In an action against a carrier for breach of a contract to
furnish an interstate train, the defendant objected when the trial
opened that no rate for such trains had been filed with the
Intestate Commerce Commission and, while the trial was in progress,
offered an amendment
Page 244 U. S. 104
to the answer setting up this defense. Under the state practice,
the defense was not cognizable unless pleaded, and the amendment,
not having been suggested until months after the commencement of
the action while other defenses had been interposed, was rejected
by the state trial court as coming too late, and this ruling was
affirmed by the state supreme court as a proper exercise of the
trial court's discretion. It being evident that the decision merely
enforced the state practice with no purpose to evade the claim of
federal right,
held that a writ of error from this Court
must be dismissed.
In the trial of an action against a carrier upon a contract for
interstate transportation, the plaintiff may be entitled to the
presumption that the carrier filed such rates as were requisite to
sustain the contract, the pleadings being silent on the
subject.
Writ of error to review 38 Nev. 156 dismissed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the court:
This is an action for breach of a contract to furnish plaintiff
(defendant in error) a special train to carry him from Reno,
Nevada, to Doyle, California, where his son was ill, and to bring
the two back from that place. The plaintiff got a judgment, and the
only question before us is whether any rights of the defendant
under the Act to Regulate Commerce have been infringed. The ground
on which such an infraction is alleged is that the trial court,
after the trail had been going on for more than a day, refused to
allow the answer to be amended so as to set up that no tariff rate
for special trains had been filed by the defendant, and that
therefore the contract was illegal. The defendant had mentioned the
point at the beginning of the trial, but this was the first time
that it was presented
Page 244 U. S. 105
in proper form under the state practice, although some months
had elapsed since the beginning of the suit, and demurrers and
other defenses had been interposed without suggesting this one. The
supreme court of the state declined to overrule the discretionary
judgment of the court below. 38 Nev. 156.
Upon the question whether a claim of immunity under a statute of
the United States has been asserted in the proper manner under the
state system of pleading and practice,
"the decision of the state court is binding upon this Court when
it is clear, as it is in this case, that such decision is not
rendered in a spirit of evasion, for the purpose of defeating the
claim of federal right."
Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Mims, 242 U.
S. 532,
242 U. S. 535.
The most that could be said in this case was that the supreme court
was influenced in its judgment by the fact that the railroad, after
treating the plaintiff very badly, was trying to escape liability
by an afterthought upon a debatable point of law -- not at all by
the fact that the law involved was federal. The plaintiff had tried
the case relying upon the presumption which was sufficient as the
pleading stood.
Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Ry.
Co. v. Rankin, 241 U. S. 319. The
court reasonably might decline to put him to procuring other
evidence from a distance, on the last day of the trial, upon a new
issue presented after his evidence was in. We perceive no reason
why this Court should interfere with the practice of the state.
Writ of error dismissed.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE Clarke dissent.
