Common Carrier
A New Law Dictionary and Glossary · Alexander M. Burrill · 1850
A New Law Dictionary and Glossary
A person who carries the goods of others for hire. One who undertakes for hire, to carry for any who choose to employ him.
1 Smith's Leading Cases (Am. ed.) 104. 4 N. Hamp. R. 304. 1 Pick. R. 50.
Common carriers are of two kinds; by land, as owners of stages, stage wagons, rail-road cars, teamsters, cartmen, draymen and porters; and by water, as owners of ships, steam-boats, barges, ferrymen, lightermen, and canal boatmen.
2 Kent's Com. 599, et seq. 1 Smith's L. Cas. ub. sup.
The term common, as applied to a carrier, would seem, ex vi termini, to imply the carrying to be a common or public employment, or one undertaken as a business, in contradistinction to carrying on a particular occasion, or for particular persons.
Story on Bailm. § 495. See 2 Kelly's (Geo.) R. 349.
The rule of law, however, seems to be settled, that any one who undertakes, though only pro hac vice, to carry for hire, without a special contract, assumes the character and thereby incurs the responsibility of a common carrier.
1 Smith's Lead. Cas. 104.
1 Watts' & Serg. R. 285, there cited. 2 Kent's Com. 597, and note.