trustee, and therefore incapable, upon general principles of equity, of bartering away, for its own benefit or convenience, the rights of the beneficiaries. In the light of the statute, the surety becomes bound for the performance of the work by the principal in accordance with the stipulations of the contract, and for the prompt payment of the sums due to all persons supplying labor and material in the prosecution of the work provided for in the contract. What would be the result of a change not contemplated in the original contract, as between the District of Columbia, consenting to the change, and the Surety Company, not consenting thereto, is a question not now before us, and respecting which we express no opinion. But with respect to obligations incurred by the contractor to . laborers and materialmen, at least so far as their labor and materials are supplied in accordance with the original contract, it is obvious, we think, that a construction which would discharge the surety because of any change to which the laborers and materialmen were not parties would defeat the principal object that Congress had in view in enacting the statute. If the change were so great as to amount to an abandonment of the contract and the substitution of a substantially different one, so that persons supplying labor and materials would necessarily be charged with notice of such abandonment, a different question would be presented. But, in the case of such a change as was here made a mere change of position and location of the building, without affecting its general character; involving changes in grading, but having nothing to do with the furnishing of the materials upon which the action is based-it seems to us that the responsibility of the surety to the materialman remains unaffected. The question certified will be answered in the negative. 234 U. S. Statement of the Case. MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. LARABEE. ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS. No. 135. Argued December 15, 16, 1913.—Decided June 22, 1914. A State cannot burden the right of access to this court, nor does the power of the State extend to regulating proceedings in this court. A state court has not, nor can a statute of the State give it, the power to assess as against one party to a suit in this court a sum for attorneys' fees for services rendered in this court as against another party to the suit, when such assessment is not authorized by the law of the United States or by the rules of this court. A writ of error from this court to review the judgment of a state court and the supersedeas authorized by the Judiciary Act are Federal and not state acts. A state court, when so authorized by the laws of the State, has the power to award actual damages for business losses which are suffered by reason of the acts sought to be controlled or enjoined in the suit after the allowance by this court of a writ of error and supersedeas, including reasonable attorneys' fees in the proceedings in the state court. Quare, whether the state court can award punitive damages. The existence of the right to sue on a supersedeas bond does not imply an exclusion of the right to sue under an existing general and applicable law for proper and reasonable damages. A classification which is based on the distinction between that which is ordinary and that which is extraordinary is reasonable and not repugnant to the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment which only restrains acts regulating judicial procedure so transcending the limits of classification as to cause them to conflict with the fundamental conceptions of just and equal legislation. A state statute imposing reasonable attorneys' fees in actual mandamus proceedings against the party refusing to obey a peremptory writ is not repugnant to the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment either because it does not apply to other proceedings or because it is not reciprocal. The classification is not unreasonable; and so held as to the statute to that effect of Kansas involved in this case and as herein applied. 85 Kansas, 214, reversed. A DISPUTE as to a small charge for demurrage having arisen between the Missouri Pacific Railway Company and Statement of the Case. 234 U.S. the Larabee Flour Mills Company, the Railway Company to enforce payment, suspended the rendering of a certain class of switching service which it had previously regularly performed for the Mills Company. The latter on September 15, 1906, commenced in the Supreme Court of Kansas mandamus proceedings to compel the continuance of the service. After a response to an alternative rule and a hearing on the eighth of December, 1906, the court granted a peremptory mandamus. 74 Kansas, 808. At the close of the opinion there was the following memorandum (p. 822): "The court has authority to render judgment in favor of the plaintiff for any damage it has sustained (Gen. Stats. 1901, sec. 5193). The plaintiff is given ten days in which to file a claim for damages, stating separately the character and amount of each item. The defendant is given ten days after notice of the filing of the claim in which to except to any items which it may deem not recoverable. The court will then pass upon the exceptions, if any be taken, and make orders respecting a hearing." Some days thereafter a claim of damages was filed enumerating fifteen items. The first eight concerned various business losses alleged to have been occasioned by the suspension of the service, such as decrease in the output of the mill, increased cost of hauling, etc., etc. Four of the claims on these subjects aggregated $4907.39, and four stated no amount but reserved the right to make a future claim for losses in case the litigation should be prolonged and the resumption of the service postponed. The remaining six items, with one exception, related to small expenses alleged to have been incurred in the mandamus suit. One of them, however, the fourteenth, made a charge of $2500 "to cash paid and plaintiff's agreement to pay Waters & Waters attorneys' fees in this case." The fifteenth item reserved the right to make a charge for future 234 U. S. Statement of the Case. legal services "if this case is taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, whatever such services may be worth." A few days after this claim was filed, on December 24, 1906, a writ of error was issued from this court to the judgment in mandamus and a bond to operate as a supersedeas was approved. About two years thereafter, on January 11, 1909, the case was decided in this court and the judgment below was affirmed. 211 U. S. 612. After the mandate went down, leave was given to file an amended claim for damages and on the same day a Commissioner was appointed to hear the testimony concerning it and report. The amended claim was filed. It was divided into three general classes, first, damages asserted to have arisen from loss of business, etc.; second, damages claimed as the result of the expenses and outlay for the suit; third, cost incurred or anticipated, occasioned by the hearing of the claim. The first, that is, the business losses, was embraced in separate items substantially following the order of the original claim, that is, it was based on alleged loss of output, increased cost of operation, etc., etc. The amounts of many of these items were larger as they covered the time from the discontinuance of the service up to the filing of the amended claim. The aggregate of the claims was $18,921.90 as compared with $4907.39 made at the time of the first claim. The second, the expenses of the suit, was greatly changed. Leaving out two insignificant items, as amended the claim was in substance as follows: The claim for $2500 paid or to be paid to Waters & Waters for personal services was changed to read, "For the reasonable value of the services of Waters & Waters to bring this action and to attend to the same in the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas, the sum of..... $ 2,500.00 Statement of the Case. "Tenth: For the reasonable value of the services of Waters & Waters in this case in the Supreme Court of the United States, the sum of..... "Eleventh: For cash paid out for printed briefs in the State and United States Supreme Court, the sum of.. "Twelfth: For the reasonable value of the professional services of John F. Switzer, attorney at law, employed to assist Waters & Waters in the Supreme Court of the United States, the plaintiff in the best judgment of the partners composing said firm, deeming it necessary after considering the momentous and far-reaching controversy made, urged and argued in the Supreme Court of the United States and which controversy it could not avoid, the sum of..... "Thirteenth: For the reasonable value of the professional services of the firm of Rossington & Smith, attorneys at law, also employed to present the case of the plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the United States, the plaintiff in the best judgment of the partners composing said firm, deeming it necessary, after considering the momentous and farreaching controversy made, urged and contended for in the Supreme Court of the United States, and which controversy it could not avoid, the sum of..... "Fourteenth: For the railroad fare, hotel bills and reasonable expenses of W. H. Rossington and J. G. Waters in attending on the United States Supreme Court in April, 1908, the sum of $250 each and making a total of.... 234 U.S. $40,000.00 93.50 3,000.00 30,000.00 500.00 |