NOTES OF RECENT CASES
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NOTES OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RECENT CASES COMPILED BY THE EDITORS OF THE NATIONAL REPORTER SYSTEM AND ANNOTATED BY SPECIALISTS IN THE SEVERAL SUBJECTS (Copies of the pamphlet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Publishing 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.)
BILLS AND NOTES. (Negligence.) Mass.— Costello v. Bardnard, 76 X. E. Rep. 599, contains a holding which while probably legally correct, jars somewhat on one's sense of justice. Defend ant in the case executed what purported to be a note of a town, unlawfully signing thereto the names of persons holding offices of selectmen and treasurer. Defendant, of course, knew that the note was false and executed it with a general fraudulent intent. Thereafter he negligently per mitted it to pass from his control without any rep resentation or misfeasance, and it is held that he was not liable upon the note to a person who took it for value, believing it to be genuine. CARRIERS. (Passengers — Misconduct of Ser vants.) Mass. — In Hayne v. Union Street Rail way Company, 76 Northeastern Reporter, 219, it is held that a carrier is absolutely liable for injuries to a passenger caused by the misconduct of its servants, while engaged in the performance of the contract of carriage, so that where the con ductor of one of defendant's cars threw a dead hen at motorman of the car on which plaintiff was riding, and missing the motorman, struck the window near where plaintiff was sitting, breaking the glass and injuring plaintiff, the company was liable. CARRIERS. ( Passenger Elevators.) R. I. — The growing volume of the law relative to the duties of owners of passenger elevators receives an addition in the case of Edwards v. Manufacturers! Building Co., 61 Atl. Rep. 446. It is there held largely on the authority of the decision of the New York Court of Appeals in Griffen v. Manice, 166 N. Y. 197, 59 N.E. 925, that a landlord who main tains an elevator in his private building for the use of tenants and their employees and customers is not a common carrier, nor bound to the same degree of care as that imposed on a7common carrier, but is bound only to exercise reasonable care for the safety of those who enter upon his premises and use the elevator. There are hold
ings to the contrary, as for instance, Marker v. Mitchell, 54 Fed. 637; Goodsell v. Taylor, 41 Minn. 207, 42 N.W. 873; Treadwell v. Whittier, 80 Cal. 574, 22 Pac. 266. These cases are cited by the court, but their doctrine is disproved on the ground that the owner of a passenger elevator is not like a common carrier, a servant of the public, but his duties are limited to persons who have contracted with him for the use of his premises, and those who have business with his tenants. In maintaining and operating an elevator for passengers, the owner is, according to the majority of the cases, under a duty to exercise the same measure of care as is required of a public carrier of passengers, viz., the highest degree of care which human foresight can suggest: Marker v. Mitchell, 54 Fed. 637, affirmed in 62 Fed. 139; Treadwell v. Taylor, 80 Calif. 574, 5 L.R.A. 498, 13 Am. St. Rep. 175 (full discussion); Goodsell v. Taylor, 41 Minn. 207, 4 L.R.A. 673, 16 Am. St. Rep. 700; Hartford Deposit Co. v. Sollitt, 172 Ill. 222, 50 N. E. 178, 64 Am. St. Rep. 35; Edwards v. Burke, 78 Pac. (Wash.) 610; Kentucky Hotel Co. v. Camp, 97 Ky. 424, 30 S. W. 1010; Southern, etc. Assn. v. Lawson, 97 Tenn. 367, 37 S. W. 86, 56 Am. St. Rep. 804 (monograph note); Wise v. Ackerman, 76 Md. 375 (great care and caution re quired); Lee v. Knapp, 55 Mo. App. 391 (reason able or ordinary care). In refusing to follow the general rule, the court, in the principal case, holds that the rule which requires a common carrier of passengers to exer cise the highest degree of care is imposed, not on account of the danger of the journey, but be cause of the relation to the public, and in as much as the owner of the elevator is not engaged in a public calling, there is no occasion for imposing the extraordinary liability. But the courts which lay down this rule do not regard the owner of the elevator as a common carrier for all purposes in the sense that he is engaged hi a public calling and obliged to serve all without discrimination. In the matter of exercising care his position is analo gous to that of the common carrier of passengers,
