Marshall Engine Company, of New Jersey, or to the New Marshall Engine Company, of Massachusetts. The complainant did not, by its bill in the state court, raise any question as to the validity or construction of the patent, nor did it make any claim for damages for infringement. The suit was an ordinary bill for specific performance to compel Marshall to assign to complainant the improvement on patent 342,702, in compliance with his covenant for further assurance. If patent 725,349 was an improvement thereon, as on the face of the application and letterspatent it appeared to be, then the complainant was entitled to a decree requiring Marshall to make a conveyance which could be properly recorded for the protection of the true owner.

Marshall had, however, in violation of his contract, previously assigned patent 725,349 to the New Marshall Engine Company, which took with notice of the prior transfer. This company, therefore, held the legal title as trustee for the complainant. Under the circumstances the state court had jurisdiction to pass on the question of ownership, and to enter a decree requiring Marshall, as patentee, and the New Marshall Engine Company, as trustee, to make an assignment in due form to the complainant. This jurisdiction was based on general principles of equity jurisprudence, and did not present a case arising under the patent law.

It is, however, urged that the state court was ousted of the jurisdiction to enter a decree for specific performance, because the bill went farther and prayed that the defendants, and each of them, should be enjoined from manufacturing or selling the machines covered by patent 725,349. It is claimed that this was, in effect, an application and decree for injunction against infringement, and could only be granted by a Federal court.

But the allegations of the complainant's bill do not involve any construction of the meaning or effect of pat

ent 725,349, nor does it charge that the manufacture or sale of engines by the defendants would be an infringement of the patent, or of any right of the complainant, if, in fact, patent 725,349 belonged to the New Marshall Engine Company. The injunction was asked for only as an incident of a finding that the title was vested in the complainant. "The bill must be regarded and treated as a proceeding to enforce the specific execution of the contract referred to, and not as one to protect the complainants in the exclusive enjoyment of the patent right. It is to prevent the fraudulent violation of these contracts that the complainants seek the aid of the court and ask for an injunction." Brown v. Shannon, 20 How. 56, 57. As said in Wilson v. Sanford, 10 How. 99, 102, "the injunction is to be the consequence of the decree sanctioning the forfeiture. He alleges no ground for an injunction unless the contract is set aside." Here the injunction asked for is to be the consequence of the decree sustaining the complainant's title. It alleges no ground for injunction unless that title is established.

The state court had jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the controversy. The relief granted was appropriate

to the cause of action stated in the bill. The decree must therefore be

Affirmed.

GALVESTON, HARRISBURG AND SAN ANTONIO RAILWAY COMPANY v. WALLACE.

SAME v. CROW.

ERROR TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH SUPREME JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF TEXAS.

Nos. 108, 109. Submitted December 15, 1911.-Decided February 19, 1912.

Damages caused by failure to deliver goods is not traceable to a violation of the Interstate Commerce Law, and is not within the provisions of §§ 8 and 9 of the act; the jurisdiction of the commission and the United States courts is not exclusive. Texas & Pacific Railway v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, distinguished. While statutes have no extra-territorial operation and courts of one government cannot enforce the penal laws of another, state courts have jurisdiction of civil and transitory actions created by a foreign statute, provided it is not of a character opposed to the public policy of the State in which it is brought. Jurisdiction is not defeated by implication; and there is no presumption that Congress intends to prevent state courts from exercising jurisdiction already possessed by them, and under which they have power to hear and determine causes of action created by Federal statute. Robb v. Conrolly, 111 U. S. 637.

When a Federal statute creating an action, such as the Carmack amendment, is silent on the subject of jurisdiction, the presumption is that the action may be asserted in a state, as well as in a Federal, court.

The Carmack amendment to the Hepburn act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 584, 595, c. 3591, is not unconstitutional. Atlantic Coast Line v. Riverside Mills, 219 U. S. 186.

Quære, and not determinable in this action, as the carrier failed to plead or prove the cause of non-delivery, whether the Carmack amendment makes the initial carrier an insurer, or deprives it of the right to contract with the shipper against liability for damages not caused by its own or the connecting carrier's negligence. Under the Carmack amendment, wherever the carrier voluntarily accepts goods for shipment to a point on another line in another VOL. CCXXIII-31

Argument for Plaintiffs in Error.

223 U. S.

State, it is conclusively treated as having made a through contract, Atlantic Coast Line v. Riverside Mills, 219 U. S. 186; it thereby elects to treat connecting carriers as its agents and the presumptions are that if goods are lost the loss results from the negligence of itself or of its agents.

Under the Carmack amendment, when a carrier accepts goods for shipment to a point on another line in another State, the burden of proof falls on it as the initial carrier to prove that the loss has not resulted from some cause for which it is in law or by contract responsible.

THE facts, which involve the liability of an initial common carrier for non-delivery of goods by the connecting carrier, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Maxwell Evarts and Mr. James L. Bishop for plaintiffs in error:

Plaintiff in error does not attempt to reargue Atlantic Coast Line v. Riverside Mills, 219 U. S. 186, but contends that the Carmack amendment did not impose upon the initial carrier the obligation of an insurer of the safe delivery of the goods at destination.

There was no evidence that the loss was caused by the initial carrier or by any connecting carrier unless the mere failure to deliver was evidence that the loss was not caused by a third person. This cannot be so, unless the carrier contracted for, or the statute imposed, the obligation of an insurer of safe delivery at destination. Matter of Release Rates, 13 I. C. C. R., 550; Bernard v. Adams Express Co., 205 Massachusetts, 254.

The statute does not include the liability of an insurer against loss, for which the common carrier is not culpably chargeable. It does not restrict the right of an express company to stipulate as to the value of goods and to limit its liability to the value agreed upon. Travis v. Wells, Fargo & Company, 74 Atl. Rep. 444; Wright v. Adams Express Company, 43 Pa. Supr. Ct. 40; and see Latta v. Chic., St. P., M. & O. R., 172 Fed. Rep. 850.

223 U.S.

Argument for Plaintiffs in Error.

By accepting the goods for transportation the defendant did not assume a contractual obligation to deliver the goods at final destination. Muscamp v. Lancaster & P. R. R. Co., 8 Mees. & W. 421; Hutchinson on Carriers, §§ 228 et seq. The statute does not attempt to make a receipt or bill of lading conclusive evidence of a contract for through carriage. If it had attempted to do so, it may well be doubted whether the attempt would have been legal. Chicago R. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418; Howard v. Moot, 64 N. Y. 262-268; Meyer v. Berlandi, 39 Minnesota, 438; Railway Co. v. Simonson, 64 Kansas, 802; Wigmore on Evidence, § 1354.

The common law imposes upon the carrier the obligation to receive and carry the goods tendered to it for transportation over its own line even though marked for a destination beyond its own line. United States v. Geddes, 131 Fed. Rep. 452, 458.

This is the law in Texas and in other States. Inman v. St. Louis S. W. R. R., 14 Tex. Civ. App. 39; Seasongood v. Tennessee O. R. Company, 21 Ky. L. R. 1142; and the performance of this duty may be compelled by mandamus. So. Ex. Co. v. R. M. Rose Co., 124 Georgia, 581.

The common law also imposes upon the carrier the duty of delivery of the goods to the succeeding carrier, where they are received for transportation to a point beyond the initial carrier's line. Michigan Cent. R. R. Co. v. Mineral Springs Mfg. Co., 16 Wall. 318; Tift v. Southern Railroad, 123 Fed. Rep. 789; Rawson v. Holland, 59 N. Y. 611. This is an obligation from which the carrier cannot release himself. Public policy, however, requires that the rule should be enforced.

These obligations of the common law are made statutory as to interstate commerce by the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Law.

Since the initial carrier was under the legal obligation to receive and carry the goods over its own line, although