Court Opinion

ID: 9603976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:12:13.325941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:16.383106
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I am in complete agreement with the views expressed in my brother CHRISTENSON’S opinion relating to the merits of this case and with the result. However, I do not share the confidence expressed that the action may be main*21tained at the instance of a single shipper and deem it desirable to reserve an expression of my views upon that important question until such time as the point may be determinative.
On Plaintiffs’ Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment
Before LEWIS, Circuit Judge, and CHRISTENSON and CHILSON, District Judges.
PER CURIAM.
The plaintiffs have filed a timely motion to alter or amend the judgment contained in our memorandum decision herein (a) to grant judgment to the plaintiffs as prayed for in the complaint, setting aside and declaring null and void the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission dated March 17, 1960, in I.C.C. Docket Nos. 31484 and 32253, and (b) to require the defendants to hold intact moneys heretofore impounded under the order of this court in this action, dated May 11, 1960, until such time as the parties may have exhausted their remedies by appeal or until the time for taking an appeal shall have expired.
Memoranda in support of, and in resistence to, this motion have been filed by counsel for the respective parties; and on December 20, 1960, they stipulated in writing that the motion could be deemed submitted upon these memoranda and without oral argument.
On May 11, 1960, upon plaintiffs' application for a temporary injunction and its denial, but as a part of the order of denial, this Court said:
“It is further ordered, however, that the intervening railroads * * * shall keep separate the increased amounts of moneys received by them through the application of the increased freight rates involved herein pending the determination on the merits by the Court of the question of a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the Interstate Commerce Commission order allowing such increases, and shall impound said moneys in separate bank accounts of the respective railroads to be accounted for and held subject to the order of this Court pending final determination of all matters involved herein, including final decision of the United States Supreme Court in the event of an appeal, such funds thereafter to be distributed to such shippers as may be determined by this Court to be entitled thereto in the event final judgment be such as to vacate and annul the said order or any subsequent order of the Interstate Commerce Commission insofar as they increase intrastate freight rates within the State of Utah here involved, otherwise to be returned to said railroads.
“The Court hereby retains jurisdiction for the purpose of making any necessary orders with respect to refund to shippers or to direct that impounded moneys be returned to the railroads.”
The foregoing provision was based substantially upon the proposal of the railroads which they suggested as an alternative to the Court’s granting the temporary restraining order prayed for by the plaintiffs.
In our decision and judgment we said: “We conclude that the plaintiffs’ complaint should be, and it is hereby, dismissed. The defendant carriers are released from the protective order with respect to the impounding of revenue from the disputed increases * * * ”
This disposition was not intended to, and could not properly, alter the previous order which was based upon the railroad’s proposal, with respect to the moneys impounded up to the date of the Court’s judgment. To remove uncertainty in this respect, the last paragraph of the Court’s decision and judgment is amended to read as follows:
“We conclude that the plaintiffs’ complaint should be, and it is hereby, dismissed upon the following conditions. The defendant carriers are released from the protective order with respect to im*22pounding future revenues from disputed increases. The funds from such increases impounded pursuant to the order of the Court dated May 11, 1960, and received prior to November 23, 1960, the date of the filing of the judgment herein, shall continue to be held and impounded by said railroads in separate bank accounts and shall be accounted for and held subject to the order of this Court pending final determination of all matters involved herein including final decision of the United States Supreme Court in the event of an appeal, such funds thereafter to be distributed to such shippers as may be determined by this Court to be entitled thereto in the event final judgment be such as to vacate and annul the said order or any subsequent order of the Interstate Commerce Commission insofar as it increases the intrastate freight rates here involved within the State of Utah, otherwise to be returned to said railroads. Defendants are awarded their taxable costs herein.”
Except as above specifically provided, the Court’s decision and judgment as heretofore filed shall be and remain in full force and effect, and as so modified shall constitute the judgment of this Court.
Some question has arisen as to the power of this court to make the foregoing correction by reason of the filing by the plaintiffs of notice of appeal from our original judgment after the filing of the motion to alter and amend the judgment. It is generally considered that an appeal when properly perfected divests the trial court of jurisdiction of the case. But this principle has not been extended to preclude the correction of the record so that the proceedings as they actually occurred are properly set forth. 3 Am. Jur. Appeal and Error, § 530, p. 193; Rule 60(a) F.R.Civ.Proc., 28 U.S.C.; see Greenberg v. Arsenal Bldg. Corp., 2 Cir., 1944, 144 F.2d 292 (provision for interest thought to be implicit in judgment could be added after appeal), reversed on other grounds 324 U.S. 697, 65 S.Ct. 895, 89 L.Ed. 1296. In Hovey v. McDonald, 1883, 109 U.S. 150, 3 S.Ct. 136, 141, 27 L.Ed. 888, the Supreme Court said that a correction of the form of a decree after appeal by adding a direction to a receiver to pay over money in his hands which he had been restrained from paying over by an injunction during the pendency of the suit was not invalid, because that was a “thing of course”, in view of the record in the case. And about the same may be said of the foregoing amendment. If the present motion to amend the court’s order in respect to impounded funds is regarded as a motion under Rule 60(a), supra, as well it may be, our action would come within its express provision that such amendment can be made, notwithstanding the pendency of an appeal, at any time prior to the docketing of the case on appeal. Since the record on appeal has not been certified, it is apparent that the case has not been docketed. See Supreme Court Rule 13, 28 U.S.C. Moreover, the continued protection to the plaintiffs, pending appeal, in accordance with the pre-existing direction of the court may be considered in the nature of a stay within the spirit of the Revised Rules of the Supreme Court, Rules 18 and 51, subd. 2 which encourage stay applications to be made in the first instance to the courts below. See Cumberland Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Louisiana Public Service Comm., 1922, 260 U.S. 212, 43 S.Ct. 75, 67 L.Ed. 217, where only one Judge signed the order, but the power of the lower court otherwise was not denied. The fact that the railroads themselves initially proposed this very continuing provision may be deemed a waiver of a supersedeas bond.
Finally, it seems doubtful that our judgment was appealable because of lack of finality in view of the present intervening motion. See Fed.R.Civ.Proc. 59(e), 73; see also 28 U.S.C. § 2284(5); cf. 28 U.S.C. § 1253.