Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

49 Barb. 283

Limburger v. Westcott

New York Supreme Court

Decided June 3, 1867

New York Supreme Court · decided 1867-06-03

The action was brought to recover of the defendants, as carriers, under the name of “Westcott’s Express,” the sum of $300 for the loss of the plaintiff’s baggage. The defendants set up as a defense, a special contract, limiting their liability to $100, in case of loss. On the trial before the referee, Eobert F. Westcott being duly sworn as a witness on the part of the defendants, testified: “I am superintendent of Westcott’s Express, and have been since 1861.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1867-06-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently March 1904

4 state decisions

2018671870188018901900decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Clerks, J.

¶1We have frequently decided, in conformity with the weight of authority, in this state, that a common carrier cannot limit his liability by a memorandum or note on the card or ticket which he delivers on the receipt of goods to be transported by him. Nothing more than this occurred in the present case ; and undoubtedly the referee was correct in deciding that the indorsement on the back of the card, delivered by the defendants to the servant of the plaintiff, did not amount in law to a special contract, which. alone could limit their liability. The referee adopted the correct rule as to the value of the property.

¶2The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.

Leonard, J.

¶3The plaintiff had no'knowledge of the condition which the defendants sought to embody in the contract. Of course, there was, then, no consent to the condition, on the part of the plaintiff, and no bargain between the parties, limiting the liability of the defendant.

¶4I concur in affirming the judgment.

¶5Judgment affirmed.

¶6Leonard and Clerke, Justices.]

/49/barb/283 · .json · Public domain