## Facts

- William J. Healy deposited a handbag in the railroad’s parcel room at its Albany station and received a small duplicate coupon.
- The coupon’s face directed the holder to “See Conditions on back.”
- The back contained printed conditions, including a limitation stating the company would not be liable for loss or damage exceeding $10; the limiting language was in fine print except for the words “ten dollars.”
- Healy placed the coupon in his pocket without reading it, and no employee called his attention to any liability limitation.
- When Healy returned later that evening and presented the coupon, the parcel-room attendant discovered coupons had been mismatched and Healy’s handbag had been delivered to someone else by mistake.
- The handbag was never recovered; its value was proved as $70.10.
- The railroad conceded responsibility for the loss but asserted the coupon limited liability to $10.
- The relationship was a bailment for hire for safekeeping in a parcel room, not an incident of transportation.

## Issues

1. Whether a bailee for hire may enforce a $10 limitation-of-liability term printed on a parcel-room claim coupon when the bailor did not read the term and had no notice sufficient to imply assent.
2. Whether the claim coupon functioned as a contract incorporating substantive limitations, or primarily as an identification token for return of deposited property.

## Decision

- The Appellate Division affirmed judgment for Healy for $70.10 (plus costs), holding the printed $10 limitation was not binding under the circumstances.
- The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment with costs and issued no opinion.

## Legal Principles

- A limitation-of-liability clause on a claim check or similar receipt is not enforceable against a bailor absent actual notice or notice sufficient to imply assent.
- In a bailment for hire for safekeeping, the bailee cannot materially reduce its ordinary responsibility through an inconspicuous, uncommunicated term on an identification token.
- A clause purporting to bind a customer by “acceptance” of a coupon does not establish agreement where the customer neither knew of the term nor had attention directed to it.

## Conclusion

Because the plaintiff lacked notice and did not assent to the fine-print $10 limitation on the parcel-room coupon, the railroad remained liable as a bailee for the full proven value of the lost handbag, and the judgment for the full amount was affirmed on appeal.


Healy v. N.Y. Cent. & Hudson River R.R. Co., 210 N.Y. 646, 105 N.E. 1100 (1914)