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the requirement of section 16 of the act that "all complaints for the recovery of damages shall be filed with the Commission within two years from the time the cause of action accrues, and not after," and that "they (the overcharges) are, therefore, barred from our consideration."

The relator filed its petition for a writ of mandamus in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, which petition was denied, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District affirming this holding is here for review.

The lower courts arrived at their conclusion by holding that the Commission entertained jurisdiction over the portion of the relator's claim which was rejected; that in the exercise of that jurisdiction it held the claim to be barred and that this was an exercise of discretion committed by law to the Commission which is not subject to control by the writ of mandamus.

[1] We think the courts fell into error in thus interpreting the language used by the Commission in its report.

sion makes a yet more emphatic announce
ment of its views upon the subject, saying:
"In this report only such shipments will be
considered as moved within two years from the
time the complaint embracing them was filed,
and with respect to shipments moving prior to
such two-year period we think it proper to
state that, following the spirit as well as the
letter of the limitation clause contained in
section 16 of the act, we believe we are with-
out jurisdiction, and therefore we will not make
any finding whatever concerning such ship-
ments or the rates and charges assessed there-
on."

It is thus made very clear that the holding of the Commission was, not that, having Jurisdiction over the claim upon consideration thereof, is was found to be barred by a statute of limitation, but that the language of the two-year provision of the act was jurisdictional, and placed it so beyond its power that it could not be considered at all, and that, for this reason, the petition, to the extent it related to the overcharges paid on February 1, 1911, was dismissed.

[2] We agree with this conclusion of the Commission, that the two-year provision of As to the portion of the claim which we the act is not a mere statute of limitation, but are considering, the report of the Commis-is jurisdictional-is a limit set to the power sion is as follows: of the Commission as distinguished from a rule of law for the guidance of it in reaching its conclusion. Interstate Commerce

'All

"The only question left for determination is whether the claim is barred, in whole or in part, by the following limitation of the act: complaints for the recovery of damages shall be filed with the Commission within two years from the time the cause of action accrues, and not after.'

*

"The Commission holds that the date when the cause of action accrues is the date of the delivery of the shipment. Blinn Lumber Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 18 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 430. No complaint was filed by complainant [relator] with reference to shipments made before February 1st, 1907, until the petition here in question was filed on November 15th, 1911, and these shipments had all been delivered more than four years before the filing of that petition. They [the overcharges] are therefore barred from our consideration."

The concluding sentence thus used by the Commission, that "They [the overcharges] are therefore barred from our considera

Commission v. Northern Pacific Ry. Co., 216 U. S. 538, 544, 30 Sup. Ct. 417, 54 L. Ed. 608. That such was the opinion of this court was clearly intimated in Phillips v. Grand Trunk Western R. R. Co., 236 U. S. 662, 667, 35 Sup. Ct. 444, 59 L. Ed. 774, and it conforms in principle to the holdings of the court with respect to a similar limitation, but for six years, on the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims. Ford v. United States, 116 U. S. 213, 6 Sup. Ct. 360, 29 L. Ed. 608; Finn v. United States, 123 U. S. 227, 232, 8 Sup. Ct 82, 31 L. Ed. 128; United States v. Ward.

well, 172 U. S. 48, 52, 19 Sup. Ct. 86, 43 L.

Ed. 360.

state Commerce Commission v. Humboldt

[3] That the Supreme Court of the District tion," implies that in the opinion of the Com- direct the Commission by mandamus to enof Columbia, in a proper case, has power to mission the two-year provision of the six-tertain and proceed to adjudicate a cause teenth section of the act is a limitation upon which it has erroneously declared to be not its power, and that the construction which it gave to this limitation placed the claim within its jurisdiction is decided in Interwe are considering so beyond its jurisdiction that it could not consider it, and reference to the case cited as authority for its conclusion, Blinn Lumber Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 18 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 430, makes it clear that such was the intended holding. In that case the Commission expresses its conclusion in this form:

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Steamship Co., 224 U. S. 474, 32 Sup. Ct. 556, 56 L. Ed. 819. If the Commission did so err, them Ex parte Russell, 13 Wall. 664, 20 L. on the authority of many decisions, among Ed. 632, Ex parte Schollenberger, 96 U. S. 369, 24 L. Ed. 853, Hollon Parker, Petitioner, 131 U. S. 221, 9 Sup. Ct. 708, 33 L. Ed. 123, In re Grossmayer, Petitioner, 177 U. S. 48, 20 Sup. Ct. 535, 44 L. Ed. 665, and Interstate Commerce Commission v. Humboldt Steamship Co., 224 U. S. 474, 485, 32 Sup. Ct. 556, 56 L. Ed. 849, the courts may correct such error on a petition for mandamus, where, as in this case, the erroneous decision cannot be reviewed on appeal or writ of error.

*643

*644

[4] There remains the question, Did the Commission place an erroneous interpretation upon the scope of its jurisdiction under this two-year provision in section 16 of the act, in excluding the claim which we have before us from its consideration?

This provision first appears in an amendment to the act, approved June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. vol. 1, c. 3591, § 5, p. 590), and in January, 1908 the Commission published as its construction of the limitation the following, viz.:

"A cause of action accrues, as that phrase is used in the act, on the date the freight charges are actually paid."

The decisions of the Commission show (15 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 201, 235, 533; Marshall & Michel Grain Co. v. St. L. & S. F. R. R. Co., 16 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 385) that it adhered to this construction until May, 1910, when in Blinn Lumber Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 18 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 430, it changed its ruling and adopted the holding that the cause of action accrues when the shipment was delivered.

This change, as the report of the Commission shows, resulted, not from any modification of opinion as to the meaning of the language used, but from the conclusion of a majority of its members that such interpretation was necessary to give effect to other provisions of the act, especially those relating to rebates and undue preferences. * But this two-year provision, obviously enough, relates only to the recovery of money damages, and if Congress had intended that the cause of action of the shipper to recover damages for unreasonable charges should accrue when the shipment was received, or when it was delivered by the carrier, we cannot doubt that a simple and obvious form for expressing that intention would have been used, instead of the expression "from the time the cause of action accrues." And in this connection we cannot fail to recognize that when the statute was enacted the time when a cause of action accrues had been settled by repeated decisions of this court to be when a suit may first be legally instituted upon it (Amy v. Dubuque, 98 U. S. 470, 474, 25 L. Ed. 228; United States v. Taylor, 104 U. S. 216, 222, 26 L. Ed. 721; Rice v. United States, 122 U. S. 611, 617, 7 Sup. Ct. 1377, 30 L. Ed. 793), and, since no clearly controlling language to the contrary is used, it must be assumed that Congress

held not to have accrued until payment had been made of the unreasonable charges, and that, therefore, the interpretation which the Commission placed upon its jurisdictional power is erroneous.

The unusual and purely fortuitous circumstance, that the character of this jurisdictional limitation on the power of the Commission chances to be such that the giving of a correct construction to it must result in determining the character of the decision which the Commission must render when the case is returned to it, cannot affect the power of this court or that of the lower courts to define what that jurisdiction is under the act of Congress or the duty of the Commission to accept and act upon such definition when announced.

It results that the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed and that the case must be remanded to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, with direction that a writ of mandamus issue to the Coinmission, directing that it proceed to dispose of the claim in controversy under the construction placed upon its jurisdiction by this opinion.

Reversed.

(246 U. S. 621)

IBANEZ et al. v. HONGKONG & SHANGHAI BANKING CORP. et al. (Argued March 20, 21, 1918. Decided April 29, 1918.) No. 230.

PRECEDENTS

CON

1. COURTS 387(4) · STRUCTION OF LOCAL LAWS. Philippine Islands, the judgment of that tribuOn appeal from the Supreme Court of the nal, based on a construction of the local laws, will be deferred to.

2. PARENT AND CHILD 16-EMANCIPATION -AUTHORITY OF PARENTS.

States acquired the Philippine Islands, and after the adoption of the Code of Civil Procedure, their mother, while they were yet minors, but over the age of 18, executed instruments Civ. Proc. & 581, provides that pending guardemancipating them with their consent. Code ianships shall proceed in accordance with the Spanish law, while the Civil Code previously in force declared in article 159 that the father, administrator of the property of the children unor in his absence the mother, should be the legal der their authority. Held that, though no guardian of the person or property of plaintiffs was ever applied for or appointed after the promulgation of the Code of Civil Procedure, yet as, under the Spanish law, filiation stood in lieu of those legal safeguards with which the latter Code envelops the property of a minor child, it must be deemed that plaintiffs, at the time they were emancipated by their mother, were under guardianship according to the Spanish law, and the validity of such emancipation is not open to attack.

Plaintiffs' father died before the United

intended that this familiar expression should be given the well-understood meaning which had been given to it by this court. We there fore conclude, as was held, without special discussion of the point, in Phillips v. Grand Trunk Western R. R. Co., 236 U. S. 662, 666, 668, 35 Sup. Ct. 444, 59 L. Ed. 774, which in this respect really rules the case before us, that the proper construction of this juris- Suit by Joaquin Ibanez de Aldecoa y Palet dictional provision requires that the cause and Zoilo Ibanez de Aldecoa y Palet against of action of the shipper in this case shall be | Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation

Appeal from the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands.

For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes

and others. The Court of First Instance of Manila dismissed the suit as to the firstnamed plaintiff, but granted relief in favor of the second, and on appeal to the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands the judgment was affirmed as to the first-named plaintiff, and reversed as to the latter, and plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

Mr. Antonio M. Opisso, of Manila, P. I., for appellants.

Messrs. Charles Cowles Tucker, of Washington, D. C., Frederic R. Coudert and Howard Thayer Kingsbury, both of New York City, and F. C. Fisher, of Manila, P. I., for appellees.

executed February 23, 1906. On December 31, 1906, the firm expired by limitation and went into liquidation.

The question presented is whether the mother of appellants could legally emancipate them and thus confer upon them capacity to execute a valid mortgage of their real property, they consenting. The solution of the question, the Supreme Court said, "involves an inquiry as to the effect of the provisions of the New Code of Civil Procedure relating to guardianship upon certain provisions of the Civil Code relating to the control by parents over the persons and property of their minor children."

In other words, the question in the case

Mr. Justice MCKENNA delivered the opin- turns upon the accommodation or conflict ion of the Court.

between certain provisions of the Civil Code Suit by appellants, Joaquin Ibanez de and certain provisions of the Code of Civil Aldecoa and Zoilo Ibanez de Aldecoa, brought Procedure, the latter being later in enactin the Court of First Instance of Manila, to ment. If its provisions did not repeal or have declared null and void a mortgage supersede the provisions of the other, the executed by them in favor of appellees on mother of appellants had power to emancithe ground that when they executed the mort-pate them and their mortgage was a valid gage they were unemancipated minors.

After some preliminary procedure and upon answer filed and hearing had, the Court of First Instance dismissed the suit as to Joaquin Ibanez, but granted relief in favor of Zoilo Ibanez. Upon appeal the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands affirmed the judgment so far as it sustained the validity of the mortgage as to Joaquin Ibanez, and reversed it, the judgment, so far as it declared the nullity of the mortgage as to Zoilo Ibanez, and declared the mortgage binding upon the latter; that is, declared the mortgage valid as to both. This appeal was then prosecuted.

The facts are not in dispute. The appellants were born in the Islands, their parents being natives of Spain. Their father's domicile was in Manila, where he died October 4, 1895. After his death the firm of Aldecoa & Co., of which he had been a regular member, was reorganized and his widow became one of the general or "capitalistic" partners of the firm, and she appeared as such in the articles of partnership.

On July 31, 1903, the mother of the appellants, they then being over the age of 18 years, went before a notary public and executed two instruments wherein and whereby she emancipated them with their consent.

No guardian of the person or property of appellants has ever been applied for or appointed under the Code of Civil Procedure of the Islands since its promulgation; instead appellants had continued from the death of their father under the custody of their mother until the execution of the instruments of emancipation.

instrument. On this question the courts below are in dissonance. The Court of First Instance considered that the codes were irreconcilable and gave a repealing strength to the Code of Civil Procedure. The Supreme Court rejected this conclusion and gave accommodation to the provisions of the codes by excluding those of the Code of Civil Procedure from operation upon parents who had assumed charge of the property of their minor children and were enjoying its usufruct prior to the adoption of that code. In other words, the rights and duties of such parents with respect to their children, including the right of emancipation, continued to be regulated by the Civil Code.

[1, 2] The court deduced this conclusion from the explicit language of the Civil Code conferring parental authority, the absence of a repealing, or modifying or superseding, word in the Code of Civil Procedure, and the declaration of the latter that guardianships pending at the time of its passage should "proceed in accordance with Spanish law," with certain exceptions, which emphasized the declaration. It, the declaration, is important, and we therefore quote it. It is section 581 and is as follows:

"Pending guardianships to proceed in accordance with Spanish law, with certain exceptions. All proceedings in cases of guardianship pending in the Philippine Islands at the time of the passage of this act, shall proceed in accordance with the existing Spanish procedure under which the guardians were appointed: Provid under existing Spanish law may be removed in ed, nevertheless, that any guardian appointed accordance with the provisions of section 574 of this act, and his successor may be appointed as therein provided, and every successor to a guardian so removed shall, in the administration of the person or estate, or either, as the case may be, of his ward, be governed by the provisions of this act."

February 23, 1906, the firm of Aldecoa & Co. was heavily indebted to the appellee bank and the bank was pressing for pay- The construction by the Supreme Court is ment or security. In consequence the mort- vigorously assailed by appellants. It was gage, which is the subject of this suit, was so assailed in the Supreme Court and the

*625

court answered it and other contentions of law of parental authority, as they stood appellants by a discussion at once minute then, repugnant to the American idea of jusand comprehensive. It is not possible to re- tice, 'ruthlessly brushed aside' the old order produce it or even epitomize it. Its basis is and inaugurated 'the new in the form which the customs and habits of a people with re- had withstood the test of time in the United sulting rights which found expression and States.'" In other words, displaced the pasanction in the Civil Code and of which rental authority and all that it meant of powthere is no repeal, it was held, or displace- er of administration and enjoyment by the ment in the Code of Civil Procedure. And parents of the estates of their minor chilthe abruptness of the change and disorder of dren. rights which the contentions of appellants involve the court felt and declared.

We concede the care and ability of the legislators but deduce a conclusion different The change, if change there was, was cer- from that of counsel. We are convinced that tainly abrupt and quite radical. Under the neither would have been exercised to disCivil Code parents had general control over place abruptly a system so fixed in the habthe property of their children. "The father, its and sentiments of a people as parental or, in his absence, the mother, is the legal ad- authority was in the habits of the Islands, ministrator of the property of the children and certainly not without explicit declarawho are under their authority" (article 159), tion, and leave without warning so radical and by subsequent articles a usufruct in the and important a change to be collected from property was given to the parents. "Filia- disputable implications. We concur, theretion", the court said, "stood in lieu of those fore, with the Supreme Court that section legal safe-guards" with which the "Code of 581, supra, was intended to save "from the Civil Procedure envelops the property of a operation of the new act all proceedings in minor child." And the court pointed out that cases of guardianship pending in the Philipthere were certain restrictions upon the par- pine Islands at the time of its passage." ent but they "did not make the parent a And guardianship and the administration of guardian." It was further held that the Civ-an estate did not mean, as contended by ap11 Code drew a sharp and clearly distinguishable line between guardianship properly so called, and the patria potestas, or parental authority, and confined the former to guardianship contained in article 199 of that Code which defined it as "the custody of the person and property or only of the property of those who, not being under the parental authority, are incapable of taking care of

themselves."

pellants, something procedural in a court, but they meant what the laws recognized as such and, we have seen, article 159 of the Civil Code provides that "the father, or, in his absence, the mother, is the legal administrator of the property of the children who are under their authority." The right is a valuable one and it has as an incident a right as valuable, the usufruct of the estate

administered.

It was upon these considerations that the The value and extent of both rights this court based its judgment, and if it be grant-court has had occasion to declare in Darlinged there are counter considerations of

strength we are disposed to defer to the tribunal "on the spot." It has support in the principles of our jurisprudence which are repellant to retrospective operation of a law

and the repeal by implication of one law by another. These principles have urgency in the present case. The change contended for is not only abrupt but fundamental. It is not change of procedure merely but of systems, disturbing rights, devesting or imposing obligations. Indeed, the present case is an example. The mother of appellants, in confidence of her right to do so, emancipated the appellants, and the appellees in equal confidence accepted it as legal, and that many are in like situation under like confidences may be conjectured.

It is in effect urged, however, that such disorder was foreseen and accepted as a consequence of existing laws which the legislators with ability and care made a study of, and "finding the law of guardianship and the

ton v. Turner, 202 U. S. 195, 230, et seq., 26 Sup. Ct. 630, 50 L. Ed. 992, and in view of that case we are forced to think that, however our habits may induce us to approve the American system of the relation of parent and child and that there should be interposed between them when property interests are involved the order of a court and the security a state of this Union-who have found that of bonds, there are other peoples-including they could rely with confidence on other than material considerations for the performances of duty and that "filiation" could stand in lieu of "those legal safeguards" with which the new Code of Procedure "envelops the property of a minor child."

There are other contentions of appellants which are either mixed with questions of fact or depend upon an appreciation of local matters and procedure the decision of the local court upon which we accept.

Judgment affirmed.

*626

628

The pendency of another suit; and (2) a for

(246 U. S. 627)
IBANEZ et al. v. HONGKONG & SHANG- mer judgment.
HAI BANKING CORP.
(Argued March 20, 21, 1918. Decided
April 29, 1918.)
No. 231.

1. APPEAL AND ERROR

HARMLESS ERROR.

1043(1)-REVIEW

Though a suit by defendants, attacking the validity of a mortgage which plaintiffs sought to foreclose, was pending, the refusal of the court to stay foreclosure proceedings until determination of the first suit was harmless as to defendants; the mortgage being upheld in the first suit.

2. Courts LAW.

387(1) PRECEDENTS

LOCAL The Supreme Court will defer to a declaration of the local law by the courts of the Philip‐ pine Islands, particularly when their decision is in accordance with the rule obtaining in other jurisdictions.

[1] 1. Under this it was urged that the suit for the annulling of the mortgage (case No. 230) had been submitted for adjudication and had not been disposed of. Identity was hence asserted between the two actions, and it was insisted that the second should have awaited the disposition of the first. The Supreme Court took a different view, urged thereto * by cases which it cited. But counsel say that if the mortgage had been declared null in the first action (No. 230) it could not have been foreclosed in the second (that at bar), as it would have encountered the plea of res judicata. If, however, the mortgage had been upheld in the first action the appellants would have been precluded from attacking it in the second. That the alternatives would have occurred may be conceded; one of

Appeal from the Supreme Court of the them, indeed, has occurred and has demonPhilippine Islands.

Suit by the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation against Joaquin Ibanez de Aldecoa y Palet and others, begun in the Court of First Instance of Manila. From a judgment of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Modified and affirmed.

strated that appellants suffered no detriment from the ruling.

[2] The appellant Isabel Palet assigns as error that the Supreme Court failed to hold (1) that her liability as surety of Aldecoa & Co. had been extinguished in accordance with the provisions of article 1851 of the Civil Code, which provides that "the extension granted

Mr. Antonio M. Opisso, of Manila, P. I., to a debtor by the creditor, without the confor appellants.

Messrs. Charles Cowles Tucker, of Washington, D. C., Frederic R. Coudert and Howard Thayer Kingsbury, both of New York City, and F. C. Fisher, of Manila, P. I., for appellee.

*Mr. Justice MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the Court.

This suit was submitted with No. 230, just decided. 246 U. S. 621, 38 Sup. Ct. 410, 62 L. Ed. It was brought in the Court of First Instance of Manila to foreclose, among other purposes, the mortgage which that suit was brought to declare void. The defense in this case of Joaquin Ibanez and Zoilo Ibanez is based on the same ground that they alleged as a cause of action in the other case; that is, that the mortgage is a nullity be cause they were unemancipated minors when it was executed. This contention and the facts and legal propositions relevant to it are set out in No. 230 and need not be repeated. It was there decided that their emancipation was complete and legal, and the mortgage executed by them therefore valid, the Civil Code providing for such emancipation not having been repealed or superseded by the Code of Civil Precedure-this being the basic contention.

sent of the surety, extinguishes the security"; (2) refused to order for her benefit that the property of the company should be exhausted before resort be had to her property for satisfaction of the bank's claim.

It will be observed at once that the defenses have some dependence upon questions of fact upon which the two courts below concurred. From article 1851 of the Civil Code, abstractly considered, nothing can be deduced. Both the trial and Supreme Courts held that "the mere failure to bring an action upon a credit, as soon as the same or any part of it matures, does not constitute an extension of the term of the obligation." And it was further held that the extension, to produce the extinction of the liability, "must be based on some new agreement by which the creditor deprives himself of the right to immediately enforce the claim." This interpretation of the local courts of the local law we defer to. The construction, moreover, expresses the rule that obtains in other jurisdictions.

As to the other assignment of error the court replied that Isabel Palet did not deny that as a member of the firm of Aldecoa & Co. she was liable with the company and that besides the trial court had directed that the mortgaged properties, including the properties mortgaged by her, should be sold under foreclosure in the event the company should not pay into court the amount of the judgment within the time designated for the pur

Other defenses are, however, set up which were more or less mingled with defenses of other parties to the suit who are not here. Those special to Joaquin and Zoilo Ibanez were, as separated by the Supreme Court: (1) pose.

For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes

089.

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