ALTERNATIVE RATES. 141 



contract limiting their liability in consideration of the 

 lesser rate being paid. But a condition that a company is 

 not to be liable for loss beyond the limits of its own lines, 

 and that money received for the journey beyond its own 

 lines is received for the consigner's convenience is reason- 

 able, (a) A condition disallowing a claim of damages unless 

 made within a specified time, (6) or unless the value be truly 

 declared, (c) is reasonable. 



112. Alternative Rates. — \Yhen there is an option of 

 havinof animals carried at a hicfher rate, rendering the com- 

 pany liable, and the horse is carried at the lower rate, the 

 company will not be liable except for their own negligence 

 or fraud, but to contract against that is unreasonable. Lord 

 Wensleydale observed : " A carrier can't sa}-, ' I won't be 

 liable for any loss, unless you pay me a fixed sum to 

 indemnify against all.'"((?) But Avhere the sender knows of 

 a company having a certain rate for carrying horses in 

 horse-boxes by i^assenger train, and lower rate if carried in 

 waggons by goods train, and sent his horse by goods train, it 

 was held a reasonable condition that they should be carried en- 

 tirely at the owner's risk; and that such a condition would pro- 

 tect the railway if the horses were injured, but not from delay, (e) 



In another case of carriage of cattle there were alternative 

 rates, one the ordinary rate, where the company undertook 



(rt) Aldridrje V. G. W. Ry. Co., 1864, 33 L.J., C.P. 161 ; see also Wise v. G. TI'. 

 Ry. Co., 1856, 1 H. and N. 63. 



(b) Simons v. G. W. Ry. Co., 1856, 26 L.J., C.P., 25. 



(c) Leivisv. G. W. Ry. Co., 1860, 5 H. and N. 867. 



(d) Peel: v. N. S. Ry. Co., 1863, 10 H. of L. Ca. 473, 578 ; see also M. S. ,£• L. 

 Ry. Co. V. Broun, 1883, 8 App. Ca. 703. 



(e) Leiuis v. G. W. Ry. Co., 1377, 3 Q.B.D. 195 ; RoUmou v. G. W. Ry. Co., 

 1865, 35 L.J., C.P. 123 ; Harris v. Mid. Ry. Co., 1876, 25 W.R. 63. See also 

 Moore v. G. N. Ry. Co., 1882, 10 L.R., Ir. 95, where it was also held that a con- 

 dition exempting the company "in all cases from liability for injuries caused by 

 fear or restiveness of animals," did not embrace cases in which the injury imme- 

 diately flowed from these causes directly occasioned by negligence and want of 

 care on the part of the company, but applied to injury from these causes in 

 ordinary transit without negligence on the part of the company, and that it was 

 "reasonable " in this limited sense. 



