Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/234/592/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 20:05:38+00:00

Document:
Attempts to inject federal questions into the record by filing amended pleadings after the case has been remanded by the appellate court come too late to lay the foundation for review by this Court, Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Kirchoff, 169 U. S. 103, except so far as the appellate court gives consideration to, and passes upon, such questions when the case again comes before it. Miedreich v. Lauenstein, 232 U. S. 236.
In this case, held that defendant had not been deprived of federal rights because the state court had refused to allow him to file an amended pleading and relitigate a question already decided by setting up alleged violations of federal rights.
The state has full authority over shipments purely intrastate, and an averment that a service required at one point as to intrastate shipments might be required at other points in regard to interstate shipments only avers an indirect effect upon interstate commerce, and a defendant carrier denied leave to file an amended pleading to that effect is not deprived of rights secured by the commerce clause of the federal Constitution.
process provision of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of a judgment of the state court for damages for refusal to transport coal between intrastate points, are stated in the opinion.
from fulfilling by the refusal of the railroad company. While the action was originally brought at law, it was transferred upon motion of the plaintiff in error to the equity docket. The decree of the circuit court dismissing the petition was reversed in the Court of Appeals for Kentucky, and the case was remanded for a new trial in conformity to the opinion of that court (143 Ky. 73). The case was again tried, and a decree for Higdon for damages was affirmed by the Court of Appeals (149 Ky. 321), and the case was brought here on writ of error. A motion to dismiss the writ for want of jurisdiction was, on December 16, 1912, postponed to the hearing upon the merits.
afterwards the railroad company informed him that it would not furnish cars at any price. This action was brought with the result which we have stated.
perform such service for four dollars per car or for any other sum, but that a rate of fifty cents a ton, which was the legal rate in effect for hauling coal from points near Henderson to that city and which was reasonable, would have been a reasonable charge for the service requested by Higdon, and that a smaller rate would not have been adequate compensation therefor, and concluded that to compel the railroad company to perform the service asked by Higdon at four dollars per car or for a rate less than fifty cents cents a ton would be to compel it to perform a service which, under the law, it was not its duty to perform, and at less than cost thereof, and for less than the service was worth, with the result of depriving the railroad company of its property without due process of law, and denying it the equal protection of the law, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
In its second amended answer, it set up, besides certain of the allegations in the first amended answer to the effect that it was not its duty to move freight between private spurs, that its facilities at Henderson for delivering and receiving freight were amply sufficient to accommodate the public, that it was engaged in interstate commerce, and that to require the defendant to perform the service asked by Higdon would impose upon it the duty of performing like services at other points on its line in Kentucky, and would impose upon it unreasonable, unjustifiable, and unwarrantable duties which it as a common carrier was not required to perform, and would be a direct and unreasonable and unwarrantable interference with its interstate business and its duties as a carrier of interstate commerce, and would impose an unreasonable burden upon interstate commerce, contrary to § 8 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States.
give effect to the judgment of the Court of Appeals by enforcing the rights of the parties upon the principles settled by it in its first decision, and that the attempt to inject federal questions into the record by amended pleadings after the case was remanded did not seasonably raise federal questions reviewable by the Court of Appeals, the case would be ruled by Union Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Kirchoff, 169 U. S. 103, in which this Court held that such attempts to raise federal questions came too late to lay the foundation for review here. See also Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Ry. Co. v. Adams, 180 U. S. 1; Bonner v. Gorman, 213 U. S. 86.
The Court of Appeals of Kentucky, in the opinion delivered in the second case, did affirm the principle of the binding character of its first decision, but as it gave consideration to the offered amended answers in their federal aspect, and ruled concerning them, we have concluded not to sustain the motion to dismiss, but to regard the federal questions as so far passed upon by the Court of Appeals as to present a case reviewable here. Miedreich v. Lauenstein, 232 U. S. 236, 232 U. S. 243.
by its own tariffs, interpreted by its conduct, as held in the first opinion of the Court of Appeals, had made that rate applicable to the shipments requested by Higdon, and that therefore the requirement of performing the service at four dollars per car was not imposed upon the plaintiff in error except because of its own tariff rate, which it might itself change at any time, but which, while it was in force, should affect all shippers alike, including Higdon. A reference to the former opinion of the court shows that the question whether the published tariffs of the railroad company applied to such service as Higdon required was elaborately considered, and it was held that it did so apply, and that, as the railroad company was performing that service for other shippers similarly situated, to avoid discrimination, which the Constitution and laws of Kentucky inhibited, it was required to give the same rate to Higdon. It therefore results that in the so-called denial of the federal right set up in the first amended answer the court in effect held that the facts upon which it was based had been concluded by the former decision, which was the law of the case, and to permit the railroad company to relitigate these facts because the result reached was alleged to violate constitutional provisions would permit it to relitigate that which the court held had been settled against it by the first decision of the Court of Appeals, in which no infraction of federal right was duly set up as required to lay the foundation for review.
second amended answer, that the requirement made at Henderson might be made at other points in the state, and would result in an unnecessary and unreasonable burden upon interstate commerce, only avers an indirect effect upon such commerce of the exercise of a right clearly within the authority of the state, and, being only of that indirect and consequential character, it does not deprive the railroad company of rights secured by the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States.
We conclude that the rulings made in the Court of Appeals of Kentucky concerning the first and second amended answers which were not permitted to be filed in the court of original jurisdiction did not deprive the railroad company of rights secured by the federal Constitution.

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