Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/216/531/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 00:44:52+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 216 › ICC v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co.
Where a statute creates a new right and a commission is given power to extend relief in regard thereto at the instance of a specified.class, its power is limited thereto, and so held that the Interstate Commerce Commission has power to compel switch connections with lateral branch roads under § 1 of the Act of March 4, 1887, c. 104, 24 Stat. 379, as amended by § 1 of the Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3591, 34 Stat. 584, only at the instance, as stated therein, of shippers; it has no power to do so on the application of a branch railroad.
Quaere, and not decided, whether the railroad on whose behalf the application in this case was made was a lateral branch road within the meaning of the statute.
This is a bill in equity, brought by the plaintiff, appellee, to prevent the enforcement of an order made by the appellant, requiring the plaintiff to establish a switch connection with the Rahway Valley Railroad Company's road. 14 I.C.C. 191. The order was made on June 24, 1908, under the Act to Regulate Commerce, February 4, 1887, c. 104, § 1, 24 Stat. 379, as amended by the Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3591, § 1, 34 Stat. 584. Then this bill was brought; the Attorney General filed a certificate that the case was of general public importance; Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3591, § 5, 34 Stat. 590; Act of February 11, 1903, c. 544, § 1, 32 Stat. 823; the Interstate Commerce Commission demurred; the case was brought up before three circuit judges; a preliminary injunction was issued on the ground that the appellant, the Interstate Commerce Commission, had exceeded its power, and an appeal was taken at once and directly to this Court, as allowed by the Act of 1906. 166 F. 498.
in New Jersey. The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Company, the appellee, is a common carrier subject to the acts of Congress regulating commerce. Between Denville, New Jersey, and Hoboken, it has two branches or lines, the northerly, the Boonton branch, being devoted specially to freight, the southerly, the Morris & Essex line, devoted as exclusively as may be to passenger traffic. This southerly branch passes through Summit, and the Rahway Valley Railroad Company petitioned for and got an order requiring the appellee to make a switch connection with its road at that place. As the order interferes with the just-stated policy of the appellee as to its southerly line, it resisted the petition and brought this suit.
of this section in accordance with such order, and such order shall be enforced as hereinafter provided for the enforcement of all other orders by the Commission, other than orders for the payment of money."
The question is raised whether the Rahway road is a "lateral, branch line of railroad" relatively to the appellee. There certainly is force in the contention that the words of the statute mean a railroad naturally tributary to the line of the common carrier ordered to make the connection, and dependent upon it for an outlet to the markets of the country, which, according to the bill, the Rahway road is not. There is force in the argument that a road already having connection with the roads of two carriers subject to the act, and having joint routes and through rates with them, cannot be regarded as a lateral, branch line of railroad of another road situated like the appellee. On the other hand, it would be going far to lay down the universal proposition that a feeder might not be a lateral, branch road of one line at one end, and of another at the other. We leave this doubtful question on one side, because we agree with the circuit judges in the considerations upon which they decided the case.
complaints by shippers than by others. The argument that shippers were mentioned to insure their rights in case of a refusal to connect with a lateral line is excluded by the form of the statute, which obviously is providing the only remedy that Congress has in mind. It may or may not be true that the distinction is not very effective, but it stands in the law, and must be accepted as the limit of the Commission's power.

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