Court Opinion

ID: 9636142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:17:52.303985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:42.614677
License: Public Domain

CHASE, Circuit Judge (dissenting).
Ordinarily damages may not be recovered unless they are pleaded. Pacific Coin Lock Co. v. Coin Controlling Lock Co, 9 Cir., 31 F.2d 38. The record here shows not only that no damages were pleaded but that none were claimed in the court below.
Nor does the appellant now claim damages of any kind. It apparently is seeking an award of costs primarily, if not wholly, because of their supposed punitive effect as is shown by the following sentence from its brief. “The small bill of costs to which the appellant is entitled as a matter of law would have deterred any further deliberate withholding of such books and would have stimulated any official indifference in such matters to prevent any repetition within the memory of the officials conscious that a watchful court would award costs in such cases.”
In the absence of any allegations, proof or demand lor damages, the district court correctly ruled that the cause of action was moot when it appeared that the books had been released to the plaintiff. The dismissal of the complaint was then without error. A court “will determine only actual matters in controversy essential to the decision of the particular case before it.” United States v. Alaska Steamship Co, 253 U.S. 113, 116, 40 S.Ct. 448, 449, 64 L.Ed. 808.
Having properly dismissed the complaint the court in its discretion denied costs to the defendant who was the prevailing party. Otherwise they would have been allowed as a matter of course. Rule 54(d), F.R.C.P. To this extent the appellant had the benefit of the only discretionary ruling as to costs that could have been made. Even had the appellant prevailed below no costs would have been allowed had reasonable cause for the seizure been shown. 28 U.S.C.A. § 818.
I would affirm the judgment.