a rule nisi for a new trial, on the ground of misdirection. Martin now shewed cause, and contended that there was no misdirection; that there was abundant evidence for the jury of an undertaking by the defendants, through their agent, to carry the box and its contents to the place of its ultimate destination; that if the carriage had been paid in 1841. Exch. of Pleas, advance, according to the offer made by the plaintiff's mother, the sum demanded would clearly have been the MUSCHAMP carriage for the whole distance; and that to suppose as LANCASTER many different contracts as there were carriers on a continuous line of railway, would be against all principle and convenience.-The Court then called on v. AND PRESTON JUNCTION RAILWAY Co. Cresswell, Baines, and Burrell, in support of the rule.— This is not the case of a conveyance travelling throughout a continuous line, like a coach, for instance, which professes to run from London to York: in such a case parties are not bound to look out for the particular proprietors interested in the different parts of the line. But there it is held out to the public as one line: this is the case of a company known as the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway, and holding themselves out to the world as the proprietors of and carriers upon that distinct line of railway only. To hold them liable for the loss of a parcel beyond the limits of their own line would therefore be very unjust. Suppose the case of a known coach from London to Stamford, and a party delivers to the book-keeper a parcel directed to York, does that prove a contract to carry it to York? [Lord Abinger, C. B.-What would be the undertaking of the carrier in that case?] To carry to Stamford, and forward thence to York. Parties must be assumed to contract in reference to the known mode in which the carrier carries on his business. Suppose it had been alleged in this case that the defendants were common carriers from Lancaster to Derby, and that had been traversed; would evidence of the kind given on the part of the plaintiff have proved that they were? If the defendants are held liable in this case, it would follow, that a carrier who professed on his part to carry parcels one stage only from London, would be liable for the loss of a parcel at any place between London and the Land's End: or the owners of a steam-vessel plying between Liverpool and 1841. MUSCHAMP v. LANCASTER AND PRESTON JUNCTION RAILWAY Co. Belfast, by receiving a box directed to an inland town in Exch. of Pleas, Ireland, would be responsible for its safe delivery at that place. If it be so, the same principle must hold as to imputed negligence to persons, as to goods. Now, suppose a passenger booked at Lancaster for London, and injured on the North Union Railway: could the proprietors of the Lancaster and Preston line be held responsible? The true construction of the defendants' contract is, that they engage to carry the goods safely as far as Preston-i. e. as far as they hold themselves out, and are empowered by their act of Parliament to trade, as carriers-and then to put them in a course of carriage onward, by transferring them to another carrier, so as to give the owner, in the event of their loss, a right of action against the new bailees. Garside v. Trent and Mersey Navigation Company (a). [Lord Abinger, C. B. -The defendants refuse to receive the money for the carriage at the time: does not that shew that they treat the carriers forward as their agents, from whom they are to get their remuneration?] A contrary inference rather arisesthat they could not tell what the whole amount of the carriage would be, and therefore declined to receive it. If this be in law a contract to carry the whole distance, it must be so also, although the other party be fully cognizant of the terms on which the defendants carry on their business. [Lord Abinger, C. B.-Do you say the successive carriers are agents of the original customer?] Yes, if the successive companies be known to him. [Rolfe, B.-How is he to discover on which line the goods were lost?] In Upston v. Slark (b), the name of the defendant was over the door of a booking-house for coaches and waggons in Piccadilly, with the words, "Conveyances to all parts of the world," followed by a list of places, amongst which was Windsor: yet it was held, that proof of the booking at that office of a box directed to Windsor, which did not reach its destin |