CARRIER - Usually means Steamship
Company, but can also refer to trucking company, airline,
or railroad as transporter of cargo.
There are two kinds of carriers, namely, common carriers
and private carriers. These latter are persons who,
although they do not undertake to transport the goods
of such as choose to employ them, yet agree to carry
the goods of some particular person for hire, from
one place to another.
In such case the carrier incurs no responsibility
beyond that of any other ordinary bailee for hire,
that is to say, the responsibility of ordinary diligence.
But in Gordon v. Hutchinson it was holden that a Wagoner
Who carries goods for hire, contracts,the responsibility
of a common carrier, whether transportation be his
principal and direct business, or only an occasional
and incidental employment.
To bring a person within the description of a common
carrier, he must exercise his business as a public
employment; he must undertake to carry goods for persons
generally; and he must hold himself out as ready to
engage in the transportation of goods for hire, as
a business; not as a casual occupation pro hac vice.
