CHICAGO, M. & ST. P. RY. CO. v. City of Tacoma

The city of Tacoma recovered judgment against the railway company for damages done to a large transformer core which the city purchased for us.e in its municipal lighting plant. The complaint alleged that the city and the railway company made an oral contract, confirmed by requisition, whereby the railway company agreed for a valuable consideration to lift with its crane and crew the transformer core, which weighed about 34 tons, from aboard a car, and put it in the tank therefor on the ground or platform beside the ear at the substation of the city’s lighting plant at Tacoma; that the railway company picked np the transformer core with its crane to put it in 'tlm tank, and, while the core was suspended about 6 feet in the air over the end of the car, through negligence and carelessness in entering upon the performance of the contract with a defective crane, and through the negligence and carelessness of its agents in operating the crane and brakes. *587 permitted the eore to drop against the end of the ear and damaged the core. The railway company denied all damage.

The trial court found that the parties entered into the oral agreement as alleged; that defendant, through its…