Illinois Central Railroad v. Hays, 19 Ill. 166 (1857)

Dec. 1857 · Illinois Supreme Court

19 Ill. 166

The Illinois Central Railroad Company, Appellant, v. Brock Hays et al., Appellees.

APPEAL FROM CHAMPAIGN.

■Where the evidence justifies a verdict, a case will not be disturbed upon the facts alone.

This was an action of assumpsit brought by the appellees against the appellant in the court below, for damage done to hogs of appellees, by delay in the transit while being carried from Okaw to Chicago by appellant.

The evidence showed, that a few days prior to January 8th, 1856, an agent of appellant agreed with appellees to furnish cars to carry a lot of live fat hogs from Okaw to Chicago as soon as he could; that on said January 8th, plaintiffs found two open stock cars and nine box cars at Okaw; that with the assistance of a servant of defendant, they put 550 hogs, weighing 250 pounds gross, into said cars; said hogs were worth four and a half cents per pound, gross weight; said hogs were loaded in the afternoon, and by regular course of transit would be taken to Urbana early that night and leave there at five o’clock, A. M., on the 9th, and reach Chicago at four or five o’clock, P. M., same day; that six of the cars were taken part of the way the night of the 8th and left till the forenoon of the 9th, and the other five cars left Okaw on the forenoon of the 9th, and during said forenoon all were taken to Urbana, and remained there till the morning of the 11th, at five o’clock, when they started to Chicago, reaching there at four or five o’clock, P. M., same day; all the time the weather was excessively cold, and on the morning of the 8th, six hogs were dead in one of the cars and six or eight in another, and some, the exact number not proved, dead in some other cars ;■ when they reached Chicago, forty, it was proved by one witness, and twenty-four to forty by another, were dead, and the plaintiffs sold the dead bodies for eighty-six dollars.

Plaintiffs proved that in the three days that the hogs were on the cars, the living ones would lose about twenty-five pounds each, gross.

Defendant proved that they would lose two and a half pounds each per day, nett, and that want of water was the cause that prevented the hogs being taken to Urbana on the night of the 8th, but no notice of want of water or other cause was given to plaintiffs why the hogs were not taken to Chicago in regular course.

The jury found for plaintiffs, and assessed their damages at $860.25.

Defendant moved for a new trial, on the ground that the damages were excessive and not warranted by, but contrary to, the evidence.

Plaintiff remitted all but $600, when the motion was overruled and judgment rendered for $600 and costs; to which overruling and rendering judgment defendant excepted.

A. Lincoln and H. C. Whitney, for Appellant.

C. H. Constable, for Appellees.

Skinner, J.

This was an action of assumpsit brought by the plaintiffs below against the defendant for breach of a contract for the transportation of the plaintiffs’ hogs from Okaw to Chicago. The cause was tried by jury, who returned a verdict against the defendant for $860.25. The defendant moved to set aside the verdict as excessive. The plaintiff then remitted of the verdict $260.25, and the court overruled the motion and rendered judgment for $600. The only question in the case is, whether the evidence justified a verdict for the amount for which the judgment was rendered. The evidence clearly justified such verdict, and we do not regard it important, as it is a mere question of fact, to attempt, in this opinion, an analysis of the evidence before the jury.

Judgment affirmed.