Standard Oil Co. v. Davis

• Decision Date: 23 June 1925
• Docket Number: No. 17264.,17264.
• Parties: STANDARD OIL CO. (CALIFORNIA) v. DAVIS, Director General of Railroads, as Agent, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

6 F.2d 236 (1925)

STANDARD OIL CO. (CALIFORNIA) v. DAVIS, Director General of Railroads, as Agent, et al.

No. 17264.

District Court, N. D. California, S. D

June 23, 1925.

Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, of San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff.

James E. Lyons, of San Francisco, Cal., and Alex M. Bull, and F. W. Mielke, both of Washington, D. C., for certain defendants.

Frank Karr, of Los Angeles, Cal., for defendant Pacific Electric Ry. Co.

H. K. Landram, of Merced, Cal., for defendant Yosemite Valley R. Co.

PARTRIDGE, District Judge.

Plaintiff herein has filed its petition to enforce an award of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The award was made on December 10, 1923, but it directed that the payment should be on or before January 25, 1924. The petition was filed January 20, 1925. This award included a number of connecting carriers, all of which were made parties to the petition in this court. However, on January 16, 1924, one of these roads, the Yosemite Valley Railroad Company, filed an application with the Commission, setting up error and inadvertence in including them in the order. This application was granted, and on the 18th of April, 1925, the Commission made an order that the order of December 10, 1923, be "amended nunc pro tunc," by omitting therefrom these connecting carriers. The defendant in this case appeared and resisted that order, upon the ground that the Commission had lost jurisdiction. Subsequently, and on May 6, 1925, the plaintiff filed an amendment to its petition, setting up this supplemental order, and dismissing as to all defendants except the Director General. Demurrer to the petition is filed, setting up the statute of limitations. The position of defendant is that petition to enforce an award of the Interstate Commerce Commission must be filed within one year after the date of the order; plaintiff, on the other hand, contends that the year does not commence to run until the time when the money is to be paid. It is said in the briefs that there is no decision directly upon the question, and I know of none.

The original statute of 1887 (24 Stat. 384) provided that, if the Commission found that a shipper was entitled to reparation, it should direct repayment to be made "within a reasonable time to be specified by the Commission" (section 15). Section 16 (Comp. St. § 8584) gave the shipper the right to apply to the Circuit Court to enforce the payment. The act contained no period of limitation, but the Supreme Court held in Meeker v. Lehigh Valley R. R. Co., 236 U. S. 412, 35 S. Ct. 328, 59 L. Ed. 644, Ann. Cas. 1916B, 691, that the suit must be filed within the time limited by the statutes of the state in which the court was sitting. Under this statute, the Commission usually specified the number of days within which the order should be obeyed. Later, however, it developed the practice of naming a time "on or before" which payment should be made. It is perhaps worthy of note that this time was always spoken of by the Commission and the bar as the "effective date" of the order, and indeed this language has been adopted in the proceedings of all the public service and railroad commissions of the various states. However, the act has been amended to conform to the practice, and has added a period of limitation, so as to make the time of filing suit uniform in the various jurisdictions. Subdivision 1 of section 16 now provides that the Commission shall...