White Star Bus Line, Inc. v. Glens Falls Indemnity Co.
White Star Bus Line, Inc. v. Glens Falls Indemnity Co.
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
About fifteen years ago the Public Service Commission of Puerto Rico granted to the plaintiff-appellee an exclusive franchise for the transportation of passengers between the cities of San Juan and Río Piedras, over certain routes fixed by said commission. In view of the fact that a large number of public vehicles without legal authority were violating appellee’s franchise by transporting passengers for hire per seat over the above-mentioned routes, the Public Service Commission, on January 4, 1938, approved a final order which in its pertinent part reads thus:
“ It is ordered, furthermore, and by these presents it is prohibited, that all motor vehicles not previously authorized by this Commission act, serve, function or operate as public carriers for the transportation of - passengers for hire per seat, offering, rendering or giving its service to the public 'in general, between the municipalities of San Juan and Río Piedras or within the municipalities of San Juan and Río Piedras, or between intermediate points. The fact that a motor vehicle act as a public carrier, transporting passengers by seat, from one. place to another, between the municipalities of San Juan and Río Piedras, or within the municipalities of San Juan or Río Piedras, or between intermediate points, shall constitute prima facie evidence of the violation of this order.”
Feeling aggrieved by said order, and seeking to review the same, Jaime Ortiz, Juan González, and Alejandro Sal-gado, defendants herein, on January 21, 1938, appealed to the lower court which in due course dismissed the appeal on .the 16th of May following. Four days afterwards they appealed to this court, which affirmed the judgment appealed from on July 26, 1938 (53 P.B.R. 586).
Thereupon the aforesaid three defendants, through their attorneys, Dexter & Dexter, on January 30, 1939, filed a notice of apj)eal to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. They did not confine the appeal to themselves but, contrary to what they had done in resorting to the lower court and to this court, they filed a new notice
It was on the basis of said notice of appeal and affidavit of the amount in controversy that Mr. Justice Bingham, of the Circuit Court, on February 8, 1839, issued the following order:
“It is ordered that the appellants file in the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico a cost bond on appeal in the sum of two hundred fifty dollars ($250) and a supersedeas bond in the sum of three thousand dollaa's ($3,000) with sureties to be approved by said Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.”
In accordance with the recitals set forth by the three defendants-appellants in their notice of appeal and affidavit of amount in controversy, the Glens Falls Indemnity Co., which furnished the supersedeas bond, stated therein the following:
*833 “Whereas, lately at a session of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the first Circuit in the above-entitled cause an appeal was allowed to the said Jaime Ortiz, Alejandro Salgado and Juan González and others from the judgment rendered in the above entitled cause against them . . .
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“Now, the condition of the above obligation is such, that if the same Jaime Ortiz, Alejandro Salgado and Juan González and others shall plr'oseeute their appeal. . (Italics ours.)
After the bond had been approved, the police officers continued to file criminal complaints against the owners and drivers of public vehicles — with the exception of the three defendants-appellants — who violated the order of the Commission, and thereupon defendants’ counsel, Attorneys Dexter & Dexter, addressed a communication to Mr. Orbeta, Chief of the Insular Police, wherein they complained that the policemen were arresting drivers of public vehicles for alleged violations of the order of the Public Service Commission of Puerto Rico of January 4,1938, and after referring to the order and the supersedeas bond, they said:
“As this action of the Police must be the result of a misiuicter-standing or ignorance of the supersedeas and suspension of such order of the Public Service Commission by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals and is in violation thereof, in behalf of the Appellants above named and of all other drivers and oiuners of pubKo cars who are indirect parties in the appeal, we as their attorneys, respectfully call your attention to this action of the Police in order that you may correct it and thus avoid ulterior complication and conflict with the authority of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals.” (Italics ours.)
In conformity with the said communication the Chief of Police issued the corresponding orders not to arrest the owners or drivers of vehicles who violated the above-mentioned order. In view of the serious prejudice which the order of the Chief of Police caused to the appellee, the latter applied to the Circuit Court, and Mr. Justice Bingham
“Upon consideration of the Motion to vacate supersedeas Order and Bond, filed by appellee herein, White Star Bus Line Inc., and upon consideration of the objections thereto, filed by appellants herein, it is ordered that the supersedeas order granted herein on, February 8, 1939, shall apply to, but shall be limited in its effects to, only the three original appellants in the District Court, namely, Ja'ime Ortiz, Alejandro Salgado and Juan Gonzalez, as operators of any vehicles owned by them on February 8, 1939, . . .
“It is further ordered that said supersedeas order shall not stay or suspend the Order of the Public Service Commission of Puerto Rico, dated January 4, 1938, as to any other person whatsoever.”
On April 1, 1939, the appellants, through their counsel, filed a lengthy motion in the Circuit Court of Appeals praying that the order of Mr. Justice Bingham of March 29, 1939, he reviewed by the court in bank in order to modify and enlarge the same so that it extend to all the owners and drivers of public vehicles whn constituted the same class as were the three appellants “who desire to provide cheap and adequate transportation facilities between the cities of San Juan and Río Piedras.” (Plaintiff’s Ex. 10, Tr. of Ev., p. 264.)
The Circuit Court refused to grant the appellants’ request, and the prohibition against the other owners of public vehicles was allowed to stand.
Subsequently, the Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal, and thereupon the appellee, White Star Bus Line, Inc., brought the present action in the lower court against Glens Falls Indemnity Co., as surety and Jaime Ortiz, Juan González, and Alejandro Salgado, as principals, and joined the Public Service Commission of Puerto Rico as a party defendant inasmuch as the latter, although a necessary party, refused to join the plaintiff in the suit. In the action claim was made for $15,400, as damages, alleged to have been sustained by the plaintiff during the period in which the final order of the commission had been suspended as to all own
It was from said judgment that the three defendants and the surety company took the present appeal. The essential questions to be decided are: (1) Are the defendants-appellants liable for the damages caused to the plaintiff by the 300 other owners or drivers of the public vehicles who violated the order of the commission during the 14 days above mentioned? (2) Did the lower court err in fixing the amount of the damages?
Contrary to what appears from the documentary evidence to which we have referred, the appellants now maintain that the final order was never suspended, and they deny all liability for the unlawful acts of the 300 other owners and drivers of public vehicles, with whose supposed rights they solicitously dealt in the notice of appeal, in the affidavit of amount in controversy, in the communication to the Insular Chief of Police, in their opposition to the modification of the order of supersedeas, and finally in their motion seeking a review by the court in bank of the amended order rendered by Mr. Justice Bingham.
The relation of cause and effect between the acts of the appellants herein and the damages caused by them through the 300 other owners and drivers is so manifest that w:e fail to understand how it could be seriously maintained that'said
The surety company maintains that, conceding as it does the validity and enforcibility of the bond, the latter can only cover the three persons whose names are stated therein and no one else, and that the words “and others” do not have nor can have any legal effect, for the simple reason that the appeals taken in this suit, at its various stages, as a matter of law, were filed by said three defendants. It is true that the appeals taken to the lower court and to this court were instituted by said three defendants only, but it is no less true that in the one taken to the Circuit Court the three defendants knowingly and falsely stated that the appeal was taken for themselves and for the 300 defendants, thereby inducing the court to believe that a class suit was involved; and on the basis of those false statements that court issued the supersedeas upon a bond which the appellant company furnished, binding itself for the three defendants and others
Let us now proceed to consider the second question raised, namely, the amount of the damages. In this connection §1059 of the Civil Code, 1930 ed., provides that the payment of damages shall include not only the amount of the loss which may have been suffered but also that of the profit which the creditor may have failed to realize. In order to prove the profit which it failed to realize, the appellee showed that during the 14 days preceding a similar period throughout which the final order was totally suspended, it transported an average of 79,238 passengers daily, whereas during the suspension of the order it only transported an average of 66,991 passengers, the expenses being identical in both periods, inasmuch as the same number of buses were in operation. In accordance with that evidence, the appellee failed to transport 12,247 passengers daily during that 14-day period and as the passenger fare is five cents, the loss of profit sustained by the defendant amounted to $8,572.90. The number of passengers transported during the 14 days immediately following the supension period was greater than that pertaining to the latter period and somewhat less than the one preceding the suspension order. The appellants maintain that for the purpose of computing the damages that number, that is, the one pertaining to the period subsequent to the suspension, should have been taken into consideration; but, as very aptly said by counsel for the appellee, said period should not be so considered because it was doubtedly affected by the abnormal situation created by reason of the total suspension of the final order.
“Whatever of uncertainty there may be in this mode of estimating damages, is an uncertainty caused by the defendant’s own*840 wrongful act; and justice, and sound public policy alike require; that he should bear the risk of the uncertainty thus produced;
' We think that it can not he disputed that damages were caused to the appellee and that the proximate cause thereof was the conduct of the defendants, and similarly as to the justice and reasonableness of the method adopted for determining the amount of such damages, which method finds support in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Palmer v. Connecticut Ry. Co., supra.
For the reasons stated the judgment appealed from should be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.