Court Opinion

ID: 9834503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:38:35.323721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:16.554480
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant has filed and presented a motion for rehearing, in which it makes the following complaint of a portion of the opinion heretofore filed in this case:
“Petitioner respectfully and earnestly submits to the court that it committed error in sustaining the ruling of the lower court on the special exceptions addressed to the paragraph of plaintiff’s original petition, alleging that under the accounting rules of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and by universal railroad custom and usage, liabilities and expenditures of the character in suit were chargeable to the expense of operation, and that each of said liabilities did in fact, under said rules and custom, constitute a part of the expense and cost of operating the trains used in the service contemplated and required by said agreement.
“The opinion of the court in sustaining the ruling of the court below on the exceptions addressed to this paragraph uses this language: ‘No custom or usage could be binding upon the appellees unless they had notice thereof, or *680such.custom or usage could be regarded as a matter of common knowledge, and the allegations of the petition contain neither of these averments.’
“We recognize the principle of law relied on by the court, and are fully aware that ordinarily knowledge of such custom and usages and rules would have to be alleged in order to bind the contracting parties thereby, but here the rules relied upon by plaintiff, and covered by this allegation, were a part of the law of the land, and, as such, knowledge of them would certainly be imputed to the defendant.” '
It seemá to us that this statement 6t appellant’s complaint answers itself. In so far as the rules of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which have the force and effect of public statutes, are applicable in this case, such rules are not required to be pleaded, and the holding in our former opinion, as above copied, was not intended as questioning the admissibility in evidence of these rules, and cannot be reasonably so construed.
The motion for rehearing is refused, though its evident purpose has been accomplished by obtaining the above statement of the effect and scope of our former holding.
Refused.