Coad v. The Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 05 October 1915
• Docket Number: 29739
• Citation: 154 N.W. 396,171 Iowa 747
• Parties: JAMES A. COAD, Appellant, v. THE CHICAGO, ST. PAUL, MINNEAPOLIS & OMAHA RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellee
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

154 N.W. 396

171 Iowa 747

JAMES A. COAD, Appellant, v. THE CHICAGO, ST. PAUL, MINNEAPOLIS & OMAHA RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellee

No. 29739

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

October 5, 1915

Appeal from Woodbury District Court.--HON. DAVID MOULD, Judge.

ACTION at law to recover an amount of overcharges which the plaintiff alleges was exacted by the defendant for transportation of freight. The trial court sustained a demurrer to the petition, and from that ruling and from the judgment entered against him for costs, the plaintiff appeals.

Reversed.

Alfred Pizey and D. H. Sullivan, for appellant.

James B. Sheehan and Sargent, Strong & Struble, for appellee.

WEAVER J. DEEMER, C. J., EVANS and PRESTON, JJ., concur.

OPINION

WEAVER, J.

The petition shows that the shipments upon which the charges for freight were made were of an interstate character. It is further alleged that the proper and allowable rates of transportation for such shipments had been and were fixed and provided for in a schedule established and published by the defendant and its connecting carriers and that the rate so scheduled was forty-two cents per hundred pounds; but defendant, disregarding the same, exacted from plaintiff the payment of charges for such service in excess of the scheduled rates to the amount of $ 81.07, for which a recovery is demanded. The objection raised by the demurrer to the petition is that it appears from the stated facts therein pleaded that the state court has no jurisdiction to entertain an action of this nature, and that, if plaintiff has any remedy in the premises, it is to be found alone in a proceeding before the Interstate Commerce Commission or in an action in the Federal Court.

The statute in question, commonly known as the Interstate Commerce Act of February 4, 1887, with later modifying amendments, provides, among other things, that the carrier must make and publish its schedule of rates, after which unless these rates are changed in the manner provided by law both carrier and shipper must adhere strictly thereto. By section 8 of the act, a violation of these provisions by the carrier renders it liable for damages thereby resulting to any person. Section 9 allows a person so injured to make complaint to the Interstate Commerce Commission, or, if the circumstances justify it, he may recover his damages by action in the district court of the United States. Under section 16, if the commission awards damages in favor of the complainant, he may sue therefor in any Federal or state court having jurisdiction of the parties. Section 22 is to the effect that nothing in the act shall in any way abridge or alter the remedies now existing at common law or by statute, but the provisions of this act are in addition to such remedies.

It has been held, and plaintiff concedes, that, if the claim made against the carrier under this law be one which involves inquiry into the reasonableness of the scheduled rates of freight upon an interstate shipment, the shipper's remedy in the first instance is by appeal or application to the Interstate Commerce Commission; but where the right asserted, if it exist at all, is one concerning which the commission has no discretion, the complainant is not required to invoke the action of the commission, but may take his case directly to the courts. Pennsylvania R. Co. v. International, 230 U.S. 184, 57 L.Ed. 1446, 33 S.Ct. 893.

In the cited case, the carrier was charged with granting rebates from its scheduled rates for the benefit of certain shippers. Objection was there raised that the matter was one for the Interstate Commerce Commission and that the court had no jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of the United States overruled the point, saying: "In view of the obligation of the company to charge, collect and retain the sum named in the tariff, there was no call for the exercise of the rate-regulating discretion of the administrative body to decide whether the carrier could make a difference between free and contract coal. . . . The rebate being unlawful, it was a matter where the court, without administrative ruling or reparation order, could apply the fixed law to the established fact that the carrier had charged all shippers the published or tariff rate and refunded a part to a particular class." For the same reason, plaintiff in this case was not required to apply to the commission to have the act of the defendant in exacting more than its scheduled rates declared unreasonable or wrongful. The fact of such overcharge being conceded or proved, its illegality is established as a matter of law, and the shipper's right to recover is not open to question. The commission has no power or authority to legalize or approve the exaction. Under such circumstances, the court having jurisdiction of the parties will not refuse to hear him simply because he did not first lay his complaint before the commission.

The sole question then is whether the right to a recovery upon such claim may be enforced in a state court. The case last cited was instituted and disposed of in the Federal courts and affords us no aid at this point. Of the general question of concurrent jurisdiction of civil cases in the state and Federal courts for the enforcement of rights and liabilities under the laws of the United States, it seems to be the settled general rule that concurrent jurisdiction exists "where it is not excluded by express provision or by incompatibility in its exercise arising from the nature of the particular case." See Bradley, J., in Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U.S. 130, 136 (23 L.Ed. 833, 838). In the argument leading up to this conclusion, the court, in the cited case, says: "Every citizen of a state is a subject of two distinct sovereignties, having concurrent jurisdiction in the state--concurrent as to place and persons, though distinct as to subject-matter. Legal or equitable rights, acquired under either system of laws, may be enforced in any court of either sovereignty competent to hear and determine such kind of rights and not restrained by its constitution in the exercise of such jurisdiction. Thus, a legal or equitable right acquired under state laws may be prosecuted in the state courts and also, if the parties reside in different states, in the Federal courts. So rights, whether legal or equitable, acquired under the laws of the United States, may be prosecuted in the United States courts or in the state courts competent to decide rights of the like character and class," subject, of course, to the right of the United States in the latter class of cases to make the jurisdiction of the Federal courts exclusive by proper declaration to that effect or by necessary implication. The Federal statute here being considered does not in express terms exclude the jurisdiction of the state courts; but, applying the familiar rule that where the statute creates a new right and in the same connection specifies a remedy for its protection or enforcement, such remedy is to be deemed exclusive, it has been held that the effect of section 9 of the Interstate Commerce Act, giving to the shipper who seeks to recover damages from a carrier for the violation of the statute the right to lay his complaint before the commission or to bring suit in the United States district court, is to negative the right to resort to a state court for the recovery of such damages. Van Patten v. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co., 74 F. 981; Darnell v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 190 F. 656; Mitchell v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 230 U.S. 247, 57 L.Ed. 1472, 33 S.Ct. 916; Texas & Pac. R. Co. v. Abilene, 204 U.S. 426, 51 L.Ed. 553, 27 S.Ct. 350.

Conceding the authority of these precedents, we have then to inquire whether the case before us is an action to recover damages for a violation of that statute within the meaning of the provision to which we have referred. If the controversy were one over the reasonableness of the scheduled...