Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/234/476/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 13:07:12+00:00

Document:
Prior to the amendment of June 18, 1910, § 4 of the Act to Regulate Commerce lodged in the carrier the right to exercise a primary judgment, subject to administrative control and ultimate judicial review, concerning the necessity and propriety of making a lower rate for the longer than the shorter haul, thus giving the carrier power to exert its judgment as to things of a public nature; but the amendment withdrew that right of primary judgment and lodged it in the Interstate Commerce Commission, to be exercised on request and after due investigation and consideration of the public interests concerned and in view of the preference and discrimination clauses of §§ 2 and 3 of the act.
The long- and short-haul provisions of § 4 of the Act to Regulate Commerce as amended by the Act of June 18, 1910, are not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States as a delegation of power to the Interstate Commerce Commission beyond the competency of Congress.
If a statute is constitutional, this Court must be governed by it and its plain meaning; with the wisdom of Congress in adopting the statute this Court has nothing to do.
In Louis. Nash. R. Co. v. Kentucky, 183 U. S. 503, this Court decided that a general enforcement of the long- and short-haul clause of the Act to Regulate Commerce would not be repugnant to the Constitution, and will not now reconsider and overrule that decision.
The Commerce Court had jurisdiction of a suit to enjoin the enforcement of the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission involved in these cases and which refused the request of carriers to put in force rates requested by them.
lower rate for the longer haul but only on terms stated in the order, establishing zones for the intermediate points and relative percentages upon which proportionate rates should be based.
The facts, which involve the constitutionality of the long- and short-haul provisions of the Act to Regulate Commerce as amended by the Act of June 18, 1910, and the validity of an order made in pursuance thereof by the Interstate Commerce Commission, are stated in the opinion.
the shorter or more direct routes, but applied also via the longer or more circuitous routes."
After full hearing, the Commission refused to grant unqualifiedly the prayer of the petition, but entered an order permitting, in some respects, a charge of a lower rate for the longer haul to the Pacific coast than was asked for intermediate points provided a proportionate relation was maintained between the lower rate for the longer haul to the Pacific coast and the higher rate to the intermediate points, the proportion to be upon the basis of percentages which were fixed. For the purposes of the order in question, the Commission in substance adopted a division of the entire territory into separate zones, which division had been resorted to by the carriers for the purposes of the establishment of the rates in relation to which the petition was filed. Refusing to comply with this order the carriers commenced proceedings in the Commerce Court praying a decree enjoining the enforcement of the fourth section as amended on the ground of its repugnancy to the Constitution of the United States, and of the order as being, in any event, violative of the amended section as properly construed. An interlocutory injunction was ordered. The defendants moved to dismiss, and, on the overruling of the motions, appealed from the interlocutory order, the case being No. 136. Subsequently, upon the election of the defendants to plead no further, a final decree was entered and appealed from, that appeal being No. 162.
deal with the subject involved in the complaint because controversies concerning the fourth section of the Act to Regulate Commerce of the nature here presented were, by an express statutory provision, excluded from the cognizance of the court below. (b) That, even if this be not the case, the action of the Commission which was complained of was purely negative, and therefore not within the cognizance of the court, because not inherently justiciable. (c) That, correctly interpreting the fourth section, the order made by the Commission was absolutely void because wholly beyond the scope of any power conferred by the fourth section as amended. (d) That even if, in some respects, the order of the Commission was within the reach of its statutory power, there was intermingled in the order such an exertion of authority not delegated as to cause the whole order to be void. (e) That the order of the Commission was void even if the fourth section be interpreted as conferring the authority which the Commission exerted, since, under that assumption, the fourth section as amended was repugnant to the Constitution.
All the propositions, even including the jurisdictional ones, are concerned with and depend upon the construction of the fourth section as amended, and we proceed to consider and pass upon that subject and every other question in the case under four separate headings: 1, the meaning of the statute; 2, its constitutionality; 3, the jurisdiction of the court; 4, the validity of the order in the light of the statute as interpreted.
1. The meaning of the statute.
We reproduce the section as originally adopted and as amended, bracketing the words omitted by the amendment and printing in italics those which were added by the amendment, thus at a glance enabling the section to be read as it was before and as it now stands after amendment.
subject to the provisions of this Act to charge or receive any greater compensation in the aggregate for the transportation of passengers, or of like kind of property, [under substantially similar circumstances and conditions,] for a shorter than for a longer distance over the same line or route in the same direction, the shorter being included within the longer distance, or to charge any greater compensation as a through route than the aggregate of the intermediate rates subject to the provisions of this Act; but this shall not be construed as authorizing any common carrier within the terms of this Act to charge [and] or receive as great compensation for a shorter as for a longer distance: Provided, however, That upon application to the Interstate Commerce Commission [appointed under the provisions of this Act], such common carrier may in special cases, after investigation [by the Commission], be authorized by the Commission to charge less for longer than for shorter distances for the transportation of passengers or property, and the Commission may from time to time prescribe the extent to which such designated common carrier may be relieved from the operation of this section [of this Act]; Provided, further, That no rates or charges lawfully existing at the time of the passage of this amendatory Act shall be required to be changed by reason of the provisions of this section prior to the expiration of six months after the passage of this Act, nor in any case where application shall have been filed before the Commission, in accordance with the provisions of this section, until a determination of such application by the Commission."
"Whenever a carrier by railroad shall in competition with a water route or routes reduce the rates on the carriage of any species of freight to or from competitive points, it shall not be permitted to increase such rates unless after hearing by the Interstate Commerce Commission it shall be found that such proposed increase rests upon changed conditions other than the elimination of water competition. "
Before considering the amended text, we state briefly some of the more important requirements of the section before amendment and the underlying conceptions of private right, of public duty and policy which it embodied, because to do so will go a long way to remove any doubt as to the amended text, and will moreover serve to demonstrate the intent of the legislative mind in enacting the amendment.
to judge primarily of the competitive conditions, and to meet them at election, the statute lodged in the carrier the right to exercise a primary judgment concerning a matter of public concern broader than the mere question of the duty of a carrier to carry for a reasonable rate, on the one hand, and of the right of the shipper, on the other, to compel carriage at such rate, since the power of primary judgment which the statute conferred concerned in a broad sense the general public interest with reference to both persons and places -- considerations all of which therefore, in their ultimate aspects, came within the competency of legislative regulation. It was apparent that the power thus conferred was primary, not absolute, since its exertion by the carrier was made by the statute the subject both of administrative control and ultimate judicial review. And the establishment of such control, in and of itself, serves to make manifest the public nature of the attributes conferred upon the carrier by the original fourth section. Indeed, that insofar as the statute empowered the carrier to judge as to the dissimilarity of circumstances and conditions for the purpose of relief from the long- and short-haul clause, it but gave the carrier the power to exert a judgment as to things public, was long since pointed out by this Court. Texas & Pac. Railway v. Interstate Com. Com., 162 U. S. 197, 162 U. S. 218.
legal discretion, as to whether the request should be granted compatibly with a due consideration of the private and public interests concerned, and in view of the preference and discrimination clauses of the second and third sections.
2. The alleged repugnancy of the section as amended to the Constitution.
of the long- and short-haul clause would not be repugnant to the Constitution (Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Kentucky, 183 U. S. 503), but we are asked to reconsider and overrule the case, and thus correct the error which was manifested in deciding it. But we are not in the remotest degree inclined to enter into this inquiry, not only because of the reasons which were stated in the case itself, but also because of those already expounded in this opinion, and for an additional reason, which is that the contention, by necessary implication, assails the numerous cases which, from the enactment of the Act to Regulate Commerce down to the present time, have involved the adequacy of the conditions advanced by carriers for justifying their departure from the long- and short-haul clause. We say this because the controversies which the many cases referred to considered and decided by a necessary postulate involved an assertion of the validity of the legislative power to apply and enforce the long- and short-haul clause. How can it be otherwise, since, if this were not the case, all the issues presented in the numerous cases would have been merely but moot, affording therefore no basis for judicial action, since they would have had back of them no sanction of lawful power whatever.
3. The jurisdiction of the court.
"nothing contained in this act shall be construed as enlarging the jurisdiction now possessed by the circuit courts of the United States or the judges thereof, that is hereby transferred to and vested in the Commerce Court,"
the proposition because it is completely disposed of by the construction which we have given to the amended section, since that construction makes it clear that the effect of the amended fourth section was not to create new powers theretofore nonexisting, but simply to redistribute the powers already existing and which were then subject to review. The argument affords another manifestation of the tendency to which we have already directed attention in this case to seek to maintain and aggrandize a power by insisting upon propositions which, if they were accepted, would raise the gravest question as to the constitutional validity of the asserted power -- a question which we need not at all consider in view of the want of foundation for the exercise of the power claimed in the light of the plain meaning of the act to the contrary which we have already pointed out.
duties must be accepted in case of judicial review, but that doctrine, as was also pointed out, does not relieve the courts in a proper case from determining whether the Constitution has been violated or whether statutory powers conferred have been transcended, or have been exercised in such an arbitrary way as to amount to the exertion of authority not given -- doctrines which but express the elementary principle that an investiture of a public body with discretion does not imply the right to abuse, but, on the contrary, carries which it as a necessary incident the command that the limits of a sound discretion be not transcended; which, by necessary implication, carries with it the existence of judicial power to correct wrongs done by such excess. And, without pausing to particularly notice it, we observe in passing that what has just been said is adequate to meet the contention that, as violations of the fourth section were made criminal, no power existed to enjoin an order of the Commission made under that, section because the consequence would be to enjoin criminal prosecution. The right which, as we have seen, the act gives to test the validity of orders rendered under the fourth section is not to be destroyed by a reference to a provision of that section. The two must be harmoniously enforced.
4. The validity of the order in the light of the statute as interpreted.
the Commission when acting upon the subject before it.
It results that the Commerce Court, in enjoining the order of the Commission, was wrong, and its decree to that end must therefore by reversed, and the case be remanded to the proper district court, with directions to dismiss the bill for want of equity.
*Docket title of these cases: No. 136, United States of America, Interstate Commerce Commission et al. v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company et al., No. 162, United States of America, Interstate Commerce Commission et al. v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company et al.
Interstate Com. Com. v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 145 U. S. 263; Cin., N.O. & Tex. Pac. Ry. v. Interstate Com. Com., 162 U. S. 184; Texas & Pac. Railway v. Interstate Com. Com., 162 U. S. 197; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Behlmer, 175 U. S. 648; East Tenn. &c. R. Co. v. Interstate Com. Com., 181 U. S. 1.
"FOURTH SECTION ORDER NO. 124."
"In the matter of the applications Nos. 205, 342, 343, 344, 349, 350, and 352, on behalf of the Transcontinental Freight Bureau, by R. H. Countiss, agent, for relief from the provisions of the fourth section of the Act to Regulate Commerce as amended June 18, 1910, with respect to rates made from eastern points of shipment which are higher to intermediate points than to Pacific coast terminals."
"These applications, as above numbered, on behalf of the Transcontinental Freight Bureau, ask for authority to continue rates from eastern points of shipment which are higher to intermediate points in Canada and in the States of Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, California, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington, and other states east thereof, than to Pacific coast terminals."
"Full investigation of the matters and things involved in these petitions, insofar as they concern westbound commodity rates, having been had,"
"It is ordered, That, for the purposes of the disposition of these applications, the United States shall be divided into five zones, as described in the following manner:"
"Zone No. 1 comprises all that portion of the United States lying west of a line called Line No. 1, which extends in a general southerly direction from a point immediately east of Grand Portage, Minnesota; thence southwesterly, along the northwestern shore of Lake Superior, to a point immediately east of Superior, Wisconsin; thence southerly, along the eastern boundary of Transcontinental Group F, to the intersection of the Arkansas and Oklahoma state line; thence along the west side of the Kansas City Southern Railway to the Gulf of Mexico."
"Zone No. 2 embraces all territory in the United States lying east of Line No. 1 and west of a line called Line No. 2, which begins at the international boundary between the United States and Canada, immediately west of Cockburn Island in Lake Huron; passes westerly through the Straits of Mackinaw; southerly through Lake Michigan to its southern boundary; follows the west boundary of Transcontinental Group C to Paducah, Kentucky; thence follows the east side of the Illinois Central Railroad to the southern boundary of Transcontinental Group C; thence follows the east boundary of Group C. to the Gulf of Mexico."
"Zone No. 3 embraces all territory in the United States lying east of Line No. 2 and north of the south boundary of Transcontinental Group C, and on and west of Line No. 3, which is the Buffalo Pittsburg line from Buffalo, New York, to Wheeling, West Virginia, marking the western boundary of Trunk Line Freight Association territory; thence follows the Ohio River to Huntington, West Virginia."
"Zone No. 4 embraces all territory in the United States east of Line No. 3 and north of the south boundary of Transcontinental Group C."
"Zone No. 5 embraces all territory south and east of Transcontinental Group C."
"It is further ordered, (1) That those portions of the above-numbered applications that request authority to maintain higher commodity rates from points in Zone No. 1 to intermediate points than to Pacific coast terminals be, and the same are hereby, denied, effective November 15, 1911; (2) that petitioners herein be, and they are hereby, authorized to establish and maintain, effective November 15, 1911, commodity rates from all points in zones numbered 2, 3, and 4, as above defined, to points intermediate to Pacific coast terminals, that are higher to intermediate points than to Pacific coast terminals; provided, that the rates to intermediate points from points in zones numbered 2, 3, and 4 shall not exceed the rates on the same commodities from the same points of origin to the Pacific coast terminals by more than 7 percent from points in Zone No. 2, 15 percent from points in Zone No. 3, and 25 percent from points in Zone No. 4."
"The commission does not hereby approve any rates that may be established under this authority, all such rates being subject to complaint, investigation, and correction if they conflict with any other provisions of the act."

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