Carroll v. Chesapeake & O. Coal Agency Co.

124 F. 305, 61 C.C.A. 49, 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 4107
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedJuly 17, 1903
DocketNo. 486
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 124 F. 305 (Carroll v. Chesapeake & O. Coal Agency Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carroll v. Chesapeake & O. Coal Agency Co., 124 F. 305, 61 C.C.A. 49, 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 4107 (4th Cir. 1903).

Opinion

SIMONTON, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). The ground of objection to the jurisdiction of the court below as a court of the United States is that the coal companies defendants have interest in the subject-matter of the bill, which will properly align them with the complainant, and that, so aligning them, the said coal companies all being citizens of the state of West Virginia, there will appear a controversy on each side of which are citizens of the state of West Virginia. And for this these defendants rely upon Blacklock v. Small, 127 U. S. 96, 8 Sup. Ct. 1096, 32 L. Ed. 70, and cases there quoted. The principle of these cases is that, where there is a cause of action in a case, and in that cause of action one of the defendants has precisely the same character of interest as complainant, the case cannot proceed in a Circuit Court of the United States if such defendant is a citizen of the same state as any of the codefendants. These cases do not apply here. The cause of action which complainant has against the individual defendants is very different from that which the coal companies may have against them. The prayer for injunction is based upon the allegations in the bill that the complainant is exposed to irreparable injury. The facts to sustain these allegations are that, having contracted to sell all the product of the coal companies defendants, and to guaranty such sales, the complainant, relying upon these contracts, had entered into other contracts for the delivery of coal and coke, amounting to more than 2,000,000 tons of coal and many hundred thousand tons of coke, deliverable in the coal year, to very many parties controlling large interests; that, owing to the actions of the individual defendants, this coal and coke cannot be mined and delivered. Consequently complainant would be compelled to break all of its contracts, especially as it could nowhere else obtain coal of the character it had contracted to deliver. Thus not only would it incur heavy pecuniary loss immediately, but its business would be utterly destroyed in the future. That is the gravamen of the bill, and upon this must stand the prayer for injunction and relief. Now, with the contracts made by complainant with the consumers, the coal companies defendants have no concern whatever. Nor have they any concern with the pecuniary losses met by complainant on these contracts, nor with the time or mode of their fulfillment. When they deliver coal and coke to the complainant, the price is fixed, and its payment is secured at all events. It is true that, if the coal companies do not deliver coal, or are pre[310]*310vented from delivering coal, they suffer injury as well as the complainant. But it is an injury very different from that suffered by the complainant. The complainant suffers at once an irreparable great pecuniary loss by reason of the nonfulfillment of its contracts with the consumers. The coal companies suffer an interruption in their profits, a cessation of sales; but they have on hand their mines, from which coal has not been taken, and on the resumption of work they can recoup. It .is only a postponement of sales and of profit and income, not an absolute loss. And in this respect there is no community of interest between complainant and the defendant coal companies. If, therefore, the bill had been so framed as to embrace the complainant and the coal companies as co-complainants, the Coal Agency Company seeking its relief because of its loss on its contracts, and the coal companies because they were deprived temporarily from income, the bill could be well objected to as multifarious. Besides this, the cause of action of the coal companies against these individual defendants would be for an invasion of, and highhanded trespass on, their property, interference with their laborers, and inducing them to quit work; the cause of action being the direct result of the conduct of thé individual defendants. The cause of action of the complainant would be because of the indirect result of the action of the individual defendants — a case coming within that class of cases such as the case of Scott v. Shepherd, 2 W. Blackstone, 891, also reported in Smith’s Leading Cases, vol. 1, p. 737, and the other cases quoted and discussed by the judge below in his clear and learned opinion, a part of this record. The principle of these cases is that, if one does an unlawful act directed against another, and the immediate consequence of the unlawful act does injury to a third person, he is responsible to the third person, although he never had in contemplation any injury to him. Wherever' a man does an unlawful act, he is responsible for all the consequences. See Griggs v. Fleckenstein, 14 Minn. 81 (Gil. 62), 100 Am. Dec. 199; Tarlton v. McGawley, Peake’s Nisi Prius Report, p. 270, quoted in the opinion below.

It is true that in one respect the complainant and the coal companies have a common interest, and that is in the uninterrupted- operation of the mines; but, as we have seen, for wholly different reasons. The complainant has no share with them in the profits of their respective mines, nor have the coal companies any interest in the losses on the contracts of the complainant. The case- may be illustrated by a proceeding on the part of a mortgagee to foreclose his mortgage on land subject to the lien of another mortgage. To such a bill, if the senior mortgagor seeks to foreclose the prior mortgage, all the lienholders subsequent to him must be made parties (Bates on Federal Procedure, § 359), and they can be made parties defendant. The interest of the two mortgagees in one respect are the same— both want their money by foreclosure and sale. Yet such a bill filed in this court has been and can be sustained, even if the subsequent lienholders and the mortgagor, defendants to the bill, are citizens of the same state. See, also, Hotel Co. v. Wade, 97 U. S. 20, 24 L. Ed. 917.

[311]*311Besides this, the complainant is entitled to sell all the coal mined and coke made by these coal companies, and is interested in securing the largest quantity possible. It has a right to ask that the coal companies exhaust all means of securing a supoly of coal. To this end it prays that the coal companies be restrained from permitting the individual defendants and any other persons from assembling, marching, or doing any act on their own lands which will interrupt the production of coal. The prevention of these unlawful acts is not within the power of the complainant, and cannot be successfully effected without the co-operation of the coal companies, and such co-operation will be more readily and successfully exercised if it meet with the sanction and be given under the mandate of this court. Even were it the case that no relief was sought against the coal companies, and that they have an interest in the result, still, if the complainant has grounds for relief against the individual defendants — a ground peculiar to itself, a cause of action that it can sustain — then these coal companies are not necessary parties to the bill, and it may be dismissed as against them, the action in the meantime proceeding against the individual defendants. Wormley v. Wormley, 8 Wheat, p. 450, 5 L. Ed. 651; Removal Cases, 100 U. S., p. 469, 25 L. Ed. 593.

The other grounds of demurrer go to the jurisdiction of the court as a court of equity: (a) Upon its face the allegations of the bill show its want of equity, (b) The complainant is not the real party in interest; the coal companies are the real parties in interest, (c) Misjoinder of defendants.

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Bluebook (online)
124 F. 305, 61 C.C.A. 49, 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 4107, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carroll-v-chesapeake-o-coal-agency-co-ca4-1903.