Case ID: wash_56/html/0069-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 8207.
    Department One.
    November 24, 1909.]
    Henry Sherman, Respondent, v. Eastern & Western Lumber Company, Appellant.
      
    
    Appeal — Decisions Reviewable — Amount in Controversy. An appeal in an action to recover $30 damages, as tbe value of a steer killed on an unfenced logging railroad, raising the question whether the defendant was a railroad, within the act of 1903, does not involve the “validity of a statute,” within Const., art. 4, § 4, limiting the jurisdiction of the supreme court to money demands exceeding $200.
    Appeal from a judgment of the superior court for Cowlitz county, McCredie, J., entered April 22, 1909, upon an agreed statement of facts, in an action in tort.
    Appeal dismissed.
    
      S. B. Linthicum, H. E. McKen/ney, and Percy P. Brush, for appellant.
    
      B. L. Hubbell, for respondent.
    
      
       Reported in 105 Pac. 166.
    
   Per Curiam.

Respondent recovered judgment against appellant in the sum of $30, the stipulated value of a steer and a heifer, killed by one of appellant’s trains on its logging road in Cowlitz county. The theory of the appellant is that it is not a railroad, within the meaning of the act of 1903, requiring railroad companies to fence along the right of way, and attempts to raise that question on its appeal to- this court.

The constitution, art. 4, § 4, excepts appellate jurisdiction in this court in all civil actions for the recovery of money only, when the original amount in controversy does not exceed the sum of $200, “unless the action involves the legality of a tax, impost, assessment, toll, municipal fine, or the validity of a statute.” The, judgment demanded in the complaint was $30. The case falls clearly within the constitutional exception, and not being within any of the provisos, this court is without jurisdiction to hear the appeal, and the same is dismissed.