Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/319/551/case.html
Timestamp: 2017-02-22 17:56:44
Document Index: 479357257

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 6', '§ 6', '§ 15', '§ 15', '§ 15', '§ 15', '§ 1', '§ 6', '§ 6']

ICC v. Columbus & Greenville Ry. Co. (full text) :: 319 U.S. 551 (1943) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
› ICC v. Columbus & Greenville Ry. Co.
ICC v. Columbus & Greenville Ry. Co. 319 U.S. 551 (1943)
U.S. Supreme CourtICC v. Columbus & Greenville Ry. Co., 319 U.S. 551 (1943)Interstate Commerce Commission v.Columbus & Greenville Railway Co.No. 628Argued April 7, 8, 1943Reargued May 13, 1943Decided June 7, 1943319 U.S. 551APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
46 F.Supp. 204 reversed.
Appeal from a decree of a District Court of three judges which enjoined the enforcement of an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Page 319 U. S. 552
Since 1931, these railroads and appellee have maintained a system of cut-backs originally designed, and successively revised, for the purpose of meeting the competition of truck lines. Speaking generally, the system permitted one who shipped cottonseed into the mill point and paid the full local rate for that inbound haul to receive back part of the amount so paid if he later shipped the product outbound by the same carrier. If the outbound haul was not by the carrier that had made the inbound haul, he was not entitled to the cut-back. Page 319 U. S. 553
In its report, [Footnote 4] Division 3 of the Commission held: the suspended tariff was an effort to reduce the outbound joint rates, established to points beyond appellee's line with the concurrence of the participating carriers, without obtaining their concurrence in such reduction, and therefore it violated § 6(4) of the Act. [Footnote 5] The suspended schedules did not "lawfully name or provide any legal rates whatsoever," [Footnote 6] and were in violation of § 6(7), [Footnote 7] since the contemplated Page 319 U. S. 554
The Commission then, of its own motion, entered upon an investigation of the lawfulness of appellee's ICC Tariff No. 81, which had remained in effect as the result of the suspension of No. 83. Page 319 U. S. 555
Disregard of the statutory requirements for the establishment of joint tariffs may have important substantive consequences. The Interstate Commerce Act contemplates that joint railroad rates shall be established only by concurrence of the participating carriers or by the Commission in proceedings under § 15. [Footnote 13] In the exercise of its power under § 15 to fix joint rates without the concurrence of the participating carriers, the Commission is required by § 15(4) to protect, in stated circumstances, the long hauls of participating carriers, and to give reasonable preference to originating carriers. [Footnote 14] The appellant railroad carriers Page 319 U. S. 556 claim, with what foundation we do not decide, to be entitled to protection in both regards, and that to deny them such protection may force the abandonment of branch lines which Congress sought by amendment to § 15(4) to avoid. It is said that, in recent years, the Illinois Central System has already abandoned branch lines in Mississippi having greater mileage than the whole of appellee's line. [Footnote 15] Division 3 found that the existing cut-back rates were
"Instead of Page 319 U. S. 557 placing itself on an equal basis with its competitors, respondent's present effective and suspended tariffs place it in a more favorable position than any of them, since the tariffs of none of them go so far as to grant a refund to the shipper on traffic moving into the mill over the line of another carrier. [Footnote 17]"
Whether cut-backs, even as applied to previous transportation over the carrier's own lines, are ever permissible under the Act we do not decide, and, like the Commission, Page 319 U. S. 558 we express no opinion whether the particular cut-backs employed by appellee's competitors are valid. We simply hold that, whatever may be the appellee's rights in appropriate proceedings, cf. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry. Co. v. United States, 279 U. S. 768, the appellee may not realize upon them by means which the Commission has properly found to be unlawful.
248 I.C.C. 441; Columbus & Greenville R. Co. v. United States, 46 F.Supp. 204.
The fact that no other carrier is a party to respondent's tariff containing the cut-back provision, and that respondent absorbs the allowances out of its proportion of the joint outbound rate, was unimportant in his view. As he stated, "The identical facts are true of the tariffs and practice of at least one of the intervening trunk lines" -- tariffs which concededly constituted Page 319 U. S. 559 the necessity for respondent's tariff. Moreover, as he observed, "there can be no doubt that the provision is lawful as to outbound traffic to points reached by respondent over its line." That traffic would seem to be as "local" as the transit privilege which this Court held in Central R. Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 257 U. S. 247, a carrier might establish for its individual tariff, even though there was a joint through route with joint rates. So I would be inclined to support the judgment of the court below in setting aside the order of the Commission, at least to the extent that the court allowed the tariff to apply on outbound traffic to points on respondent's own line.
Although there are two reports on this problem -- one by the full Commission and one by a division of the Commission -- they have an obscurity and vagueness which two full arguments before this Court have not dispelled. Commissioner Splawn complained without success of the lack of findings under § 1(6), § 6(1), and § 6(4). But, if we pass by those deficiencies and cut and sew the meager materials at hand into the pattern which we guess the Commission had in mind, there are still important questions left unanswered. (1) The tariffs containing the joint outbound rates specifically authorize "privileges, charges and rules" to be covered by separate tariffs even though the joint or through rate is affected, provided the carrier granting the privilege does so upon its own responsibility and at its own cost. We are not informed why that provision does not authorize appellee's proposed tariff at least to the extent that it applies to outbound traffic to points on appellee's line. (2) If concurrence of the other carriers to appellee's tariff is necessary, we are not told why the foregoing provision of the joint tariff is not Page 319 U. S. 560 adequate. (3) In case that provision of the tariff covering joint rates is not applicable, there is another phase of the problem which is in the dark. The Commission does not seem to deny that this traffic was "free" traffic within the rule of Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry. Co. v. United States, supra. It was merely concerned with the "form and manner" of the tariff. But we are not told why appellee's tariff is not within the rule of Central R. Co. of New Jersey v. United States, supra, so far as the tariff specifies the rate from milling points to destinations on appellee's line. The rule governing the right of carriers to initiate rates has not changed. United States v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co., 294 U. S. 499, 294 U. S. 506.