Courts’ instinct that carriage is a vital public function outran their stated rationales

Evidence

On the other hand, such a lawyer might have reflected that the instinct of courts was sounder than their articulated ratioialization. He might have perceived that in an economy which depended on exchange the function of transportation was more basic than the function, say, of furniture storage. He might have decided that the courts had been right in believing that the community expected from those who held themselves out as prepared to perform this vital function of carriage somthing more than a care ful effort to carry. He might have decided that, at least in the absence of special agreement to the contrary, the community expected the goods to get there, in good condition. He might have concluded that a rule of law which encouraged comn carriers to try to fulfill this expectation and which protected those who had entertained it when it was disappointed had a solid foundation in the realities of the existing economic and social structure. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 3599

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: when judicial ‘instinct’ outruns judicial ‘rationalization’ — how courts can reach right outcomes for wrong reasons, and what that says about doctrine-making.
• APHORISMS: The community expects goods to arrive, not merely careful efforts to carry them — institutions exist to protect reliance, not effort.
• XREF: connects to: Common carriers were held liable as insurers of goods, with only five excepting causes — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 3572