Taylor v. Western Union Telegraph Co.

This suit was instituted June 3, 1919, to recover the $300 statutory penalty provided by section 3330, Revised Statutes 1909 (now Sec. 10, 136, R. S. 1919), for failure to promptly deliver a telegram alleged to have been sent by plaintiff from St. Louis, Missouri, to Keytesville, 'Missouri, on the 6th day of April, 1919.

The answer was a general denial, and it further set up as a defense that at the time the telegram was filed for transmission defendant was not in control and operation of its telegraph system, but that the same had been taken over, and was being operated, by the United States…