The Denaby Main Colliery and the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway

In the Court of Appeal yesterday, before the Master of the Rolls and Lords Justices Cotton and Lindley, the case came up of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway Company v. the Denaby Main Colliery Company. This was the appeal of the defendants from part of the order of Justices Mathew and Day on a special case stated by the arbitrator. The action was at trial at York Assizes, was referred. This was an action brought by the plaintiffs against defendants for a sum of £4,972, balance of carriage account, with a counter-claim for over-charges amounting to £30,000 from 14th December, 1874, to 14th December, 1880. The action was referred, with power to arbitrator to state a special case, and that case as stated by the arbitrator may be briefly summarised.

The defendants are colliery owners carrying on business at the Denaby Main Colliery, near Doncaster. The colliery was situated on the plaintiffs’ line of railway, and the plaintiffs thence to other lines of railway, and the defendants sell coals at Grimsby, Goole, and Hull. Among the customers of the defendants are Mr. Bannister and Messrs. Josse and Company, coal merchants at Grimsby; but the latter firm also carried on business at Goole and Hull. The plaintiffs’ railway was the only one leading from the South Yorkshire coalfields, in which the defendants’ colliery is situated. Bannister paid the carriage on the coals carried for him, and received a rebate of 8d. per ton from the published rate of carriage in respect of all coals shipped by certain steamers known as the Hamburg American steamers, which had been induced to stop at Grimsby on their getting coal cheaper by 10d. or 1s. per ton; but the defendants alleged that they had a right under the equality clause of the Company’s Act to receive the same rebates as Bannister on the carriage of coals.

The court below held on the special case that the defendants were entitled to recover the overcharges, but not to claim damages. From this judgment the defendants now appealed. — Mr. Webster, Q.C., Mr. Forbes, Q.C., and Mr. Lofthouse appeared for the appellants; and the Solicitor-General, Mr. Littler, Q.C., and Mr. C. Russell were counsel for the respondents. — It was stated that the decision in this case involved the rates of carriage to 48 collieries in the South Yorkshire colliery district; but the arguments had not concluded when the court rose.