NOTES OF RECENT CASES OF IMPORTANCE FROM THE NATIONAL REPORTER SYSTEM (Copies of the pamphlet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Publish ing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 25 cents each. In ordering, the title of the desired case should be given as well as the citation of volume and page of the Reporter in which it is printed.)
AUTOMOBILES DEFINED. (CARRIAGE OR MACHINE.) MASSACHUSETTS SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT. A recovery was sought in the case of Baker i>. City of Fall River, 72 Northeastern Reporter, 336, for injuries received upon the highway under the Massachusetts statute which provides that high ways shall be kept in a reasonably safe condition for travelers with horses, teams, and carriages. An excavation had been made in the street, and the plaintiff rifling in an automobile was thrown out and injured while attempting to pass this obstruc tion. The point was raised by the state that recovery could not be had for the reason that one driving an automobile was not in a carriage within the meaning of the statute, but that an automo bile must be considered as more like a machine. The trial judge dodged the direct issue by instruct ing that, while he did not feel at liberty to state that an automobile could not be considered as a car riage, still, in spite of the fact that the plaintiff was in one at the time, he was on the highway as a traveler, and if the other elements of liability were established, he would be entitled to recover. The upper court distinctly holds, however, that an automobile is plainly a vehicle which can carry passengers or inanimate matter, and so is such a carriage as the legislature had in view in the use of that word in the statute under consideration, citing as authority the case of Richardson v. Danvers, 176 Mass. 413, 57 N. E. 688. The court calls attention to the fact that it has been held in the case of Spring v. Williamstown (Mass.), 71 N. E. 949 (recently noted in this department), that a traveler riding upon a bicycle is not pre cluded from recoverv under the statute. CARRIERS. (STATUTORY DUTY. TO FURNISH CARS — INTERSTATE COMMERCE.) TEXAS COURT OP CIVIL APPEALS. In Houston & Texas Cent. R. Co v Mayes, 83 Southwestern Reporter 53, is discussed the in teresting claim that the Texas statute providing that railroad companies must supply freight cars upon request, under certain regulations was re pugnant to the interstate commerce clause of the federal constitution. The law referred to in brief provides that when a shipper of freight of any
kind shall make application in writing to any agent in charge of the transportation arrange ments of a railroad company to supply at a cer tain place a specified number of cars, it shall be the duty of the company to supply the same within six days, and that such requests for cars must be filled in the order in which the applica tions are made, providing that if less than ten cars are desired they must be furnished within three days, and that if'the application be for fifty cars or more, they must be provided within ten days. The applicant further must deposit with the agent of the company one-fourth of the freight charges Fines are provided for failure on the part of the railroad company to supply the cars within the prescribed time, and penalties are also prescribed for delays on the part of the shipper in loading the cars. The railroad com pany in the case under consideration contended that as the stock in question was to be shipped from a point in Texas to a point in Oklahoma, the statute could not be legally applied, owing to the fact that the commerce affected was interstate in its character, and that the power to regulate com merce between the several states was reserved to the federal government. In deciding that these laws are not a regulation of interstate commerce, the court cites at length from the decision of the Supreme Court of Texas in Railroad Co. v. Dwyer, 75 Tex. 572, 12 S. W. 1001, as follows: "The statute we have under consideration, like every other law which gives a remedy to the shipper against the carrier for a violation of his contract, does in some remote degree affect interstate com merce when applied to a contract of carriage from one state to another, but it imposes no tax. It neither fixes nor regulates rates. It makes nodiscrimination between commerce wholly within the state and that between the state and other states. It imposes no duty upon any carrier not already imposed by the common law. It applies to all railroad companies in the state and to all contracts of carriage alike, and merely provides a penalty for the purpose of enforcing a compliance with an obligation which already existed at com mon law. In this respect the statute is not dis tinguishable from any other law affording a rem edy for the breach of a contract of carriage of goods between two states." In the Dwyer case- '
