TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 567 



Mr. Coon : The facts as you bring them out now are entirely 

 different from what you stated before. Here is a case where the 

 carrier has notified you that he has set the car and asked you 

 to bring your stock there. That is a different proposition en- 

 tirely. The question as to where you have ordered your car and 

 3^ou get your cattle in there after they have notified you that they 

 are all ready, and then the car isn't there, that is an entirely dif- 

 ferent case, and I think you can go thru on such a thing as that. 

 You have your cattle in your yards, you drive them in the yards, 

 and when once you get there there is no car. In the last case it is 

 a disregard of furnishing cars on reasonable time on reasonable 

 request, and in the other case it is not involved at all. In the last 

 case you have brought out, they specifically say a car will be fur- 

 nished and you rely on that and bring in your cattle, and that is 

 a disregard of the duty devolving upon the railroad company to 

 furnish cars on reasonable request and within a reasonable time. 



Members: We will say that the load of cattle was held in the 

 yard two days after they had been accepted ; they stop in the 

 yards two days really, and then while the cattle are being put 

 into the car they break the fence and fall down thru the chute. 

 Now, which of them can I bring suit on? 



Mr. Coon : That is certainly a very complicated case. Your 

 first claim is your loss as a result of the failure of the railroad 

 company to furnish cars within a reasonable time, and you have 

 a loss as the result of shrinkage, you have got a loss in decline of 

 price, if you haven't a loss from dead animals. In the last case, if 

 you could show that the stock yards were not reasonably safe 

 and were in a dilapidated condition and as a result of that you 

 sustained a loss of some of your animals thru being crippled or 

 killed, then, as previously said, you have got a claim, but it is 

 only in a case where the railroads have not furnished stock yards 

 reasonably safe and adequate. That is what I said before. That 

 is what I meant to say when I brought out the matter of disease. 



Member : You will remember several years ago we had some 

 very severe snow blockades, and five of us came in after the roads 

 got open — I am not a regular stock shipper, I am a buyer — and 

 they required me to sign up a contract "subject to weather condi- 

 tions." That was written at the top of the contract. Five of us 

 had stock on the train, and we were delayed, and they paid the 

 other claims, but they didn't pay mine at all, and one of the ship- 

 pers said they had no right to put "subject to weather conditions" 

 on my contract when they didn't on the others. 



