Case ID: us-ct-cl_60/html/0999-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PANHANDLE & SANTA FE RAILWAY CO. v. THE UNITED STATES
    [No. B-442.
    Decided June 15, 1925]
    
      On the Proofs
    
    
      Railroad rates; protest; restatement of Mils. — Payment of bills in the amounts at which they were restated at the instance of a disbursing officer, received under protest, does not defeat plaintiff’s right to, proper compensation.
    
      The Reporter’s statement of the case:
    
      Mr. Lawrence II. Cake for the plaintiff. Britton t& Gray were on the briefs.
    
      Messrs. George H. Foster and Joseph II. Sheppard, with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General Robert E. Lovett, for the defendant.
    The folio wing, are the facts as found by the court:
    I. The plaintiff, a corporation, is a common carrier by railroad, its tariff charges for freight and passenger service being duly published and filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission in accordance with law.
    II. In March, 1917, at the request of the officers and agents of the United States, the plaintiff, in cooperation with other carriers, transported for the United States on Government freight bills of lading as freight certain shipments of military impedimenta and company property. One of these shipments Ava's on Government bill of lading WQ-9307, dated March 26, 1917. The other was on Government bill of lading WQ-9281-A, dated March 24, 1917. Both were issued by the depot quartermaster at St. Louis, Mo.
    III. For the service on bill of lading WQ-9307 the plaintiff, as delivering carrier, submitted its audit bill 1886-P (frt. 6035) for $408. For the seiwice on bill of lading WQ-9281-A the plaintiff submitted its audit bill 2186-P (frt. 6057) for $402. These bills were computed on the basis of a rate of “ Class A net cash ” on military impedimenta and camp equipage which was named in Supplement No. 10 to Southwestern Lines Classification Circular No. 1-G, Leland’s I. C. C. No. 1137, item 1468-E, a certified copy of which is attached hereto as Appendix A and is made part hereof by reference.
    IV. The depot quartermaster to whom the bills were submitted declined to pay them in the amounts stated and advised the plaintiff that they must be restated for $84 and $76, respectively, these amounts being computed on the basis of a rate of class D applicable to the transportation of emigrants’ movables and household goods. The plaintiff thereupon resubmitted the bills as requested by the depot quartermaster, at the same time indorsing on them the following statement (unsigned) :
    “Payment of this bill at the amount of $84.00 ($76.00), being the class D rate of 42^ per cwt. on a minimum weight of 20,000 lbs. as claimed by the Quartermaster, U. S. War Department, is hereby accepted under protest. Furthermore, the Panhandle & Santa Fe R’y. Co. reserves the right to submit a supplementary bill for the amount of underpayment claimed‘incident to the original settlement.
    -5
    
      Auditor?
    
    The bills were then paid in the amounts of $84 and $76, respectively, by vouchers 2831 and 18483, accounts of Capt. R. G. Wood, Quartermaster Corps, for April and May, 1918.
    
      Y. The shipments in question moved by the direct route from San Antonio via the International & Great Northern Eailroad to Milano, Tex.; thence by the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Eailroad to Sweetwater, Tex.; thence via the plaintiff’s line to destinations. There is no practicable or usually traveled route from San Antonio to Plainview or from San Antonio to Amarillo involving land-grant mileage and equalized by the carrier performing the service.
    YI. The bills of lading on which these shipments moved described the property as “ 165 pieces Government property ” and “ 1 carload company property, Company L.” The carrier was not furnished by the Government any other description of the property shipped. *
    The court decided that plaintiff was entitled to recover.
   MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT

The court has held that the “ net cash ” rate can not be used to defeat land-grant deductions. The present case does not involve any land-grant deduction. When the bills were presented the disbursing officer declined to pay them, and following a ruling of the comptroller informed the plaintiff that they would have to be stated as upon the basis of an “ emigrant movable rate.” The bills were restated, but payment of them as restated was under protest. The acceptance of payment in the circumstances does not defeat the plaintiff’s right to proper compensation.1 (See Southern Pacific Railroad Company case, No. 33946, decided by the Supreme Court May 11, 1925, 268 U. S. 263.) The rate applied by the accounting officer in making the deduction was not a proper one. Bush, Receiver, etc., 56 C. Cls. 490; Maine Central Railroad Company, 56 C. Cls. 490; Illinois Centred Railroad Company, 58 C. Cls. 182.

In the circumstances of this case the tariff rate should be applied. Judgment is rendered for the plaintiff accordingly.

Graham, Judge, took no part in the decision of this case.