Bellamy v. St. Louis, I.M. & S. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 March 1915
• Docket Number: 4284.
• Parties: BELLAMY et al. v. ST. LOUIS, I.M. & S. RY. CO. [1]
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

220 F. 876

BELLAMY et al. v. ST. LOUIS, I.M. & S. RY. CO. ^[1]

No. 4284.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

March 8, 1915

Allyn Smith, of Cotter, Ark., and J. F. Loughborough, of Little Rock, Ark., for appellants.

J. M Moore, W. B. Smith, and J. Merrick Moore, all of Little Rock Ark., for appellee.

Before ADAMS and CARLAND, Circuit Judges, and AMIDON, District Judge.

AMIDON District Judge.

The present appeal presents a subordinate matter arising out of the Arkansas Rate Cases (C.C.) 187 F. 290, and 230 U.S. 553 33 Sup.Ct. 1030, 57 L.Ed. 1625. A schedule of freight and passenger rates was prescribed under the authority of that state. The St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company filed in the federal court its bill against the railroad commissioners and individual defendants as passengers and shippers, charging that the rates were confiscatory. a preliminary injunction was issued restraining the defendants and the public generally from instituting any proceeding against the carrier on account of its charging rates in excess of those fixed by law or the commissioners. For the protection of passengers and shippers, the order required the complainant to give a bond to the United States in the sum of $200,000 'conditioned that said complainant shall keep a correct account showing, as respects the carriage of passengers and freight, the difference between the tariff actually charged, and that which would have been charged had the rates inhibited hereby been applied, showing the particular carriage in question, and the stations between which the same occurred, and the name of the person affected, so far as may be practicable, which record shall be made and kept subject to the further order of this court, and further conditioned that if it shall eventually be decided that so much of this order as inhibits the enforcement of the existing rates should not have been made, that said complainant shall, within a reasonable time, to be fixed by the court, refund in every instance to the party entitled thereto the excess in charge over what would have been charged, had the inhibited rate been applied, together with lawful interest and damages. ' A bond thus conditioned was given. Subsequently an additional bond in the penal sum of $800,000 was required and given. At the final hearing of the cause, a perpetual injunction was granted, and further liability under the bonds was released. On appeal the Supreme Court reversed this decision, and directed that the bill be dismissed without prejudice. The trial court, in entering judgment upon the mandate of the Supreme Court, not only entered a judgment in conformity with its provisions, but proceeded in the same decree to enter judgment appointing a special master 'for the purpose of determining the damages sustained by the defendants by reason of the granting of the temporary and permanent injunctions.'

Before the making of this order the defendant Metcalf had instituted a suit in the state chancery court to recover $6,000 excessive freight charges exacted of him by the railway company while the primary suit was pending. This action was based, not on the bond, but on the statutory liability arising out of the exaction of the excessive rates.

Soon after the trial court made its order appointing the master the railway company filed a supplemental bill, setting forth that a large number of claims existed against it by reason of the excessive rates collected during the pendency of the litigation; that many actions were threatened in the state courts for the enforcement of these claims; that conflicting...