Timken Roller Bearing Co v. Pennsylvania Co Goodbody v. Same, s. 168

• Citation: 47 S.Ct. 550,71 L.Ed. 989,274 U.S. 181
• Decision Date: 18 April 1927
• Docket Number: Nos. 168,178,s. 168
• Parties: TIMKEN ROLLER BEARING CO. v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO. GOODBODY v. SAME
• Court: United States Supreme Court

274 U.S. 181

47 S.Ct. 550

71 L.Ed. 989

TIMKEN ROLLER BEARING CO.

v PENNSYLVANIA R. CO.

GOODBODY

v. SAME.

Nos. 168, 178.

Submitted on Motion to Transfer March 21, 1927.

Decided April 18, 1927.

Messrs. Rufus S. Day, Wm. L. Day, and Luther Day, all of Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiffs in error.

Messrs. Andrew Squire, Thomas M. Kirby, and Andrew P. Martin, all of Cleveland, Ohio, for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 182 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

These two cases are exactly alike, and the same disposition will be made of them. They were dismissed at this term for lack of jurisdiction, as follows:

'Dismissed for lack of jurisdiction in this court on the authority of Transportes Maritimos Do Estado v. Almeida, 265 U. S. 104, 105 (44 S. Ct. 449, 68 L. Ed. 932), and Oliver American Trading Company v. Government of the United States of Mexico, 264 U. S. 440, 442 (44 S. Ct. 390, 68 L. Ed. 778).'

This is a motion to set aside the dismissals and to substitute therefor orders transferring them to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

The Timken Roller Bearing Company is a corporation of Ohio, engaged in the business of making roller bearings and other steel products, with its principal place of business in Canton, Stark count, Ohio. The Pennsylvania Railroad is a corporation of Pennsylvania, and a common carrier engaged in Ohio, and carried freight for the Timken Company. The Timken Company sued the Pennsylvania Company, averring the following facts:

On April 10, 1920, the yard employees of the Pennsylvania Company struck. That company notified the Timken Company that it would be unable to switch freight cars for it from the Pennsylvania's interchange tracks to the customary delivery of the Timken plant at Canton, Ohio. The Pennsylvania Company then provided the Timken Company with a yard locomotive, and from April 13, 1920, to about September 30, 1920, the Timken Company, with the knowledge and consent, and at the request, of the Pennsylvania Company, did the switching service itself. The Pennsylvania Company made to the Timken Company its customary charges for such switching service at its regular freight rates, which the Timken Company paid. During that period the Timken Company switched 1,640 freight cars for the Pennsylvania Company, the reasonable value of which service was $6,534.61. This amount was included in the line haul freight charges paid by the Timken Company to the Pennsylvania Company. The Pennsylvania Company was thus unjustly enriched in the amount above stated, and the Pennsylvania Company owed to the Timken Company the reasonable value of the service as stated.

The suit of the Timken Company was brought in the common pleas court of Cuyahoga county, Ohio, and removed by the Pennsylvania Company on the ground of diverse citizenship to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. In that court the Pennsylvania Company filed a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, on the grounds:

(a) That the matters complained of in the plaintiff's petition essentially involved the making of a rate, as to which the District Court had no power.

(b) The subject affected the reasonableness of rates and the reasonableness of a practice in interstate commerce, which were administrative questions, confided primarily to the Interstate Commerce Commission, and there was no allegation in the plaintiff's petition that the Interstate Commerce Commission had prescribed any rule, rate, or practice which would regulate, control, or govern the rights or obligations of the plaintiff and defendant in the matter complained of.

(c) That to compensate the plaintiff for the expense of the switching service set forth in plaintiff's petition would be tantamount to giving him a rebate, contrary to law.

The motion to dismiss was sustained by the District Court on the ground that the question presented by the plaintiff's petition was an administrative and not a judicial question, and that exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine the matters complained of was vested in the Interstate Commerce Commission. The District Court therefore dismissed the petition solely for want of jurisdiction, and under the provisions of section 238 of the Judicial Code of the United States (Comp. St. § 1215) as it stood at the time, January 30, 1925:

'Appeals and writs of error may be taken from the District Courts, including the United States District Court for Hawaii, * * * direct to the Supreme Court in the following cases: In any case in which the jurisdiction of the court is in issue, in which case the question of jurisdiction alone shall be certified to the Supreme Court from the court below for decision, * * *'

-made the following certificate:

'This court of its final order dismissed the suit solely for want of jurisdiction.

'This certificate is made conformably to Judicial Code, § 238, and the opinion filed herein is made a part of the record and will be certified and sent up as a part of the proceedings, together with his certificate.'

Thereupon a writ of error from this court to the District Court was allowed by the District Judge.

When the case was argued here in open court, this court ordered the dismissal of the writ of error as above, for the reason that the question of jurisdiction passed on by the District Court in this case was not such a question as was covered by section 238. As interpreted by repeated decisions of the court, such a question is in issue only when the District Court's power to hear and determine the cause as defined and limited by the Constitution or statutes of the United States is in controversy, and where a District Court is vested with jurisdiction of a cause, as where diversity of citizenship exists, and the matter in controversy is of the requisite value, the question whether it has the power to afford the plaintiff a particular remedy does not present a jurisdictional issue. Smith v. Apple, 264 U. S. 274, 278, 44 S. Ct. 311, 68 L. Ed. 678; Oliver Trading Co. v. Mexico, 264 U. S. 440,...