Robinson

—This action was brought to restrain the appellants from prosecuting about five hundred suits, which it was alleged in the complaint they had already commenced, and also from bringing any other actions based on claims for penalties of two hundred dollars each, which they claimed were due them by reason of alleged violations by the respondent of the provisions of section 490 of the Civil Code. It is alleged that they comprised a confederacy of individuals, who had been seeking to extort money from the railroad company by laying apparent foundations for claims to penalties, bringing suits thereon, and prosecuting those suits severally to final judgment. Issue was joined, and upon the trial the court found as a fact that 674 of these actions were pending in various justices’ courts, and also found that about 2,300 other alleged causes of action of the same general character were held by them. It thus appears that appellants held about three thousand alleged causes of action against plaintiff, which they were either prosecuting or threatening to prosecute, and upon which they were claiming six hundred thousand dollars in penalties, or, as they term it, “ liquidated damages.”

This…