Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/150

 liO ���EOBINSON V. MEMPHIS & CHAriLESTON K. CO. 135 �least as mnch; and, at all events, the perBon who sigued the bill of lading trusted to that lionesty, if he was not particeps criminis, and • �1 do not see why one should lose more by the trust than the other. And in this connection it must be remembered that Cbiles was the pla,intiffs' regular customer. Iloffman v. l'he Bank, etc., 12 Wall. 181, at p. 190. Certainly, in my judgment, an extraordinary liabil- ity so beyond the scope of the, actual cqiitract of the carrier, and beyond the general business he is engaged \n, should not be imposed to siaTe a bank from the ihcoavenience of sendiug a^iaessenger a few squares in the same town, or yet to expedite by a''few days or mo- ments |he dealings between a ebtton factor and his eustomer, upon any iheory that it is in the interest of commerce, to do, this. A fac- tor must attend to the honesty of his customer, and so a bank ; and they should know that a common carrier is confined: to the business of carrying goods actually deliTered, hfts no liability till they are delivered, and that delivery and not the sighing ai the bill of lading is the' initial point of the contract and the liability. �. Mr. Justice Willes said, in a case, involying a fraudulent dealing with a bill of lading, that^- �"Argumenta foupded upon the notion, ;that the court is to pronounce a judg- ment in this case whi,ch will protect those who deal with f raudij^lent people ^e altogether beside the facts of this case and foreign from transactions of this nature. To attempt sueh a task ,would be idle; toaccomplish it, im- possible. We must apply our minds to the facts of the case before us, and see what is their true bearing, and wJiat is the proper conclusion we ought to arrive at in respect to the litigant parties, without considering what may hereafter happen to persons who omit to use diligence and consequently to have the misfortune to be overreached." �And this was emphasized, when the case went to the house of lords, by liord Chancellor Hatherley, in language I forbear to quote, only because it requires space to present it properly. Meyerstein v. Barber, �2 G. P. 38, 51; 8. C. 4 H. L. 317, 332. The holder of the first two parts of a bill of lading, who had made advances on it, sued, in that case, the holder of the third part, who had in good faith, relying on the bill of lading, purchased the goods, and recovered their value, not- •withstanding the argument just alluded to, which is the same sug- gested by the averments of the declaration and pressed in argument here. The principle established is that because others may deal fraudulently with billsof lading furnishes no ground for the court, in^ the supposed interest of commerce, to disregard the ordinary rules governing the contract of the parties in order to protect those who ��� �