Atchison, T. & SF Ry. Co. v. Ross

• Decision Date: 06 February 1950
• Docket Number: No. 6082.,6082.
• Citation: 88 F. Supp. 451
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri
• Parties: ATCHISON, T. & S. F. RY. CO. v. ROSS et al.

88 F. Supp. 451

ATCHISON, T. & S. F. RY. CO. v. ROSS et al.

No. 6082.

United States District Court W. D. Missouri, W. D.

February 6, 1950.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Donald H. Sharp, Lathrop, Crane, Sawyer, Woodson & Righter, Kansas City, Mo., for plaintiff.

Robert E. Coleberd, Liberty, Mo., for defendants.

RIDGE, District Judge.

Plaintiff brings this declaratory judgment action alleging that it is threatened with a multiplicity of suits on identical claims, involving the same issues and same evidence, except in respect of the amount of damages claimed by the separate defendants. Defendants are farmers, owning land in Ray County, Missouri, located adjacent to plaintiff's railroad right-of-way. Defendants Ross and Dugan, owners of one such tract of land, have filed three separate actions against plaintiff in a court of the State of Missouri, claiming damages to crops by reason of surface and overflow water being held upon their land in the years 1945, 1946 and 1948, because of the construction and maintenance of a bridge and embankment constituting a part of plaintiff's right-of-way in violation of Section 5222, R.S.Mo.1939, Mo.R.S.A. The defendants Remley are the owners of an adjacent tract of land to that of Ross and Dugan, and have instituted three similar suits now pending in the same court, claiming damages for crops destroyed, because of surface, or overflow water being held upon their lands in the same years, of which the defendants Ross and Dugan complain.

The only pretense to vest jurisdiction in this Court, over the instant declaratory judgment action, is that of multiplicity of suits and hardship and expense incident to the defense of the same. Diversity of citizenship between the parties is here present. Only the accumulated sum involved in the multiple suits in question, is within the jurisdiction of this Court. Assuming, without laboring the point, that plaintiff may aggregate the claims for damages so made against it, and we, therefore, have jurisdiction, First State Bank v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 8 Cir., 63 F.2d 585, 90 A.L.R. 544, the question arises whether, in sound judicial discretion, this is a declaratory judgment action, over which this Court should assume jurisdiction, and make a declaration of rights as prayed. Under the Declaratory Judgments Act, 28 U.S. C.A. §§ 2201, 2202, the federal courts have a certain amount of discretion in that respect. Brillhart v. Excess Ins. Co. of America, 316 U.S. 491, 62 S.Ct. 1173, 86 L.Ed. 1620. In the exercise of the discretion thus entrusted to such courts, it should be exercised cautiously, and with due regard to the circumstances of each case. Generally, the courts refuse to grant declaratory judgments unless it appears that such a judgment will fulfill the purpose of the Declaratory Judgments Act by being of some practical help in ending a controversy or stabilizing disputed legal relations. 16 Am.Jur., p. 288. In considering whether the Court should, in sound judicial discretion, assume jurisdiction of such actions, a federal court may well consider whether another court in which proceedings are already pending could handle the matter more expeditiously and appropriately and whether the action so instituted in the federal court is nothing more than an attempt to bring into federal court a non-removable cause that should be determined by a state tribunal. Brillhart v. Excess Ins. Co. of America, supra; Meeker v. Baxter, 2 Cir., 83 F.2d 183; Maryland Casualty Co. v. Boyle Const. Co., 4 Cir., 123 F.2d 558; Connecticut Indemnity Co. v. Oliver, 8 Cir., 172 F.2d 68.

In the case at bar, the complaint reveals that the amount of crop damage claimed by defendants in each of the years involved is less than the requisite jurisdictional amount of this Court; and, that the damages claimed by defendants Ross and Dugan are wholly separate from those claimed by the defendants Remley. The gravamen of the declaratory relief plaintiff seeks is that it is not liable in damages to defendants, or any of them, for damages sustained by reason of surface and overflow water being accumulated and held on the defendants' lands in the years in question; first, because plaintiff has complied with the statutes of the State of Missouri, and particularly Section 5222, supra; second, that plaintiff's railroad embankment does not obstruct and retard the flow of surface water over said defendants' lands; and, third, because damages, if any, claimed by defendants were caused by circumstances not under plaintiff's control, but the result of acts committed by third persons, not parties to this, or the state court actions. Thus, this is an instance where one group of the defendants has three statutory causes of action pending against plaintiff in a state court of Missouri, arising from a single source, and another group has three like actions so pending. The statute of the State of Missouri under which said actions have been brought is penal in character. Chicago & A. R. Co. v. Tranbarger, 238 U.S. 67, 35 S.Ct. 678, 59 L.Ed. 204. The legislative purpose of such law is to require a railroad company, operating in the State of Missouri, to so construct and maintain its road and drain it as to prevent injury to adjoining land. Grant v. St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co., 149 Mo.App. 306, 130 S.W. 80. Trial of such action in the state court may be had before a jury and the amount of damages to be awarded is the value of the growing crops at the time of destruction, Brown v. Thompson, Mo. App., 108 S.W.2d 423, or the reasonable rental value of land withheld from crop production because of deprivation of use of the land flooded. Boggs v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co., 336 Mo. 528, 80 S.W. 2d 141.

From the allegations of the instant complaint, it is apparent that the factual issues to be adjudicated in the state court actions, and in this action, determinative of the question of damages claimed by defendants here, for crop damage, is the nature and character of the construction and maintenance of the bridge and embankment forming a part of plaintiff's right-of-way, and whether plaintiff has constructed sufficient lateral ditches alongside its railroad tracks and so maintains them as to carry off accumulating surface water as is required by the provisions of Section 5222, supra. Thus, it is seen that the matter to be adjudicated, in this, as well as said state court actions, determinative of plaintiff's claimed liability, is first one of "status", relating to the physical condition and character of construction of plaintiff's roadbed during the three years in question. It is that "status" and situation that plaintiff here seeks to have determined in this declaratory judgment action, and whether it has violated a statute of the State of Missouri, as a result thereof. (Yearly maintenance could be an issue in the state court actions, but that is not directly put in issue by the allegations of the instant complaint.) Such matters appearing on the face of the instant complaint, the query arises, will not the determination of the "status" or situation, here put in issue, by a trial in any one of the state court actions considered, be binding, under the doctrine of res judicata, as between the plaintiff and the particular defendants parties to such actions? If that be so, then, is there present in this instant action such a multiplicity of suits involved, as to which this Court should assume to take jurisdiction over?

In the application of the doctrine of res judicata, it is generally held that if the same facts or evidence relied on as a ground of recovery, are once put in issue between the same parties, or their privies, and are adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction, the determination of such issue is conclusive as to such parties in that, or any subsequent action between them, on which the same facts or evidence are again relied on as a ground of recovery. Southern Pacific R. Co. v. U. S., 168 U.S. 1, 48, 18 S.Ct. 18, 42 L.Ed. 355; Pick Mfg. Co. v. General Motors Corp., 7 Cir., 80 F.2d 639; B. Roth Tool Co. v. Champ Spring Co., 146 Mo.App. 1, 123 S.W. 513; State ex rel. Lane v. Corneli, 351 Mo. 1, 171 S.W.2d 687; Chamberlain v. Missouri-Arkansas Coach Lines,...