No. 1212. MISSOURI & KANSAS SHIPPERS' ASSOCIATION v. ATCHISON, TOPEKA & SANTA FE RAILWAY COMPANY. No. 1224. MISSOURI & KANSAS SHIPPERS' ASSOCIATION v. MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY. No. 1225. MISSOURI & KANSAS SHIPPERS' ASSOCIATION v. MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY. No. 1226. MISSOURI & KANSAS SHIPPERS' ASSOCIATION v. KANSAS CITY BELT RAILWAY COMPANY. Submitted October 27, 1907. Decided April 6, 1908. 1. A complaint by a voluntary association demanding reparation under general averments which do not name the members on whose behalf it is filed and do not with reasonable particularity specify and describe the shipments as to which the complaint is made, does not operate to stop the running of the period of limitation provided in the law; and does not give the members of the association the opportunity subsequently to come in and take advantage of the complaint by proving up their shipments, which would be barred of relief upon separate and individual complaints if then filed by themselves. 2. A statute of limitations is a wise method of forcing claimants either to assert their rights against others or definitely abandon them. Persons against whom claims may be made are fairly entitled to repose at some definite point of time, and this is especially true in connection with matters of transportation. Waybills and other papers accumulate in vast numbers in the course of a few months, and carriers are entitled, if claims are to be made, to have them made with reasonable promptness. 3. The universal rule in the courts, also applicable to the Commission, seems to be that, under a system of pleading which permits a proceeding for damages to be instituted by the filing of a complaint, the statute of limitations does not cease to run against the demand until the complaint has been filed setting up the claim with sufficient particularity to make an issue. Until a definite cause of action has been pleaded there is nothing to arrest the running of the statute. All the elements fairly necessary to present the cause of action must be pleaded in a complaint filed with the Commission. 4. Under section 13 of the act a carrier has a definite locus penitentiæ in order to determine whether it will yield to the demand made or contest it; and the carrier has the right to have the complaint so stated as to afford it the necessary information to enable it to determine whether to request the authority of the Commission to satisfy the demand or to make a formal answer. When the demand is made on behalf of unnamed shippers and on shipments that are not specified with reasonable particularity, this opportunity is not open to the carrier. C. W. Durbin and J. T. Burney for complainant. Gardiner Lathrop, Robert Dunlap, James L. Coleman, and Thomas R. Morrow for Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company. Martin L. Clardy and James C. Jeffery for Missouri Pacific Railway Company. Thomas R. Morrow for Kansas City Belt Railway Company. REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. HARLAN, Commissioner: On the suggestion of counsel for the respective parties these four complaints were heard together on one record. They were all filed by the same complainant, a voluntary association of merchants engaged in various commercial enterprises at Kansas City, Mo., and known as the Missouri & Kansas Shippers' Association. The complaints relate to switching charges collected from members of the association on carload shipments of various commodities, including hay, coal, grain, and wool, consigned to them at Kansas City from various interstate points of origin. In each case reparation is demanded either on the ground that the charges were unlawfully collected or on the ground that they were excessive in amount. The members of the association on whose behalf the demands are made are not named in the complaints. Nor do the complaints, either by date, weight, car number, point of origin, name of consignor or consignee, amount of freight collected, or otherwise, set up and describe the particular shipments on which reparation is claimed. The facts commonly understood to be essential to the statement of a cause of action and necessary to enable the defendants to prepare their defense are wanting. Only in the most general way do the complaints advise the defendants of the extent and scope of the demands that they must prepare to meet. The complaint in the first case was filed with the Commission on August 9, 1907. The other three complaints were filed on August 22, 1907. In the first case the reparation demanded is on all shipments made prior to August 28, 1906, regardless of their date; in the second case the demand covers all shipments made during the years 1902 to 1906, inclusive; the third case covers shipments moving during the years 1903, 1904, and until May 31, 1905; and in the last case reparation is asked on shipments that were made between September 22, 1902, and January 2, 1904. These dates become significant in view of the fact that under the amendatory act of June 29, 1906, there was incorporated in the act to regulate commerce a clause reading as follows: 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, * Provided, That claims accrued prior to the passage of this act may be presented within one year. This as well as the other amendments then enacted became effective on August 28, 1906. It is clear, therefore, that if these complaints had been filed after instead of a few days before August 28, 1907, the special period of one year accorded to causes of action that accrued prior to August 28, 1906, would have expired, and whatever cause of action this voluntary association may be said to have had in this connection would have been barred by this limitation in the act, except as to the small number of shipments made by its members within the two preceding years. It is also clear that a separate and individual complaint filed on his own behalf by a member of the complainant association after August 28, 1907, would also have been too late, except as to shipments made by him within two years immediately preceding the date of the filing of such a complaint. In other words, all except a small part of the reparation demanded in the four cases would have been barred if complaints properly stating the demand had been filed after the date last mentioned. This fact has not escaped the attention of the secretary of the complainant, who was the active force in effecting the permanent organization of this association and in promoting this litigation. Under its by-laws every merchant becoming a member of the association, besides being required to pay a membership fee of $5 and annual dues of the same amount, is also required to sign "the necessary contract. covering the collection of claims." This contract entitles the association to retain 50 cents out of every dollar collected by it for its mem bers; and of the 50 cents so retained by the association 40 cents go to the secretary as compensation for his labors. As the rates complained of in these proceedings were in force at Kansas City for a number of years, the reparation demanded must necessarily cover many carload shipments that were received there during that time; and in order to get them all in under these complaints the secretary prepared a circular letter which was mailed in October, 1907, to the members of the association, in which he explained that it was then too late, because of the limitation of the act, for the members to file their own individual complaints, and that the only relief open to them was to come in under the complaints filed by the association; he further explained that no one who was not a member of the association could get relief in any other way; and he therefore invited them to send their expense bills to him or to give him such other information as to their shipments as would enable him to file the claim with the Commission. He concluded the circular letter with a warning to the members not to delay the matter but to attend to it at once. On the foregoing facts thus briefly outlined from the record the question that requires determination before the merits of these proceedings can be looked into is whether, as a matter of law, a complaint by a voluntary association demanding reparation under general averments which do not name the members on whose behalf it is filed and do not with reasonable particularity specify and describe the shipments as to which the complaint is made, may operate to stop the running of the period of limitation provided in the law, and thus give its members the opportunity subsequently to come in and take advantage of the complaint by proving up their shipments, although they would be barred of relief upon separate and individual complaints if then filed by themselves. We have little hesitation in answering this question in the negative. In the general public interest it is necessary that a time be fixed, varying in length according to the nature of the transaction, within which persons aggrieved must either assert their rights against others or definitely abandon them. And a statute of limitations is generally regarded as a salutary and wise method of forcing claimants to pursue one course or the other. Persons against whom claims may be made are fairly entitled to repose at some definite point of time; they are entitled at some time to security from attack by those who may have grievances upon which to base actions for damages against them. This is especially true in connection with matters of transportation. Waybills and other papers relating to individual shipments accumulate in vast numbers in the course of a few months, and carriers are entitled, if claims are to be made, to have them made with reasonable promptness, so that the records and the history of the shipments in question may readily be available for making their defense. It was doubtless on these general grounds that a period of two years was fixed by Congress, in the recent amendatory act, within which actions for reparation must be brought against interstate carriers. In applying to complaints filed before it the limitation thus enacted into the act to regulate commerce, no reason is perceived why the Commission should not be guided by the general principles under which statutes of limitations are applied to actions brought in courts of justice. And the universal rule in the courts seems to be that, under a system of pleading which permits a proceeding for damages to be instituted by the filing of a complaint, the statute of limitations does not cease to run against the demand until a complaint has been filed setting up the claim with sufficient particularity to make an issue; in other words, until a definite cause of action has been pleaded there is nothing to arrest the running of the statute. There are, moreover, special reasons, under various sections of the amended act, for holding that none of these complaints, as drawn, can be said to set up a cause of action or to be sufficient to stop the running of the statute against the claims of the individual members of the complainant association. Conceding under the terms of section 13 that a voluntary association may attack an existing rate on behalf of its members, it may be said, on general grounds of convenience, that such an association may also ask for reparation on previous shipments made by them under the rate attacked. But it is clear that no demand for damages by such an association should be entertained, now that a period of limitation has been incorporated in the act, or can be said to state the complaint or cause of action so as to stop the running of the limitation, that does not definitely name the member or members on whose behalf the claim for reparation is made. It is under the authority of section 16 that the Commission is authorized to enter an order making an award of damages. That section gives to the Commission the power, after a full hearing upon a complaint made and when it shall have determined "that any party complainant is entitled to an award of damages," to make an order directing the carrier "to pay to the complainant " the sum awarded. In any such proceeding there must therefore be a party complainant who is entitled to damages, and the order must direct the carrier to pay the sum awarded" to the complainant." It is clear, then, that any complaint under which an award of damages is sought by a voluntary association of this kind, which can make no claim on its own behalf, must be filed on behalf of a definitely named party in interest. This thought is emphasized by the language of section 8 which provides that for an unlawful act or omission a carrier "shall |