Case ID: us-ct-cl_63/html/0103-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Campbell, 0 hief Justice,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ST. LOUIS, BROWNSVILLE & MEXICO RAILWAY CO. v. THE UNITED STATES
    [No. C-711.
    Decided February 14, 1927]
    
      On the Proofs
    
    
      Res adjudicaia; distinct causes of action. — -Where plaintiff sues and is given judgment on several items of transportation included in a bill against the United States paid by a disbursing officer, other items in the said bill, representing other and distinct causes of action and requiring independent proof and relief, are not res adjudicaia, although they might have been considered with the items on which judgment was rendered.
    
      The Reporter's statement of the case:
    
      Mr. Lcnorence E. Cake for the plaintiff. Britton <& Gray were on the briefs.
    
      Mr. Louis R. Meldinger, with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General Herman J. Galloway, for the defendant. Mr. Perry W. Howard was on the brief.
    The court made special findings of fact, as follows:
    I. The plaintiff, a corporation, is a common carrier by railroad.
    II. Prior to January 1, 1917, the common carriers of the United States generally, including the plaintiff, severally agreed with the United States that they would accept for the transportation of Government troops and property the amounts that would be payable by the Government calculated by way of the cheapest route between the same terminal points as derived through deductions account land-grant distance, via a usually traveled route for military traffic, from a lawful rate filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission as applying from point of origin to destination via such route at time of movement.
    III. Prior to January 1, 1917, plaintiff, with other carriers, entered into an agreement with the Government on the subject of fares and allowances for the transportation of military passenger traffic, the same being known as the interterritorial military arrangement, dated December 28, 1916, effective January 1, 1917.
    IV. In January, 1917, the plaintiff and its connecting carriers transported for the United States on transportation requests 73502 and 73504, dated January 23, 1917, 832 soldiers from Mercedes, Texas, to Fort Snelling, Minnesota.
    Y. For the said service the plaintiff presented to a disbursing officer of the Army its bill No. 4028, in which it claimed $26,549.12 on the basis of a per capita fare of $31.91, computed in accordance with the said military arrangement.
    YI. The disbursing officer refused to pay the bill as rendered, and after eliminating two men traveling as livestock attendants reduced the per capita fare claimed on account of transportation requests 73502 and 73504 to $29.80, making a total charge for the 830 men of $24,734. Through a clerical error the disbursing officer paid the plaintiff $25,078.00, making a difference of $1,407.30. The amount was included in disbursing officer’s check #3542 dated November 23,1917.
    VII. Subsequently, on April 28, 1919, the accounting officers of the Treasury, in auditing the disbursing officer’s accounts, made a further disallowance of $2,070.40 by applying a net per capita fare of $27.72, constructed by combining two party fares and an individual fare contrary to the provisions of the military arrangement.
    VIII. This sum of $2,070.40 disallowed by the auditor was thereafter deducted from balances due the Railroad Administration during Federal control and was charged back by the Railroad Administration to the plaintiff. The plaintiff and the Railroad Administration had a final settlement, in which plaintiff accounted to the Railroad Administration for the amount of this deduction. The said bill rendered by plaintiff, No. 4028, covered a number of transportation requests and two of these requests were included in the claim in case A-94 filed in this court on April 26, 1921, and for which plaintiff had judgment. Two of the requests involved in this suit were not included in the former suit. Bequests involved in this suit are 73502 and 73504 for transportation from Mercedes, Texas, to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The other two requests mentioned in the former suit were for transportation from a different point in Texas to Fort Snelling.
    The court decided that plaintiff was entitled to recover, in part.
   Campbell, 0 hief Justice,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The claim here is for two items, one for $1,407.30 and the other for $2,070.40. The facts show that the transportation furnished by the plaintiff for which the claim of the first item is made was performed in January, 1917. The petition was filed June 6, 1923, more than six years after rendition of the service and the accrual of the plaintiff’s right of action. B. & O. Railroad Co. case, 52 C. Cls. 468.

As to the other item of $2,070.40, the defendant contends that this amount was included in the claim for which petition was filed in 1921. It is a fact that the same plaintiff filed its suit No. A-94 for which it had judgment in a large amount, and in its petition it claimed for two items in bill No. 4028. But these two items were different from those involved in this suit, being for transportation from a different point from that mentioned in this suit. No reason is assigned for leaving these two requests out of the former suit, but they were omitted and they furnish distinct causes of action. These items would be barred by the statute of limitations of six years but for the fact that the deduction here complained of was not made until 1919, when the accounting ofiicers in auditing the accounts of the disbursing officer made the deduction of $2,070.40 in addition to the earlier deduction. In such case the cause of action did not arise until the deduction was made in 1919.

The rule that a party is not at liberty to split up his demand and prosecute it by piecemeal does not require distinct causes of action — that is to say, distinct matters — each of which would authorize by itself independent relief, to be presented in the same suit though they may have existed at the same time and might have been considered together. The Haytian Republic, 154 U. S. 118, 125. The exhibit to plaintiff’s petition in case A-94 shows that the two items of the bill which were claimed were for transportation from a named point in Texas, while the two items in the instant case are from a different point, namely, Mercedes. The evidence necessary to prove one of these causes of action would not establish the other. We think the plaintiff is entitled to recover for this item, having made settlement with the Railroad Administration on account of the deduction. See St. Louis, Brownsville da Mexico By. Co. case, 270 U. S. 320.

As to the other item the petition should be dismissed. And it is so ordered.

Moss, Judge; Geaham, Judge; Hat, Judge; and Booth, Judge, concur.