First National Bank v. Bankers Dispatch Corporation

The opinion of the court was delivered by This is an action brought by a bank, as shipper, against a motor vehicle carrier to recover damages for loss of two packages of checks. The essential facts of the case were determined by the district court and will be considered as undisputed for purposes of this appeal. The plaintiff-appellant is the First National Bank of Girard, Kansas. We will refer to it in this opinion as plaintiff or the bank. The defendant-appellee, Bankers Dispatch Corporation, is an Illinois corporation doing business as both a common carrier and a contract carrier in the state of Kansas. We will refer to it as the defendant, the carrier, or Bankers Dispatch. Bankers Dispatch operates as a carrier under authority granted by both the Kansas Corporation Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission. In 1965 Bankers Dispatch began operations under its interstate commerce authority to serve the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Missouri, in the delivery of checks, commercial papers, documents, and other written instruments to its member banks, one of which is the First National Bank of Girard. Thereafter Bankers Dispatch entered into contracts with various member banks for the transportation of similar documents from the individual banks to the Federal Reserve Bank. In 1966 an oral agreement was entered into between First National Bank of Girard and Bankers Dispatch for the transportation of the bank's documents to the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City. There was no formal written contract between the parties entered into at this time. The evidence disclosed that the then executive vice president of Bankers Dispatch entered into an oral agreement with the president of the First National Bank of Girard to make overnight deliveries of its articles on the same terms and conditions as that of the contract entered into between Bankers Dispatch and the Federal Reserve Bank. The written contract between Bankers Dispatch and Federal Reserve Bank apparently provided for the transportation of documents by the carrier at the rate of eight cents (8¢) per ounce regardless of mileage and apparently provided that the liability of Bankers Dispatch as carrier for damages in case of lost documents was to be limited to the necessary reconstruction costs of any documents which were lost plus $50. The carrier was not to be liable for the loss of documents which could not be reconstructed. This contract was not offered or introduced into evidence at the trial.