Pеtitioner brought this suit in the District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleging that respondent, known to be аn interstate carrier, had negligently failed to deliver to the addressee in California a package shipped from Waco, Texas, and claiming damages in the sum of $750,-000. The trial court ordered petitioner to attach to his complaint a copy of the exprеss receipt which he received *351 upon delivering the package to respondеnt. This receipt contained a $50 valuation. Thereupon the court granted respondent’s motion to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the amount in controversy was less than the $3,000 necessary to sustain jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 41(1), Jud. Code § 24(1). The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. We granted сertiorari to inquire whether the suit could be maintained under 28 U. S. C. § 41(8), Jud. Code § 24(8), granting the district courts jurisdiction “Of аll suits and proceedings arising under any law regulating commerce,” irrespective of the amount involved.
The pertinent act of Congress is 49 U. S. C. § 20(11), originally the Carmack Amendment of 1906, 34 Stat. 593, since amended several times to its present form. The section requires an interstate common сarrier receiving property for shipment to issue a receipt or bill of lading. The carrier is made liable to the holder “for any loss, damage, or injury to such property causеd by it” or connecting carriers. If the injury does not occur on the initial carrier’s line, but it respоnds in damages, it is entitled to recover over from the responsible carrier. Further, the initial сarrier is made liable to the shipper for full damages sustained, notwithstanding any limitation of liability in the receipt or bill of lading, with the exception, important here, that where a carriеr by authority or direction of the Interstate Commerce Commission maintains rates dependent upon the value of the property declared in writing by the shipper, such declaratiоn also limits liability of the carrier for loss or damage to an amount not in excess of the dеclared value.
Following the Carmack Amendment, this Court in several cases upheld the pоwer of the receiving carrier to limit its liability to an agreed valuation, made to obtain the lower of two or more rates. See
Adams Express Co.
v.
*352
Croninger,
Respondent, confessing error, asserts that under § 20 (11) as it now stands, a suit brought against a single interstate carrier for its negligent non-delivery, is one not merely to enforce a common law liability limited by an Act of Congress; but that petitioner’s cause of action has its origin in and is сontrolled by such Act, and so “arises under” it. Any doubts as to the correctness of this position 1 are resolved by the Act of January 20,1914, c. 11, 38 Stat. 278, 28 U. S. C. § 71, regulating removal to the federal courts of suits brought undеr the Carmack Amendment in the state courts.
After the Carmack Amendment a conflict of deсisions had developed in the lower federal courts on the question whether suits for damagеs brought against interstate carriers under the amendment were suits “arising under” an act regulating commerce, so that their removal from state to federal district courts would be permitted.
McGoon
v.
Northern Pacific Ry. Co.,
The report of the House Judiciary Committee on H. R. 9994, 63d Cong., 2d Sess. (which was the same in substance as S. 3484, which became the 1914 law), expressly recognized the effect and authority of thе decision in the McGoon case. In prohibiting removals where less than $3,000 is in controversy, instead of impоsing the $3,000 limitation directly on all suits brought in the federal courts under the Carmack Amendment, Congress recognized that such suits arise under a law regulating commerce within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 41 (8), and sanctioned the exercise of original jurisdiction by the district courts in such cases. See H. Rep. No. 120, 63d Cong., 2d Sess.; also 51 Cong. Ree. 1327, 1544-1548.
Whether a suit arises under a law of the United States must appear from the plaintiff’s pleading, not the defenses which may be interposed to, or be anticipatеd by it. Petitioner’s pleading, which we have summarized, satisfies this requirement, since it adequately disclоses a present controversy dependent for its outcome upon the construction of a federal statute. See
Tennessee
v.
Union
&
Planters’ Bank,
Reversed..
Notes
Compare
Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co.
v.
Rankin,