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42.

POSTMASTERS

Nature of the Bailment. - The office of postmaster is classified as an exceptional bailment for the benefit of bailor and bailee, and as such the subject is here considered.

43. Definition. A postmaster is a public official who has the superintendence and general direction of a postoffice, attending to the receipt, forwarding, and delivery of letters and other matter passing through the mails.' Being a government officer, the postmaster is the subserver of the government, which carries the mails as the bailee of chattels.

The chattels, or things bailed, are letters, with or without money or valuables enclosed, papers, manuscripts, cards, and such articles of moderate weight which, under statute law, are permitted to be carried as mail matter. In all these instances, a bailment takes place, whose purpose is to transmit the thing and deliver it at the point of destination according to the bailor's directions. The bailor in these cases is any representative of the public, any person who deposits, or posts, mailable matter to be transmitted; and the postage stamps indicate the bailment compensation."

44.

are:

Specific Duties. - A postmaster's specific duties To reside, and keep an office, in the district for which he is appointed; to receive and forward by mail, without delay, all letters, papers, and packets, as directed; to deliver, at all reasonable hours, all letters, papers, and packets, to the persons entitled thereto; to keep safely the public money without loaning, using, or exchanging it, or depositing it in an unauthorized bank; to make no disposition of postage stamps entrusted to him, except to sell them at their face value for cash to third persons, and to render

1 Bouv. Law Dict.

2 Schoul. Bailm. Sec. 267.

an account under oath, quarterly, to the government of his official transactions.'

For the faithful discharge of his duties, the postmaster is obligated to the government in a bond, and for every breach of duty, whether by negligence or not, the postmaster and the sureties on his official bond are liable to the government. Postmasters are not common carriers as to such things as may be sent through the mails. Their contracts are not with the individuals who derive the benefit from their services, and there is, therefore, no analogy between postmasters as agents and common carriers. Thus, the liability of a postmaster is one simply as the public servant of the government for breach of duty. Neither he nor his superior officer, the postmaster general, is responsible for loss occasioned by negligent transmissions through the mails. The rule is that, for negligence in the course of his usual public employment, a postmaster, while acting honestly and committing no wilful injury, is not personally liable to the sender of articles by mail; and the rule extends to the postmaster's duly appointed assistants and deputies.

The exceptional responsibility, which has been mentioned. as attaching to this sort of bailment, is nothing more than practical immunity from the consequences of careless transmission. The government as the sovereign power may not be sued without its consent; it is not subject to the process of courts as defendant, as individuals are; it cannot be made amenable, even in its own judicial tribunals, unless its consent to respond and subject itself to adjudication have been expressly declared." "The bailor who suffers from maladministration may have abstract right on his side, but the courts are shut to him, and consequently his legal injury is without the means of redress.'

3 Ibid., U. S. R. S., Secs. 3,829-3,864; 3 Story (U. S.) 646 (1845).

4 Hutch. Car., Sec. 81.

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64 Min. Inst. (2d Ed.), Pt. 1, p. 252.

7 Schoul. Bailm., Sec. 267.

5 Schoul. Bailm., Sec. 270, citing 1 Ld. Raym. (Eng.) 646 (1701); 110 Mass. 474 (1872).

THE LAW OF BAILMENTS

(PART 2)

CARRIERS

1. The contracts of carriers comprise a subject classified as technically belonging to the second class of bailments, those for the benefit of both parties, bailor and bailee, and, being of the exceptional class, are governed, as before stated, by rules somewhat different from ordinary bailments, although the general principles applicable to bailments apply, to some extent, to these contracts.

DEFINITIONS

2. A carrier is a person or company that undertakes to carry, or makes a business of carrying, persons or goods for hire; as a railroad company or a steamship line.' Carriers are either private, or public or common, carriers. Public, or common, carriers are either carriers of goods, or carriers of passengers.

A private carrier is one who, without being engaged in the business of carrying goods as a public employment, undertakes to deliver goods in a particular case, for price or reward.' Such a carrier incurs the responsibility of the exercise of ordinary diligence only; and he is liable for negligence."

A public, or common carrier (known ordinarily by the term common) is one who undertakes, or whose business or occupation it is, to carry from place to place the goods of

1 Stand. Dict.

25 Harr. (Del.) 238 (1856); Story Bailm., Sec. 495.

3 90 Mich. 125 (1892).

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all persons who choose to employ him. The definition includes carriers by land and water; and it includes, also, passengers, as well as freight, or goods."

A carrier of goods is a common carrier whose particular business or undertaking is the transportation of goods, wares, and merchandise from one place to another.

A carrier of passengers is one who undertakes to carry, from place to place, all persons who apply for passage.*

The term common carriers, in its broadest sense, includes carriers by land and water.' Carriers by land are railroad and street-railway companies," stage-coach and omnibus proprietors, express companies, truckmen, wagoners, teamsters, carmen, carters, and porters. Carriers by water include owners and masters of every kind of vessel or water craft who hold themselves out as carriers of freight of any kind for all who choose to employ them, no matter what may be the extent of their navigation."

A pipe-line company is a common carrier which is bound to receive and transport, for all persons alike, all oil entrusted to its care, and is not in any sense an agent for the person who commits the oil to its care."

CARRIERS OF GOODS

3. The term common carriers usually applies to carriers of goods, and is so used hereinafter wherever carriers of goods are intended to be designated.

NATURE OF THE BAILMENT

4. Common carriers undertake generally, and not as a casual occupation, and for all people indifferently, to convey goods and deliver them at a place appointed for hire as a business, and with or without a special agreement as to price."

42 Kelly (Ga.) 349 (1847).

5 Bouv. Law Dict.

64 Lans. (N. Y.) 198 (1870): 11 Allen

(Mass.) 304 (1865); Thomp. Car., p. 26 n, Sec. 1.

7 Bouv. Law Dict.

836 Neb. 890 (1893).

92 Kent's Comm. 598, 599.

10 172 Pa. 580 (1896).

112 Kent's Comm. 598.

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