In re Engelhard & Sons Company, Petitioner. riginal
| Decision Date | 05 January 1914 |
| Docket Number | O,No. 12,12 |
| Citation | 58 L.Ed. 416,231 U.S. 646,34 S.Ct. 258 |
| Parties | IN RE ENGELHARD & SONS COMPANY, Petitioner. riginal |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Clayton B. Blakey and Huston Quin for petitioner.
Messrs. Alexander Pope Humphrey, William L. Granbery, and Hunt Chipley for respondent.
This petition was argued and submitted with No. 11, Original [231 U. S. 639, 58 L. ed. ——, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 255], and prays a mandamus issue commanding respondent to vacate the order made March 10, 1913, in the suit then and now pending, brought by the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company against the city of Louisville, in so far as it denied to petitioner the right to sue for all subscribers of the Telephone & Telegraph Company similarly situated with petitioner, who paid the Telephone & Telegraph Company, during the pendency of the injunction against a certain rate ordinance enacted by the city, sums in excess of the rates fixed in the ordinance, and commanding him to enter an order permitting petitioner to sue for and represent and act in behalf of such subscribers with respect to the restitution of the sums so collected.
If this cannot be done, then petitioner prays for a rule on said judge to show cause why a mandamus shall not issue to grant petitioner an appeal prayed for from the order of March 10, 1913, and refused by him.
The petition recites the proceedings in the district court substantially as they are recited in the petition in Re Louisville. It adds these details: That while the injunction was in force at least 8,000 of the subscribers of the Telephone Company paid for its service sums in excess of the amounts fixed by the ordinance; that the amounts paid by them ranged from $5 to $100, the majority of the payments being less than $20. The total amount so paid will exceed $100,000. None of the subscribers were parties to the litigation, and petitioner, on September 28, 1912, presented and asked to have filed a bill of intervention in the cause, and that it might be permitted to sue for and represent all of the subscribers who had so paid the Telephone Company. The petition was refused.
That on February 15, 1913, and after the new equity rules had been promulgated by this court, petitioner again moved for leave to file its bill of intervention and for leave to sue in behalf of all of such subscribers. The motion was denied.
A petition for an appeal was presented and denied on April 18, 1913.
That during the time the Telephone Company collected rates from its subscribers in excess of the new ordinance rates, some of the subscribers had business telephones on a direct line, and some on a party line; some had residence telephones on a direct line and others on a party line. All of the subscribers who paid the excess rates paid them under identically similar circumstances, and in the same situation with respect to their right to heve the Telephone Company restore the excess. The petitioner had a telephone on a party line and more than 3,000 of the subscribers of the company had the same kind of telephone.
That the effect of the order of the court is to deny the right of the subscribers to be represented in the cause upon the correctness of the master's report, which will be filed in the next thirty days, and their rights will be finally adjudicated without allowing them to appear or have their day in court. There are 8,000 subscribers thus situated who have no adequate remedy against the action of the court, but mandamus.
A copy of the complaint in intervention is attached to the petition. It sets out the facts as in the petition, but more in detail, with additions in an attempt to show a common interest in all of the subscribers to the right of petitioner to appear for itself and for them. It prays that petitioner be made a party to the cause for itself and the other subscribers; that the Telephone Company, upon the coming in of the master's report, pay into the court the sums collected in excess of the ordinance rates, with interest at 6 per cent to be distributed for the benefit of those concerned. The bill of intervention was permitted to be filed so far as to permit petitioner to assert its own claim, but so far as it prayed to be permitted to act or claim for any other but itself, its prayer was denied, with the privilege, however, to renew...
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...44 L.Ed. 782; Ex parte Leaf Tobacco Board of Trade, 1911, 222 U.S. 578, 581, 32 S.Ct. 833, 56 L.Ed. 323; In re Engelhard & Sons Co., 1914, 231 U.S. 646, 34 S.Ct. 258, 58 L.Ed. 416; City of New York v. Consolidated Gas Co., 1920, 253 U.S. 219, 40 S. Ct. 511, 64 L.Ed. 870; New York City v. Ne......
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...jurisdiction belonged to the United States and the state court could not properly oust that jurisdiction." In Re Engelhard, 231 U. S. 646, 651, 34 S. Ct. 258, 259 (58 L. Ed. 416) the court "It is the universal practice, sustained by authority, that the only mode of judicial relief against u......
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American Const. Fire Assur. Co. v. O'Malley, 34629.
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