LUMBER ON A CONSIGNEE’S SIDE-TRACK IS IN CUSTODY AND AT THE RISK OF THE CONSIGNEE.
Question—When does the railway’s liability end and the consignee’s begin on lumber delivered in cars on the consignee’s side-tracks; i. e., if a carload was burned in forty-eight hours after being placed for the consignee, would the loss fall on the transportation company or the consignee?
Reply: When a carload of merchandise is delivered upon the consignee’s own side-track and the consignee has notice, express or implied, of that fact, then all liability of the railroad company for the safety of the merchandise ceases at once. The goods are still in the company’s cars, but that is not sufficient to make the company liable, for the cars themselves are in the custody of the consignee and upon his premises. The goods have been delivered to the consignee, and that is the last of the duties the carrier undertook to perform. A railroad company cannot be expected, and in some cases would not be allowed, to place its watchmen in private freight yards and to extend over and through those yards its system of protection against fire. When cars containing goods have been delivered upon the consignee’s premises the goods themselves have been delivered there. The carrier is no longer liable, either as carrier or as warehouseman and the courts have so decided.
Opinion No. 48.