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114 A.D. 366

Polack v. O'Brien

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York · decided 1906-06-27

Appeal by the defendant, William J. O’Brien, from a judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the plaintiffs, entered in the office of the cleric of the county of Rensselaer on the 5th day of March, 1906, upon the decision of the court rendered after a trial before the court without a jury at the Rensselaer Trial Term. The plaintiffs are copartners dealing in bristle in the city of New York. Defendant is a brush manufacturer in the city of Troy.

Decided 1906-06-27

Smith, J. (concurring):

¶1I concur in the reversal of this judgment upon the ground that the defendant’s liability must rest upon negligence which lias not been proven. His contract to redeliver the goods was not absolute, but was to use reasonable diligence to safely redeliver. The evidence is not as complete as might be wished, though I think it sufficiently appears that Glum’s Express was a common carrier which was generally engaged and trusted fo'r the delivery of goods between Troy and Lansingburg. A delivery, therefore, to Clum’s Express should be deemed an act of reasonable diligence as a step in the redelivery to plaintiffs of their goods. It does not appear that this express was in any discredit or that there was any fact which would lead the defendant to distrust this agency. Recognizing that a failure to redeliver by bailee is prima facie evidence of negligence, I still think that upon all the evidence defendant has shown full execution of a bailee’s duty to exercise reasonable care to redeliver to the bailor.

¶2Judgment reversed on the law and facts, and a new trial granted, with costs to appellant to abide event.

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