Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/297/500/
Timestamp: 2020-04-08 14:14:22
Document Index: 274151261

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1', '§ 8', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 42', '§ 42', '§ 10', '§ 41', '§ 26', '§ 16']

Terminal Warehouse Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co. :: 297 U.S. 500 (1936) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 297 › Terminal Warehouse Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co.
1. An order of the Interstate Commerce Commission adjudging a preference illegal upon complaint of a shipper but refusing to require reparation from the carrier upon the ground that no damage was proved, is not conclusive against the right of the complainant to recover damages from another shipper who enjoyed the preference and who had intervened in the proceedings, but against whom no damages were there prayed. P. 297 U. S. 511.
Certiorari, 296 U.S. 560, to review the reversal of a judgment for treble damages in an action under the Anti-Trust Act.
In this action under the Anti-Trust Acts (15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 15) for the recovery of treble damages, the Terminal Warehouse Company, petitioner in this Court, accuses a competitor, the Merchants Warehouse Company, and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, an interstate common
No secret was made of the existence of this contract or of any of the others. On the contrary, the substance of the whole arrangement was set forth in the tariffs of the railroad filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission and open to the public. Pennsylvania there showed that it had designated the warehouses of Merchants as stations for the receipt and delivery of freight. It also
Terminal, a rival warehouse, organized in 1904, was quick to occupy the vantage ground left open by that ruling. It laid before the Interstate Commerce Commission a complaint charging Pennsylvania with unjust discrimination in the practices described. It asked that a restraining order protect it for the future, and that there be an award of reparation for losses suffered in the past. There were separate complaints as to the acts of other railroads (the Baltimore & Ohio and the Reading), which had terminal arrangements with warehouses of their own
The carriers, together with Merchants and other warehouse companies interveners in the proceeding, brought suit in a federal court (three judges sitting) to vacate the order of the Commission. The bills of complaint were dismissed, one judge dissenting. Merchants' Warehouse Co. v. United States, 44 F.2d 379. Upon appeal to this Court, the decree was affirmed. Merchants' Warehouse Co. v. United States, 283 U. S. 501. The opinion there rendered is so exact in its description of the nature and effect of the unlawful practices as to make elaboration useless now. In particular, the court points out that a warehouse designated as a station was in a position to receive package freight in less than carload lots, and ship it at carload rates without charge to the customer for assembling the packages and loading them, this by reason of the fact that the warehouse had been
We have seen that Terminal asked for reparation as well as for a restraining order at the hands of the Commission. There is no doubt that the Commission had jurisdiction in response to that request to make an award against the railroad for damages suffered by the complainant as a result of the unlawful practices. 49 U.S.C. §§ 8, 9, 16(1, 2); Interstate Commerce Comm'n v. United States, 289 U. S. 385; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Ohio Valley Tie Co., 242 U. S. 288; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. W. F. Jacoby & Co., 242 U. S. 89; Meeker v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 236 U. S. 412; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. International Coal Mining Co., 230 U. S. 184. The Commission found, however, that no damages had been proved, and its ruling as to that was final, not subject to review by this Court or any other. Interstate Commerce Comm'n v. United States, supra, at p. 289 U. S. 388; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Brady, 288 U. S. 448; Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 283 U. S. 235; Alton R. Co. v. United States, 287 U. S. 229; Procter & Gamble Co. v. United States, 225 U. S. 282. True, the complainant might have
confined itself to a request for a restraining order, and, after thus invalidating the preference, have asked a court for reparation. 49 U.S.C. § 9. It had a choice, in other words, between a remedy at the hands of the Commission and a remedy by suit, but by express provision of the statute it could not have them both. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Brady, supra. Reparation under the Commerce Act was thus permanently barred by the ruling of the Commission as against the offending carrier. The situation was altogether different, however, in respect of the liability of Merchants and other aiders and abettors. As to wrongdoers other than the carrier, the complainant had not asked the Commission to fix the quantum of the damages, thus relieving us of the duty to inquire whether jurisdiction would have existed if such relief had been demanded. 49 U.S.C. §§ 9, 16(1), and compare 49 U.S.C. § 42. Merchants would not have been affected by an award of reparation if the Commission had found the evidence sufficient for that relief, and it gains nothing from the fact that reparation was refused. In saying this, we are not unmindful that it intervened in the proceeding. It was interested in the event, for it would be harmed by a restraining order. 49 U.S.C. § 42. Intervention, though permitted, did not broaden the complaint nor add to the range of enumerated powers. Accordingly, the framers of the statute were careful to provide that aiders and abettors should not go unwhipped of justice. In a suit under the Commerce Act, all persons soliciting or procuring the allowance of a forbidden preference were to be liable, jointly or severally, to make good the damage suffered. 49 U.S.C. § 10(4). * Cf. 49 U.S.C. § 41(3). Here was
Petitioner, not satisfied to proceed under the Commerce Act, put that remedy aside and brought suit under the Sherman and Clayton Acts, hoping by that maneuver to charge both carrier and warehouse, and to charge them with treble damages. Every act of wrongdoing proved in the new suit to have been committed by the defendants was proved against them also (with unsubstantial exceptions) in the case before the Commission. Now, as before, the head and front of their offending is the use of the warehouses as stations for the carrier with the allowances and privileges, such as exemption from demurrage, growing out of that relation. What is true of the offense is true also of its consequences. There has been no proof of any loss that would not be provable in equal measure in proceedings under the Commerce Act upon a claim for reparation. Interstate Commerce Commission v. United States, supra; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Ohio Valley Tie Co., supra. Terminal does not show that there was a conspiracy to establish a monopoly either
Upon the basis of that evidence, the trial judge left it to the jury to say whether Terminal was a sufferer from an unlawful combination in restraint of trade and commerce. The jury found a verdict for $136,125 against both defendants. This verdict was trebled by the court,
Two cases in this Court, though not indeed decisive, are apposite and helpful. The first, Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern Ry. Co., 260 U. S. 156, was a suit under the antitrust laws against railway companies and others who were charged to have combined in establishing uniform rates and thus destroying competition, all to the plaintiff's damage. True, the rates had been approved after complaint to the Commission, but this was not
"If the conspiracy here complained of had resulted in rates which the Commission found to be illegal because unreasonably high or discriminatory, the full amount of the damages sustained, whatever their nature, would have been recoverable in such proceedings. Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Ohio Valley Tie Co., 242 U. S. 288. Can it be that Congress intended to provide the shipper, from whom illegal rates have been exacted, with an additional remedy under the Anti-Trust Act? See Meeker v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 162 F. 354. And if no remedy under the antitrust law is given where the injury results from the fixing of rates which are illegal, because too high or discriminatory, may it be assumed that Congress intended to give such a remedy where, as here, the rates complained of have been found by the Commission to be legal and while in force had to be collected by the carrier?"
A second case pointing the same way is United States Navigation Co. v. Cunard Steamship Co., 284 U. S. 474. The suit was for an injunction under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Clayton Act to restrain a group of
What was said in these opinions is precisely applicable here. If a sufferer from the discriminatory acts of carriers by rail or by water may sue for an injunction under the Clayton Act without resort in the first instance to the regulatory commission, the unity of the system of regulation breaks down beyond repair. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426; Interstate
Page 297 U. S. 514
Commerce Comm'n v. Illinois Central R. Co., 215 U. S. 452; Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 222 U. S. 506; Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Solum, 247 U. S. 477, 247 U. S. 483; Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Merchants' Elevator Co., 259 U. S. 285, 259 U. S. 291, and see 15 U.S.C. § 26, construed in Central Transfer Co. v. Terminal Railroad Assn., supra. On the other hand, if the regulatory commission has issued a "cease and desist" order, an injunction under the Clayton Act is inappropriate and needless. 49 U.S.C. § 16(7), (8), (12). The same considerations are applicable, and with undiminished force, where the suit under the Clayton Act is not for an injunction, but for damages. There too, a finding of undue discrimination by the regulatory board is a necessary preliminary to a suit against the carrier. See cases supra. Certain then it is that the Anti-Trust Laws are inapplicable in all their apparent breadth to carriers by rail or water. A consignor or consignee aggrieved by such a wrong must resort to the appropriate administrative agency at least for many purposes. If he is remitted to the Commerce Act or the Shipping Act to cancel the illegal preference, may he pass over those acts and revert to the Clayton or the Sherman Act for the purpose of recovering damages? The Commerce Act, like the Shipping Act, embodies a remedial system that is complete and self-contained. It provides the means for ascertaining the existence of a preference, but it does not stop at that point. As already shown in this opinion, it gives a cause of action for damages not only against the carrier, but also against shippers and consignees who have incited or abetted. For the wrongs that it denounces it prescribes a fitting remedy which, we think, was meant to be exclusive. If another remedy is sought under cover of another statute, there must be a showing of another wrong, not cancelled or redressed by the recovery of damages for the wrong explicitly denounced. The opinions of this Court in their fair and
natural extension point to that conclusion. Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern Ry. Co., supra; United States Navigation Co. v. Cunard Steamship Co., supra. The opinions of other federal courts point the same way with equal, if not greater, certainty. United States Navigation Co. v. Cunard S.S. Co., 50 F.2d 83, 86, 89, reviewing the decisions; Meeker v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 162 F. 354, 363; United States v. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry. Co., 142 F. 176, 184, 185; Glenn Coal Co. v. Dickinson Fuel Co., 72 F.2d 885, 888. We follow these signposts to the goal they seem to mark.
In thus holding, we do not intimate that never in any circumstances can a carrier become a party to a conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce with liability for treble damages. This has been made plain already. We enlarge on it for greater certainty. Wherein the case is now deficient will be made clearer by example. One may suppose a business of a manufacturer which has assumed the form and size of a monopoly, or, if not already at that stage, is well upon the road thereto. Cf. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 221 U. S. 51, 221 U. S. 61; United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106; United States v. United States Steel Corp., 251 U. S. 417; United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U. S. 106, 286 U. S. 116. One may add a situation in which a carrier has knowingly confederated with the owner to preserve such a business or foster it. Whatever liability grows out of that alliance is untouched by this decision. For present purposes, we may assume that, if such a situation should develop, the carrier would make itself a participant in the monopoly which it had conspired to produce, though its only overt act was a discriminatory rate of carriage. Again, a group of manufacturers, whose business in combination would not amount to a monopoly, might unite among themselves to lay a burden upon commerce by concerted action as to prices. Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375;
Second. The case having been submitted to the jury on the theory that, apart from the unlawful preference,