Court Opinion

ID: 9444936
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:16:26.832219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:04.462725
License: Public Domain

HAND, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
My mind has not changed as to any of the three questions that we discussed before. Regardless of how I might have decided the question as res nova, I should have followed United Transportation & Lighterage Co. v. New York & Baltimore Transportation Line, 185 F. 386, because, except for special circumstances, I should follow any precedent of this court that had not only remained unchallenged for so long, but had been twice expressly followed. My only reason for not doing so in this instance was that in Krauss Bros. Lumber Co. v. Dimon S. S. Corp., 290 U.S. 117, 54 S.Ct. 105, 78 L.Ed. 216, the Supreme Court appears to me to have put its decision squarely upon the theory that it is a breach of the contract of carriage for a carrier to demand and receive more than the stipulated freight, even though the payment is not made a condition upon delivery. Naturally, it is not for me to pass upon the *79correctness of that interpretation of such a contract.
However, I differ with nay brothers in the change they are making in our decree. Strictly, we should not originally have “affirmed” the decree of the district court as we did, because it had been based upon the notion that the “arrangement” was a bar to the suit. Now that we have decided that the libel was filed too late, Judge Murphy never got jurisdiction over the claim at all; and our decision as to the effect of the arrangement is as little within our own jurisdiction as it was within his. Perhaps this was corrected by what was nevertheless an inconsistent statement: that the libel was to be “dismissed for lack of jurisdiction of the district court”; but, be that as it may, I do not agree that our decree should now be amended to determine what was the effect of the arrangement.