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The principle was directly decided in accordance with the ancient law in the famous case of Southcote v. Bennet. /8/ This was detinue of goods delivered to the defendant to keep safely.
And it is not any plea in a detinue to say that he was robbed by one such; for he hath his remedy over by trespass, or appeal, to have them again." The above from Croke's report implies, what Lord Coke expressly says, that "to be kept, and to be kept safe, is all one," and both reports agree that the obligation was founded on the delivery alone.
The circuit and supreme courts of the several states, though the slave cases which they tried were for the most part concerned only with such dry questions as detinue, trover, bailment, leases, inheritance and reversions, in which the personal quality of the negroes was largely ignored, occasionally rendered decisions of vivid human interest even where matters of mere property were nominally involved.
If the chattel could be returned in specie, detinue afforded no satisfaction for damage which it might have suffered through the bailee's neglect. /1/ The natural remedy for such damage was the action on the case. But before this could be made entirely satisfactory, there were certain difficulties to be overcome.
It will be noticed, with reference to what follows, that Popham does not speak of common carriers, but of carriers. In this and the earlier instances of loss by theft, the action was detinue, counting, we may presume, simply on a delivery and wrongful detainer. But about this time important changes took place in the procedure usually adopted, which must be explained.
Detinue, the primitive remedy, retained that mark of primitive procedure.
As before, the breach of duty complained of might be such damage to property as had always been sued for in that form of action, or it might be a loss by theft for which detinue would formerly have been brought, and which fell on the bailee only by reason of the bailment.
I shall try to show that both these notions are wrong, that this strict responsibility is a fragmentary survival from the general law of bailment which I have just explained; the modifications which the old law has undergone were due in part to a confusion of ideas which came the displacement of detinue by the action on the case, in part to conceptions of public policy which were read into the precedents by Lord Holt, and in part to still later conceptions of policy which have been read into the reasonings of Lord Holt by later judges.
As was said at a much later date, "everything is a negligence in a carrier or hoyman that the law does not excuse." /1/ The allegation is simply the usual allegation of actions on the case, and seems to have extended itself from the earlier declarations for damage, when case supplanted detinue and the use of the former action became universal.
The language and decisions of the courts are perfectly clear; and there we find the German tradition kept alive for several centuries. I begin with the time of Edward II., about 1315. In detinue the plea was that the plaintiff delivered the defendant a chest locked with his key, that the chattels were in the chest, and that they were taken from the defendant together with his own goods by robbery.
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