Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Co. v. Gring
| Citation | 159 F. 662 |
| Decision Date | 15 February 1908 |
| Docket Number | 746. |
| Parties | CHESAPEAKE & DELAWARE CANAL CO. v. GRING. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit) |
Andrew G. Gray (Bond, Robinson & Duffy, George L. Crawford, and Ward & Gray, on briefs), for Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Co.
Robert H. Smith, J. C. McLanahan, and Jacob France, for Charles Gring.
Before PRITCHARD, Circuit Judge, and BRAWLEY and PURNELL, District judges.
Charles Gring, a citizen of New Jersey, and the owner of certain tugboats and barges, engaged in the business of the transportation of lumber and other articles of merchandise between ports in the states of North Carolina, Virginia Maryland, and Pennsylvania, filed a bill of complaint against the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Company, a corporation chartered under the laws of the states of Maryland Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and the owner of a canal or waterway connecting the Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware Bay praying, among other things, for an injunction restraining the canal company from enforcing its regulation requiring that a barge when coming to the canal in tow of a tug owned by a person other than the owner of the barge be delivered to a tug of the Canal & Back Creek Towing Company, to be towed through the canal, also from collecting charges for towing barges through the locks of the canal, and from charging toll upon the tugboats going through the canal whether with or without barges in tow, and for an accounting for moneys paid by him on account of such alleged illegal exactions. The decree of the court below granted some of the relief prayed and refused others. The assignments of error in the appeal and cross-appeal bring before us the questions to be determined, each of which will be considered in order.
The first error assigned is in overruling the demurrer of the respondent to the bill of complaint, which raises the question of jurisdiction; the contention being that the amount involved is less than $2,000. The averment of the bill is that the losses and damage from the alleged unlawful acts of the defendant respondent far exceed the sum or value of $2,000, exclusive of interest and costs. The evidence shows that Gring is the owner of 11 barges and 2 tugboats, of the value of about $118,000, all of which were built by him especially for trading through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, and so constructed that, if they are not permitted the use of the canal, their value will be greatly lessened; that he does not intend to diminish his outfit, but intends to continue in the business if he is not driven out of the canal; that for three years, from June 16, 1902, to September 3, 1905, the towing charges paid by Gring or deducted from his towing bills for barges taken from him because said barges were not owned by him, and sent through the canal in tow of a tug of the Canal & Back Creek Towing Company, amounted to $3,814; that the amount of tolls paid by him on his tugs amounted on an average to something over $200 a year each during the three years, and that the amount paid by him for lock towage amounted to something over $200 per year. It is clear from the evidence that if the complainant had succeeded in obtaining the injunction prayed for, covering the three points enumerated, he would save about $1,600 a year, and that, if his prayer for an accounting for the moneys paid out had been granted in full, the amount paid out was something over $7,500. 'By matter in dispute,' says the Supreme Court in Smith v. Adams, 130 U.S. 175, 9 Sup.Ct. 569, 32 L.Ed. 895, ' In Smith v. Whitney, 116 U.S. 167, 6 Sup.Ct. 570, 29 L.Ed. 601, objection was taken to the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on the ground that the subject-matter of the suit was incapable of pecuniary estimation. That was a case where the amount of the salary of an office, the right to which was impeached, was considered as determining the value of the matter in dispute, and as the prosecution might end in a sentence of dismissal the amount of the salary during the residue of his term, which it was stated would exceed the sum of $5,000, was held to give the court jurisdiction. Mississippi & Missouri Railroad Company v. Ward, 2 Black, 492, 17 L.Ed. 311, was a bill filed by Ward against the railroad company to abate a nuisance caused by the erection of a bridge, and the court held that:
'Where a private party sues in such a case, he cannot be heard unless he shows that he has sustained and is still sustaining individual damage; but, when seeking redress of a continuing trespass and wrong against himself and others, want of a sufficient amount of damage having been sustained to give the federal courts jurisdiction will not defeat the remedy, as the removal of the obstruction is the matter of controversy and the value of the object must govern.'
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