be liable to the person or persons injured;" and also by the language of section 9, which provides "that any person or persons claiming to may either make complaint to the Commis be damaged * sion * * in any district or circuit * but such person or persons shall not have the right to pursue both the said remedies." The distinction between a mere form of action and the essential nature of a cause of action must not be overlooked. The form of action is usually provided by statute; the cause of action ordinarily arises through some act or omission of the parties. And all the elements fairly necessary to present the cause of action must be pleaded in a complaint filed with the Commission. This is made especially clear by the language of section 13, which requires the Commission, when a complaint has been filed, to forward to the defendant "a statement of the charges thus made" and to call upon it "to satisfy the complaint or to answer the same in writing within a reasonable time." And therefore unless the complaint brought by a voluntary association definitely names those of its members on whose behalf reparation is demanded, and describes the shipments on which reparation is claimed with sufficient particularity to enable the Commission to forward a statement of the charges to the defendant and to call upon it to satisfy the claim or answer the same in writing, it is clear that a cause of action has not been stated in the form and manner required by the law or in such manner as to stop the running of the period of limitation provided in section 16. The defendant, under section 13 of the act, has the right, upon receiving the statement of the charges made, to relieve itself "of liability to the complainant, for the particular violation of law thus complained of" by making "reparation for the injury alleged to be done." This is a definite provision in the law and a definite locus penitentia which the defendant has in order to determine whether it will yield to the demand made, under a proper order to be entered by the Commission, or contest it. The defendant therefore 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. And 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 defendant. Under the general rules of pleading and more clearly under the special language of this act we therefore hold that no complaint by a voluntary association which fails to name the actual parties in interest on whose behalf reparation is demanded or which fails, in the petition itself or in some exhibit attached to it, to describe with reasonable particularity the shipments with respect to which damages are claimed, can be said under the amended act to state a cause of action. And the filing of such a complaint can not stop the running of the period of limitation provided in the act, since no cause of action, formal or informal, is alleged. There are many legitimate associations of shippers and they serve a useful purpose. By joining together merchants may act much more efficiently and effectively in relation to matters in which they have a common interest. Moreover, it will obviously save the time both of the Commission and of litigants to have claims, involving the same questions of law and the same states of fact and relating to the same rates, brought together and adjudicated in one proceeding. And the grouping together of such demands in one complaint instead of filing numerous separate complaints is to be encouraged rather than discouraged. But where the prayer of a complaint by a voluntary association asks for more than the mere fixing of a just and reasonable rate for the future, in substitution of a rate alleged to be unjust, and demands damages for its members on account of previous shipments made by them under the rates attacked, nothing short of the affirmative compliance on the record with the requirements here indicated will be accepted by the Commission as sufficient to take such claims out of the limitation provided by law. The issue sought to be made in the first of the above entitled cases, even if well pleaded, would be controlled by the decision of the Commission in Laning-Harris Coal & Grain Co. v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co., 12 I. C. C. Rep., 479. It was there held that a published rate to a commercial center that does not affirmatively include delivery at industries on the terminals of other carriers entitles the consignee to a delivery only on the terminals of the line publishing the rate, and does not require that company to absorb the switching charges for delivering the shipment at points on the terminals of other lines. The complaint in the first of these cases is therefore without merit. The demand made for reparation in the third case is on shipments that moved prior to March 31, 1905, and in the last of the above entitled cases on shipments that moved prior to November 2, 1904. Those demands if now presented to the Commission by complaint in due form would clearly be barred by the limitation of the act. With respect to all but a small part of the claim made in the second case the limitation is also a bar. As to the remaining part of the claim in that case the complaint does not state a cause of action in such form as to enable the defendants to satisfy the demand, or the Commission to enter an order for reparation. The four complaints must therefore be dismissed. And it will be so ordered. No. 732. CATTLE RAISERS' ASSOCIATION OF TEXAS v. MISSOURI, KANSAS & TEXAS RAILWAY COMPANY; ATCHISON, TOPEKA & SANTA FE RAILWAY COMPANY; CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY; CHOCTAW, OKLAHOMA & GULF RAILROAD COMPANY; HOUSTON & SHREVEPORT RAILROAD COMPANY; KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY; MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY; ST. LOUIS, IRON MOUNTAIN & SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY; ST. LOUIS SOUTHWESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY; ST. LOUIS & SAN FRANCISCO RAILROAD COMPANY; UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY; CANE BELT RAILROAD COMPANY; CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & GULF RAILWAY COMPANY; CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & MEXICO RAILWAY COMPANY; CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & TEXAS RAILWAY COMPANY; CHOCTAW, OKLAHOMA & TEXAS RAILROAD COMPANY; EASTERN TEXAS RAILROAD COMPANY; EL PASO & NORTHEASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY; FORT WORTH & DENVER CITY RAILWAY COMPANY; FORT WORTH & RIO GRANDE RAILWAY COMPANY; GALVESTON, HARRISBURG & SAN ANTONIO RAILWAY COMPANY; GALVESTON, HOUSTON & HENDERSON RAILROAD COMPANY; GALVESTON, HOUSTON & NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY; GULF, BEAUMONT & GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY; GULF, BEAUMONT & KANSAS CITY RAILWAY COMPANY; GULF, COLORADO & SANTA FE RAILWAY COMPANY; GULF & INTERSTATE RAILWAY OF TEXAS; GULF, WESTERN TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY; HOUSTON, EAST & WEST TEXAS RAILWAY COMPANY; HOUSTON & TEXAS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY; INTERNATIONAL & GREAT NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY; MISSOURI, KANSAS & TEXAS RAILWAY COMPANY OF TEXAS; NEW YORK, TEXAS & MEXI CAN RAILWAY COMPANY; PARIS & GREAT NORTH- Submitted June 28, 1907. Decided April 14, 1908. 1. The conclusions announced by the Commission in this case in its opinion of August 16, 1905, are affirmed, and the rates therein pronounced excessive are held to be still excessive and unreasonable. 2. The rates prescribed to Chicago are held to be sufficient to carry a delivery at the Union Stock Yards, and the imposition of any terminal charge in excess of one dollar is declared unreasonable. 3. Reparation will only be allowed from August 29, 1906, when the complainant presented its petition for further proceedings under the amended act. Cowan, Burney & Goree for complainant. Ed. Baxter for defendants. James Hagerman and Joseph M. Bryson for Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company and Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company of Texas. Spoonts, Thompson & Barwise for Fort Worth & Denver City Railway Company. N. A. Stedman for International & Great Northern Railroad Company. Robert Dunlap and A. W. Houston for Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company. REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. PROUTY, Commissioner: Between February, 1899, and April, 1903, the defendants made marked advances in their rates upon live stock from breeding pastures of the southwest north of the quarantine line to northern ranges and from various maturing points west of the Missouri River to the principal markets of consumption. For the purpose of attacking these advances this petition was filed February 10, 1904. A very large amount of testimony was taken during the year 1904; the case was submitted, after elaborate argument, in the spring of 1905, and on August 16, 1905, the Commission filed its report, condemning, generally, the last advance, and holding that previous advances were justifiable. 11 I. C. C. Rep., 296. Upon the promulgation of that opinion the complainant filed with the Commission an application for more specific findings as to the advances which were condemned, and this petition was under advisement by the Commission in June, 1906, when the last amendments to the act to regulate commerce were adopted. On August 29, 1907, after those amendments had become effective, the complainant filed with the Commission a request that it proceed to the making of an order in the premises under the authority conferred upon it by the amended act. The defendants denied the authority of the Commission to do this, insisting that the case must be disposed of under the provisions of the act in force when the testimony was taken and the original report filed. The Commission held that no order could be made by it except as provided under the amended act, but that it was the right of both parties to be further heard before the making of such an order. The case was accordingly set down for further hearing, with notice to both parties that they would be allowed to introduce such additional testimony and to present such additional arguments as they might desire. Acting under this permission, considerable testimony was introduced by both parties, and the case has been reargued. Generally speaking, the additional testimony is merely cumulative, although |