Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/137/48/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 10:13:10+00:00

Document:
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 137 › Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Southern Pacific Co.
A title, right, privilege or immunity under the Constitution, or any treaty or statute of the United States, is not properly set up or claimed under Rev.Stat. § 709 when suggested for the first time in a petition for rehearing after judgment.
The provisions of the Code of Practice of Louisiana in relation to judgments of the supreme court of that state do not require the application of any different rule.
instance of a decree similarly entered by a court of one state, due effect to the final judgment of such court is not refused to be given by a like determination by a court of another state.
The Texas and Pacific Railway Company, represented by its receiver, filed its petition against the Southern Pacific Company in the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans on the 11th of April, 1888. The receiver was subsequently discharged and afterwards died, and the cause was ordered to be proceeded with in the name of the railway company as sole plaintiff. By the petition, the company described itself as a corporation created by and under the laws of the United States, namely, certain enumerated acts of Congress. After stating that the plaintiff had offices in Texas and at New Orleans, and that its lines of railway extended or reached, by track-running arrangements or connections, from El Paso, Texas, to New Orleans, and to Galveston, Texas, the petition set up an agreement entered into on the 26th of November, 1881, by Huntington of New York, on behalf of himself and his associates, and certain railway corporations, with Gould of New York, on behalf of himself and his associates and certain railway corporations, a copy of which agreement was annexed, and further alleged that thereafter, on or about February 18, 1885, this agreement was amended by a modification, a copy of which was also annexed. The object of the contract as expressed may be briefly described as in substance the settlement of pending litigation in the courts of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, the release and relinquishment of certain disputed rights and franchises of plaintiff west of El Paso, and the construction of plaintiff's track to make a junction with the other railroads at a certain point east of El Paso. The petition further averred that the agreement and its modification had been duly adopted and ratified by the several corporations mentioned, and that it had been in all things complied with by the plaintiff as well as by the other parties of the second part.
"That in pursuance of said agreement, the same was duly made a decree of the court in the said litigation herein referred to, and in said courts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, as by duly certified copies of said decrees will appear and in the form shown by the copy hereto annexed as part hereof and marked Exhibit 'C,' which decrees conformed with and carried out said agreement."
Article VI of the agreement and the modification were then set forth, and related to the disposition of business and division of earnings between points in respect to which the lines of plaintiff and defendant were competing, as subsequently determined.
to be due up to March 31, 1887, and for a further sum of $200,000 and over from March 31, 1887, and a small additional claim for an excess of earnings in its favor in the operation of certain lines of railroad in New Mexico and Arizona, and for such additional claims as might be discovered and ascertained on trial.
"The aforesaid decree is made to carry out the provisions in this behalf of said agreement, dated November 26, 1881, which is hereby made a part of this decree, and by consent of the parties, and upon consideration by the court, is hereby ordered to be binding upon each and all of the parties hereto in all its stipulations and agreements as therein shown, and said decree does not affect or otherwise interfere with the provisions of the agreement."
To this petition the defendant filed peremptory exceptions to the effect that the contract sued upon being a railway pool between competing railroad companies to divide between them their earnings from competitive traffic was illegal for the reason that it was injurious to the public interest and contrary to public policy, and hence it could not be enforced by a court of justice; that the contract contravened a clause in the Constitution of Texas, in force at the time it was entered into, and that even if valid, the contract was terminated by the provisions of the Act of Congress approved February 4, 1887, entitled "An Act to Regulate Commerce," which went into effect the third of April, 1887, and was generally known as the Interstate Commerce Act.
The cause went to trial and testimony was taken on the exceptions, bearing upon the relative positions of the railroad companies that were parties to the pooling agreement and the injury to the public from the destruction of competition arising therefrom. The acts of incorporation of the defendant, and of the various companies, parties to the contract, and represented by Huntington, were introduced in evidence, and the plaintiff offered the acts of Congress and of the Texas referred to in the pleadings.
"In these exceptions submitted to the court for adjudication, and the court considering the prohibition contained in art. 10, sec. 5, of the Constitution of Texas, adopted in 1876, and for reasons orally assigned by the court, the law and evidence being in favor of plaintiff in exceptions, it is ordered that the peremptory exceptions filed herein on May 19, 1888, be maintained, and accordingly that plaintiff's suit be dismissed. Judgment rendered December 21, 1888, with costs."
The plaintiff filed its motion for a new trial, enumerating various grounds therefor, which motion was overruled and judgment signed, whereupon plaintiff carried the cause by appeal to the supreme court of the state and there assigned numerous errors. In none of the grounds for new trial or the errors assigned were the alleged federal questions hereafter referred to specially set up. The supreme court held that the pooling contract sued on was illegal and void upon general principles of law and public policy, and upon that ground affirmed the judgment of the court below. The court in its opinion expressly declared that it did not find it necessary to pass upon the defenses based upon the Constitution of Texas and the Interstate Commerce Act.
Plaintiff thereupon filed an application for a rehearing in which it claimed, among other things, that the court had denied plaintiff's rights under the decrees of the courts of New Mexico, Arizona and Texas; that the acts of Congress referred to in the petition conferred upon plaintiff the right to enter into the agreement, public policy to the contrary notwithstanding, and that, as the subject matter of the contract sued on related to interstate commerce and Congress had not forbidden such an agreement, "any attempt to apply state laws to annul such agreement is unlawful." The supreme court denied the rehearing, and an application was then made to the Chief Justice of Louisiana for a writ of error, which was refused, but the writ was subsequently allowed by one of the justices of this Court. The cause having been docketed, the defendant in error moved to dismiss or affirm.
The decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana was not against the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United States, nor in favor of the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, any state, drawn in question on the ground of repugnancy to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, and in order to maintain jurisdiction because of the denial by the state court of any title, right, privilege, or immunity claimed under the Constitution or any treaty or statute of the United States, it must appear on the record that such title, right, privilege, or immunity was "specially set up or claimed" at the proper time and in the proper way.
party may apply for a new hearing of the cause; but it does not follow that new grounds for decision will be allowed to be presented, or will be considered on such application, and the general rule is otherwise. La. Code of Practice, Arts. 538, 539, 547, 548, 911, 912; Rightor v. Phelps, 1 Rob. 330; Stark v. Burke, 9 La.Ann. 344; Caldwell v. Western Marine Ins. Co., 19 La. 48; Hanson v. City of Lafayette, 18 La. 309. And while the court is required to state the reasons of its judgments, it is not obliged to give reasons for refusing a new hearing. Code of Practice, Arts. 909, 914.
We are of opinion that in Louisiana, as elsewhere, a title, right, privilege, or immunity is not properly clamed under the act of Congress when suggested for the first time in a petition for a rehearing after judgment. The case of Stewart v. Kahn, 11 Wall. 493, cited for plaintiff in error, is not to the contrary. The petition referred to there seems to have been simply one for review on appeal, and not a petition filed after the case had been decided by the supreme court, and the record showed the decision of the federal question by both tribunals.
In the case at bar, it does not appear in direct terms or by necessary intendment that these points were brought to the attention of either of the courts prior to the entry of the judgment of affirmance.
If, therefore, the maintenance of this writ of error depended upon the questions thus raised, the motion to dismiss would be sustained; but it is insisted in addition that the state courts did not give due effect to the decrees of the courts of New Mexico and Arizona and of the State of Texas, and that a title or right claimed under an authority exercised under the United States, as well as under the Constitution of the United States, was thereby denied.
"A point which overshadows the discussion of all three of the exceptions is made by plaintiff's counsel, who contends that, the agreement between the parties having been sanctioned by a decree of the courts in which the litigation adjusted between the railroad companies was pending, it has now acquired the force and effect of the thing adjudged, and hence it cannot be attacked collaterally,"
and it proceeded to consider and dispose of that contention.
We shall overrule the motion to dismiss, but, there having been color for it, will pass upon the motion to affirm.
declared that they were made to carry out the provisions in this behalf, and did not affect or otherwise interfere with the provisions of the agreement.
It was concluded that the stipulations of Article VI had not the force and effect of the thing adjudged, and were lawfully liable to attack in the mode and manner adopted by the defendant. It was added that this conclusion was mainly predicated upon the view that the agreement in its entirety did not evidence a single and connected contract, but that the instrument was used as a means to facilitate the execution by two representatives of numerous obligors and distinct obligees of a series of varied and distinct contracts.
By this decision, was the validity or due effect of either of these decrees disallowed by the state court? We do not think so.
The decrees were entered by consent and in accordance with the agreement, the courts merely exercising an administrative function in recording what had been agreed to between the parties, and it was open to the Supreme Court of Louisiana to determine, upon general principles of law, that the validity of Article VI was not in controversy or passed upon in the causes in which the decree was rendered. In doing so, that court did not refuse to give due effect to the final judgment of a court of the United States or of another state.

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