Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/225/282/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 02:21:16+00:00

Document:
Subdivision 2 of § 1 of the act creating the Commerce Court, now § 207 of the new Judicial Code, giving the Commerce Court jurisdiction of cases brought to enjoin, set aside, annul or suspend orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission, confers on that court jurisdiction only to entertain complaints as to affirmative orders of the Commission.
Under the act, the Commerce Court is not given jurisdiction to redress complaints based exclusively, as in this case, on the ground that the Commission has refused the relief asked on the ground that it could not award it.
To construe the act creating the Commerce Court so as to give it jurisdiction to originally interpret the administrative features of the Interstate Commerce Act and to construe a refusal of the Commission to grant relief as an affirmative order would frustrate the legislative policy which led to the adoption of the act, and would multiply the evils which it was designed to prevent.
The act creating the Commerce Court was intended to be a part of the existing system for regulating interstate commerce. While originally the duty of determining whether an order of the Commission should be enforced carried with it the obligation to consider both the facts and the law, it had come to pass prior to the adoption of the act creating the Commerce Court that the jurisdiction of courts over orders of the Commission is confined to determining whether they were in violation of the Constitution or failed to conform to statutory authority, and to ascertaining whether power had been arbitrarily exercised beyond the power conferred.
Commerce Act, is beyond the jurisdiction of the Commerce Court.
Where the constitutional question is dependent upon provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act, it is subject to the precedent action of the Commission, as to which the Commerce Court only has jurisdiction in case of a prior affirmative order of the Commission.
The Commerce Court has no jurisdiction over a claim made by the owner of private cars to recover on a money demand based on the illegality of charges alleged to have been wrongfully exacted by the railroad companies and which the Commission had refused to allow.
The facts, which involve the construction of the statute creating the Commerce Court and the determination of extent of jurisdiction of that court, are stated in the opinion.
commission and a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and were adopted in convention by the National Association, and were subsequently approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission, although putting them in force was not imperatively prescribed by that body.
Commission dismissing the complaint as above set forth "is null and void and beyond the power of said Interstate Commission in that it sustains the validity of . . . said demurrage rules."
that complainant be granted such other and further relief as it may be entitled to in the premises."
"Because the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission complained of directed no affirmative relief and the negative order of the Commission dismissing the complaint affords no ground for an action in this Court."
"(a) It prays that the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission be enjoined when said order directed no action against any party, and therefore the same is not subject either to enforcement or to injunction."
"(b) It prays that the defendant common carriers, who are not proper parties to this proceeding except on their own motion, be enjoined from collecting the demurrage mentioned when no order inhibiting the same has been made by the Interstate Commerce Commission and, in the absence of such an order, this Court has no power to grant such relief."
"(c) It prays that the defendant common carriers be required to repay to complainant all sums heretofore wrongfully collected as demurrage, when this Court has no power or jurisdiction to grant such relief, either with or without an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission directing such repayment."
United States and the Interstate Commerce Commission, however, on the overruling of its demurrer and a refusal to grant its motion to dismiss, elected to stand thereon and declined to plead further.
In disposing of the case, the court considered it in a two-fold aspect -- first as to its jurisdiction, and second as to the merits of the case. On the first subject, it held (a) that it had jurisdiction of the cause, and that the refusal of the Interstate Commerce Commission to afford relief to the Procter & Gamble Company was, for the purposes of jurisdiction of the court, the exact equivalent of an order of the Commission granting affirmative relief, and (b) as a corollary of this power, it was further decided that there was jurisdiction to award pecuniary relief for demurrage if any was illegally exacted. On the merits, however, it was decided that the Interstate Commerce Commission had rightfully refused to grant relief and that there was no foundation for the contention that the property of the company in its private tank cars was taken without due process of law by the demurrage regulations. On this subject, it was declared that, as the company had accepted the provisions of the published tariffs concerning the use of the tank cars, therefore those cars were submitted to the regulations which the carriers had lawfully established. In other words, the court concluded that, because the company had availed of the proffer of the railroads to use the cars in transportation and pay for their use a stated sum, the company had acquired no right to disregard restrictions against preferences and discriminations embodied in the Act to Regulate Commerce.
the bill. Before we can come, if at all, to consider the merits, however, it is necessary to dispose of the question concerning the jurisdiction of the court below to entertain the petition, because the United States insists at bar, as it did in the lower court, that the court erred in overruling the demurrer to the jurisdiction and refusing to dismiss the cause for want of jurisdiction.
"SEC. 207. The Commerce Court shall have the jurisdiction possessed by circuit courts of the United States and the judges thereof immediately prior to June eighteenth, nineteen hundred and ten, over all cases of the following kinds:"
"First. All cases for the enforcement, otherwise than by adjudication and collection of a forfeiture or penalty, or by infliction of criminal punishment, of any order of the Interstate Commerce Commission other than for the payment of money."
"Second. cases brought to enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend, in whole or in part, any order of the Interstate Commerce Commission."
"Third. Such cases as by section three of the act entitled, 'An Act to Further Regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations and Among the states,' approved February nineteenth, nineteen hundred and three, are authorized to be maintained in a circuit court of the United States."
amended, are authorized to be maintained in a circuit court of the United States."
"Nothing contained in this chapter 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 jurisdiction of the Commerce Court over cases of the foregoing classes shall be exclusive; but this chapter shall not affect the jurisdiction possessed by any circuit or district court of the United States over cases or proceedings of a kind not within the above-enumerated classes."
The question to be decided is this: does the authority with which the Commerce Court is clothed in virtue of these provisions invest that body with jurisdiction to redress complaints based exclusively upon the conception that the Interstate Commerce Commission, in a matter submitted to its judgment and within its competency to consider, has mistakenly refused, upon the ground that no right to the relief claimed was given by the Act to Regulate Commerce, to award the relief which was claimed at its hands? In other words, the important question is, is the authority of the Commerce Court confined to enforcing or restraining, as the case may require, affirmative orders of the Commission, or has it the power to exert its own judgment by originally interpreting the administrative features of the Act to Regulate Commerce, and upon that assumption treat a refusal of the Commission to grant relief as an affirmative order, and accordingly pass on its correctness?
of orders of the Commission as therein described; the third deals only with cases brought under the Act of February 19, 1903, which is wholly foreign to the subject here reviewed, since the act referred to relates only to proceedings to enjoin either discriminations or departures by carriers from their published rates, and the fourth refers exclusively to the right to mandamus, conformably to § 20 or 23 of the Act to Regulate Commerce, which sections are concerned with the performance of certain duties imposed upon carriers by the Act to Regulate Commerce. The words of this second subdivision are: "Second. cases brought to enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend, in whole or in part, any order of the Interstate Commerce Commission."
the first paragraph. In other words, by the cooperation of the two paragraphs, authority is given, on the one hand, to enforce compliance with the orders of the Commission, if lawful, and on the other hand, power is conferred to stay the enforcement of an illegal order. The other provisions of the act are equally convincing. Thus, § 3 (208), provides that the mere pendency of a suit to enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend an order of the Commission "shall not stay or suspend the operation of such order," but confers upon the court the power, under circumstances stated, to restrain or suspend, in whole or in part, the operation of an order. The same section, moreover, causes the meaning of the provision, if possible, to become clearer by making a finding that irreparable injury will result from the operation of an order sought to be enforced essential to the granting of an order or injunction restraining or suspending its enforcement.
"An Act to Create a Commerce Court, and to Amend the Act Entitled 'An Act to Regulate Commerce,' Approved February Fourth, Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-seven, as Heretofore Amended, and for Other Purposes."
The first six sections, which called into being the Commerce Court and defined its powers, all demonstrate the purpose as above stated -- that is, to adjust the powers and duties of the newly created court in such manner as to cause them to accord with the system of regulation provided by the Act to Regulate Commerce as it then existed.
nature, and second, for their harmonious development, an official unity of action which could only be brought about by a single administrative initiative and primary control. To that end, the act (§ 11) created an administrative body endowed with what may be, in some respects, qualified as quasi-judicial attributes, to whom was confided the enforcement of those provisions of the act which essentially exacted unity in order that they might beneficially operate. And for the purposes stated, to the body thus created was committed the trust of enforcing the act in the respect stated, of determining, limited as to the subject matters to which we have referred, whether the provisions of the act had been violated, and if so, of primarily enforcing the act by awarding appropriate relief. The statute therefore necessarily, while it created new rights in favor of shippers in order to make those rights fruitful as to the subjects with which the statute dealt, coming within the scope of the administrative unity which we have mentioned, primarily made the judgment of the administrative body to whom the statute confided the enforcement of the act in the respects stated a prerequisite to a resort to the courts. In other words, as to the subjects stated, the act did not give to the courts power to hear the complaint of a party concerning a violation of the act, but only conferred power to give effect to such complaints when, by previous submission to the Commission, they had been sanctioned by a command of that body.
to the meaning of the Act to Regulate Commerce by dealing directly with the subject, irrespective of any prior affirmative command or action by the Interstate Commerce Commission. On the contrary, by a long line of decisions whereby applications to enforce orders of the Commission were considered and disposed of or where requests to restrain the enforcement of such orders were passed upon, it appears by the reasoning indulged in that it was never considered that there was power in the courts as an original question, without previous affirmative action by the Commission, to deal with what might be termed in a broad sense the administrative features of the Act to Regulate Commerce by determining as an original question that there had been a compliance or noncompliance with the provisions of the act. The subject is illustrated and made clear by the rulings in State of Washington ex Rel. Oregon Railroad & Navigation Co. v. Fairchild, 224 U. S. 510; Robinson v. Balt. & Ohio R. Co., 222 U. S. 506; Southern Railway Co. v. Reid, 222 U. S. 424, and Texas & Pacific Ry. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426. The latter case especially will serve to point out that, where the power of original action by a court, without previous action of the Commission, was insisted upon, it was based upon the conception that the particular subject matter as to which such power was asserted was, by the express terms of the Act to Regulate Commerce, not embraced within the subjects primarily confided by the act exclusively to the administrative authority of the Commission.
were confined by statutory operation to determining whether there had been violations of the Constitution, a want of conformity to statutory authority, or of ascertaining whether power had been so arbitrarily exercised as virtually to transcend the authority conferred, although it may be not technically doing so. Int. Com. Comm. v. Union Pacific R. Co., 222 U. S. 541, 222 U. S. 547; Int. Com. Comm. v. Ill. Cent. R. Co., 215 U. S. 452. So also, at the time the law creating the Commerce Court was passed, suits to compel obedience to orders of the Commission, or to restrain an enforcement of such orders, were required to be brought in the circuit court of the United States in the district where a carrier, or one of two or more carriers to whom the order was directed, had its principal operating office.
the court for the Commission, or, at all events, would be to create a divided authority on a matter where, from the beginning, primary singleness of action and unity was deemed to be imperative. Third, because the result of the interpretation would be to bring about the contradiction and the confusion which it had been the inflexible purpose of the lawmaker from the beginning to guard against -- an interpretation which would seemingly create rights hitherto nonexistent, and yet at once proceed to destroy such rights by bringing about a confusion which would render the rights which the act creates practically valueless. Indeed, these inevitable results of the interpretation given by the court below to the act would necessarily amount to declaring that Congress, in seeking to unify and perfect the administrative machinery of the Act to Regulate Commerce and to make more beneficial its operation, had overthrown the whole fabric of the system as previously existing.
at naught the whole system of interstate commerce regulation.
Some suggestion is made in argument concerning the alleged claim of constitutional right asserted in the petition filed below, and which the court disposed of in the manner we have stated. But what we have said suffices to point out the fallacy which the contention involves, for the following reasons: if the claim of constitutional right concerned a subject which, from its very nature and effect, dominated the Act to Regulate Commerce, and therefore was wholly independent of all questions of right or remedy created by or depending upon that statute, then the issue presented a controversy not cognizable in the Commerce Court, as it could not so be without violating the express reservation and restriction as to the general power of the circuit courts which we have just quoted. If, on the other hand, the constitutional question was involved in or depended upon the provisions of the Act to Regulate Commerce, that question, in the nature of things, was subject to the precedent action of the Commission on the subjects committed to it by the Act to Regulate Commerce, and as to which the court had jurisdiction alone to act, in virtue of a prior affirmative order of the Commission.
The general considerations which we have stated establish the error committed by the court below in holding that it had jurisdiction over the claim of the Procter & Gamble Company to recover on a money demand based on the illegality of the demurrage charges alleged to have been wrongfully exacted by the railroad companies. Through abundance of precaution, we, however, say that, wholly irrespective of the general considerations stated, we think the conclusion of the court as to its possession of jurisdiction over the subject referred to was clearly repugnant in other respects to the express terms of the act.
that our duty is to remand the cause to the court below, with directions to dismiss the petition for want of jurisdiction.
"Rule 29. (Sec. 1.) In providing ratings in this classification for articles in tank cars, the carriers whose tariffs are governed by this classification do not assume any obligation to furnish tank cars in cases where they do not own or have not made arrangements for supplying such equipment. When tank cars are furnished by shippers or owners, mileage at the rate of three quarters (3/4) of one cent per mile will be allowed for the use of such tank cars, loaded or empty, provided the cars are properly equipped. No mileage will be allowed on cars switched at terminals nor for movement of cars under empty freight car tariffs."
"Cars held for or by consignors or consignees for loading, unloading, forwarding directions, or for any other purpose, are subject to these demurrage rules, except as follows:"
"(a) Cars loaded with livestock."
"(b) Empty cars placed for loading coal at mines or mine sidings, or coke at coke ovens."
"(c) Empty private cars stored on carrier's or private tracks, provided such cars have not been placed or tendered for loading on the order of a shipper."
"NOTE. -- Private cars while in railroad service, whether on carrier's or private tracks, are subject to these demurrage rules to the same extent as cars of railroad ownership."
"(Empty private cars are in railroad service from the time they are placed by the carriers for loading or tendered for loading on the orders of a shipper. Private cars under lading are in railroad service until the lading is removed and cars are regularly released. Cars which belong to an industry performing its own switching service are in railroad service from the time they are placed by the industry upon designated interchange tracks and thereby tendered to the carrier for movement. If such cars are subsequently returned empty, they are out of service when withdrawn by the industry from the interchange; if returned under load, railroad service is not at an end until the lading is duly removed.)"
"Complainant avers that said order of said Interstate Commerce Commission, in dismissing its complaint as above set forth, is null and void and beyond the power of said Interstate Commerce Commission in that it sustains the validity of Rule I of said demurrage; that said Rule I, so far as it provides that privately owned cars under lading on private tracks are in railroad service and subject to the demurrage charges imposed by said tariffs until the lading is removed, is unjust and unreasonable in that it deprives complainant of the right to use its said private cars upon private tracks for its own purposes without paying the defendant railway companies demurrage charges therefor, after said private cars have been delivered to complainant, and have actually ceased to be engaged in railroad service; that the charges exacted by the defendant railway companies of complainant under said provision of said rule permit said defendants to take complainant's property without compensation, and deprive it of its property without due process of law in violation of the Constitution of the United States, and particularly of Article V in amendment thereof, and that said provision of said rule is in violation of the said Act to Regulate Commerce, and particularly of §§ 1 and 15 thereof, as amended June 29, 1906; that said defendants are now exacting such demurrage charges under the provisions of said rule, and will continue to do so, unless the said order of said Interstate Commerce Commission is set aside and annulled by this Court, and defendant railway companies are enjoined from enforcing the provisions of said rule."

References: § 1
 § 207
 § 20
 § 3
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