Bowman v. Chicago Ry Co

• Decision Date: 07 December 1885
• Parties: BOWMAN and another v. CHICAGO & N. W. RY. CO. Filed
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

6 S.Ct. 192

115 U.S. 611

29 L.Ed. 502

BOWMAN and another v. CHICAGO & N. W. RY. CO.

Filed December 7, 1885.

Louis J. Blum, for plaintiff in error.

B. C. Cook and A. J. Baker, for defendant in error.

WAITE, C. J.

This suit was brought by George A. Bowman, a citizen of Nebraska, and Fred. W. Bowman, a citizen of Iowa, against the Chicago & North Western Railway Company, an Illinois corporation, doing business as a common carrier of goods for hire between Chicago, Illinois, and Council Bluffs, Iowa, to recover damages for a refusal of the company to receive and carry 1,000 kegs of beer from Chicago to Marshalltown, a city on the line of its road, in the state of Iowa. There are two counts in the declaration on the same cause of action, and in each it is stated that the damages sustained amount to $1,200. The suit was begun February 11, 1885, and the declaration was filed about that time. Pleas were filed by the company February 26, setting up as an excuse for not receiving and carrying the goods a statute of Iowa, which made it a penal offense for any railroad company to knowingly bring within that state any intoxicating liquors for a person who did not have a proper certificate authorizing him to sell such articles, and that the plaintiffs had no such certificate, and the beer which was offered for transportation was an intoxicating liquor within the meaning of the statute. On the eighth of May the plaintiffs demurred to these pleas, and the eleventh of the same month amended their declaration, by leave of the court, so as to increase the damages demanded to $10,000. The demurrer to the pleas was overruled on the same day, and on the twenty-third of June a written stipulation was filed in the cause, as follows: 'It is hereby stipulated and agreed by and between the respective parties hereto that, in making up the record of this cause to be transmitted to the supreme court of the United States, the clerk of this court shall only transmit or copy into the record the amended declaration showing the ad [quod] damnum to be $10,000, and the pleas of the defendant to said declaration, together with the demurrer thereto, and the ruling of the court thereon.' Afterwards, and on the thirteenth of July, judgment was entered in favor of the defendant. To reverse that judgment this writ of error was brought, and docketed here October 21. At a later day in the term the cause was submitted under rule 20 on printed briefs.

Upon the face of this record it is apparent the actual value of the matter in dispute is not sufficient to give us jurisdiction. It is now well settled that our jurisdiction in an action upon a money demand is governed by the value of the actual matter in dispute in this court, as shown by the whole record, and not by the damages claimed or the prayer for judgment alone. Lee v. Watson, 1 Wall. 337; Schacker v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 93 U. S. 241; Gray v. Blanchard, 97 U. S. 564; Tintsman v. National Bank, 100 U. S. 6; Banking Ass'n v. Insurance Ass'n, 102 U. S. 121; hilton v. Dickinson, 108 U. S. 174; S. C. 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 424; The Jessie Williamson, Jr., 108 U. S. 309; S. C. 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 669; Jenness v. Citizens' Nat. Bank of Rome, 110 U. S. 52; S. C. 3 Sup. Ct. Rep. 425; Webster v. Buffalo Ins. Co., 110 U. S. 388; S. C. 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 79; Bradstreet Co. v. Higgins, 112 U. S. 227; S. C. 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 117. As was said in Hilton v. Dickinson, 'it is undoubtedly true that until it is in some way shown by the record that the sum demanded is not the matter in dispute, that sum will govern in all questions of jurisdiction; but it is equally true that, when it is shown that the sum demanded is not the real matter in dispute, the sum shown, and not the sum demanded, will prevail.' Here the suit is to recover damages for not transporting from Chicago to Marshalltown 1,000 kegs of beer. There are no allegations of special damage or malicious conduct. In the original declaration the claim was for only $1,200, and it was not until the case was actually decided, or about to be decided, on its merits, that application was made for leave to increase the amount of the demand. Then it was manifestly done, not in the expectation of recovering more than was orig- inally claimed, but to give color to the jurisdiction of this court. At it stands, the case is not materially different in principle from that of Lee v. Watson, supra, where, after a demurrer was sustained, the demand for damages was increased, by leave of the court, so as to be in excess of our jurisdictional limit, although it was apparent from the whole record that in no event could there be a recovery except for a much less sum. Under these circumstances the court did not besitate to dismiss the cause, for the reason that it was clear the amendment was made for...