Southern Pacific Co. v. Superior Court

On the third day of July, 1912, in the justice's court of the sixth judicial township of the county of Kern, the San Joaquin Valley Commercial Association filed a complaint against the petitioner herein, the Southern Pacific Company, a common carrier of persons and freight within the state of California and in the county of Kern. The action was on a claim assigned to the plaintiff by one R. Pile and was for the demanded sum of $12.99. It was alleged that on February 5, 1912, plaintiff's assignor caused to be shipped by defendant as such common carrier certain described packages of freight over the line of the defendant from the city of Oakland to the city of Bakersfield; that the defendant represented *Page 241 that the freight charge for the transportation of said freight between said last named places was the sum of $28.97 which sum was then and there collected for such transportation and paid; that plaintiff's assignor subsequently discovered that the true freight charge for the transportation was the sum of $15.98, and that defendant had obtained from him the sum of $12.99 over and above the legal charge therefor.

A demurrer to the complaint having been overruled and defendant having answered denying all of the allegations of the complaint, the issues were tried in the justice's court and judgment rendered in favor of the plaintiff for the amount of said demand. Thereafter an appeal to the superior court was duly taken upon all questions of law and of fact.

At the trial in the superior court the case was submitted upon evidence which principally consisted of a transcript (admitted by stipulation) of the evidence given at the trial in the justice's court, together with certain other documents, which documents, or the facts therein shown, are hereinafter mentioned as far as required for this decision.

The rate charged on the shipment in question was sixty-eight cents per hundred pounds. It was shown that between October 1, 1911, and February 15, 1912, covering the date of this transaction, the defendant had on file with the railroad commission of the state of California a fourth-class rate of sixty-eight cents per hundred pounds from Oakland to Bakersfield, and a fourth-class rate of 37 1/2 cents from Oakland, California, to Los Angeles, California. The merchandise in question belonged to the fourth class. Bakersfield is an intermediate point on the main line of defendant's railroad from Oakland to Los Angeles. It was admitted that the rate from Oakland to Los Angeles is a forced rate because of water competition from Oakland to Los Angeles.

Judgment was entered in the superior court against the defendant, which now by its application for a writ of review seeks to obtain an order declaring said judgment to be null and void, as in excess of the jurisdiction of the court. Although the amount involved is very small, we are informed that many hundreds of similar cases are pending, and this case has been presented elaborately, both by briefs and oral argument.