Darnell v. Illinois Central Railroad Company
| Decision Date | 07 June 1912 |
| Docket Number | No. 887,887 |
| Citation | 56 L.Ed. 1072,32 S.Ct. 760,225 U.S. 243 |
| Parties | R. J. DARNELL (Incorporated), Plff. in Err., v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY and Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. William A. Percy and Allen Hughes for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. Charles N. Burch, Blewett Lee, and H. D. Minor for defendants in error.
Memorandum opinion by direction of the court.By Mr. Chief Justice white:
On motion to dismiss: Plaintiff in error, a Tennessee corporation, was the plaintiff below.One of the defendants is an Illinois and the other a Mississippi corporation.The action was commenced on June 24, 1911, to recover the excess over a reasonable rate exacted by the defendants from the plaintiff for the carriage of hard-wood lumber, such excess being alleged to be 2 cents per hundred pounds on more than thirty-five million pounds of such lumber shipped by plaintiff between January 20, 1905, and August 1, 1908.It was averred that the excess of the rate exacted over what would have been a reasonable rate to the extent claimed had been determined by the Interstate Commerce Commission in a proceeding before that body by shippers of hard-wood lumber other than the plaintiff, and that in consequence of the order of the Commission, made in the proceeding referred to, a reasonable rate had been made effective by the defendants on August 1, 1908.A demurrer of both the defendants was sustained, for the reason that the declaration failed to allege that plaintiff had made application for reparation to the Interstate Commerce Commission, and that this right to reparation had been sustained by that body.The plaintiff declining to plead further, a judgment of dismissal was entered.Thereafter the court filed a certificate to the effect that the cause had been dismissed solely upon the ground of want of jurisdiction.This direct writ of error was then sued out.
The motion to dismiss must prevail.As stated in the certificate of the court below, the order of dismissal was 'based solely on the ground that the declaration . . . discloses the infraction of no right arising under or out of the Federal laws or Constitution, of which this court now has jurisdiction.'It is plain, from the record, that this was but the equivalent of saying that the declaration did not state a cause of action because of the failure to allege the existence of a supposed condition precedent to recovery in a court of law; viz., a finding by...
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