Southern Pac Co v. United States

• Decision Date: 01 March 1926
• Docket Number: No. 805,805
• Citation: 270 U.S. 103,70 L.Ed. 489,46 S.Ct. 242
• Parties: SOUTHERN PAC. CO. v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

270 U.S. 103

46 S.Ct. 242

70 L.Ed. 489

SOUTHERN PAC. CO.

v UNITED STATES.

No. 805.

Submitted on Motion to Dismiss Appeal Feb. 1, 1926.

Decided March 1, 1926.

Messrs. William R. Harr and Charles H. Bates, both of Washington, D. C., for Southern Pac. Co.

Mr. W. D. Mitchell, Sol. Gen., of Washington, D. C., for the United States.

Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Southern Pacific Company filed a petition in the Court of Claims seeking to recover compensation for the transportation of impedimenta carried with troop trains of the United States. It asked for a judgment of $42,734.97. After a hearing on the evidence, the Court of Claims gave judgment for the company in the sum of $498.38. This judgment was entered May 11, 1925. On July 10, 1925, the plaintiff filed motion for a new trial, which on October 26, 1925, the court denied. On October 28, 1925, the company filed a petition for an appeal, which was allowed by the Court of Claims on November 2, 1925.

A motion is now made by the United States to dismiss the appeal on the ground that this court was deprived of jurisdiction to entertain appeals from the Court of Claims by the act entitled 'an act to amend the Judicial Code, and to further define the jurisdiction of the Circuit Courts of Appeals and of the Supreme Court, and for other purposes,' approved February 13, 1925 (chapter 229, 43 Stat. 936). Section 14 of that act provides:

'This act shall take effect three months after its approval; but it shall not affect cases then pending in the Supreme Court, nor shall it affect the right to a review, or the mode or time for exercising the same, as respects any judgment or decree entered prior to the date when it takes effect.'

The act took effect May 13, 1925. The judgment from which an appeal is sought was entered May 11, 1925, but the effect of that judgment as a final judgment was suspended by the motion for a new trial duly filed, within the rules of the court, on July 10, 1925. This motion was not finally denied until October 26, 1925, and not until then did the judgment become subject to review in this court. The general principle is well established by many decisions of this court, some of which are cited in Morse v. United States, 270 U. S. 151, 46 S. Ct. 241, 70 L. Ed. 518, just decided. That the operation of the Act of February 13, 1925, does not change the application of the principle appears clearly from the case of Andrews v. Virginian Railway, 39 S. Ct. 101, 248 U. S. 272, 63 L. Ed. 236. In that case, a suit for damages for wrongful death was heard in a state circuit court of Virginia, and a judgment rendered in favor of the defendant, June 16, 1916. A petition for writ of error to review the judgment was presented to the Court of Appeals and finally denied on November 13, 1916. On November 27, 1916, a petition was presented to the presiding judge of the state circuit court for the allowance of a writ of error from this court to review the judgment of that court of June 16, 1916, which was allowed, and the case was brought here. Between the time of the rendition of...