Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/245/136/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-08-21 12:19:52
Document Index: 149181985

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1', '§ 4', '§ 12', '§ 15', '§ 15', '§ 3', '§ 4']

ST. LOUIS SOUTHWESTERN RY. CO. V. UNITED STATES, 245 U. S. 136 - Volume 245 - 1917 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 245 > ST. LOUIS SOUTHWESTERN RY. CO. V. UNITED STATES, 245 U. S. 136 (1917) > Full Text
ST. LOUIS SOUTHWESTERN RY. CO. V. UNITED STATES, 245 U. S. 136 (1917)
St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. United States, 245 U.S. 136 (1917)
This suit was brought in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Kentucky by three railroad companies [Footnote 1] against the United States and the Interstate Commerce Commission. Plaintiffs seek to enjoin the enforcement of and to set aside an order entered by the Commission on January 21, 1916, directing these and other carriers to establish certain through routes and joint rates on logs and lumber to
Paducah is situated on the south bank of the Ohio River, 42 miles above Cairo, Illinois, which lies on the north bank of the Ohio near its confluence with the Mississippi. An important business in each city is manufacturing and jobbing lumber. They compete in both the buying and the selling markets. Each draws its supplies of logs and lumber, in part, from the extensive region lying west of the Mississippi and south of the Arkansas River, known in the trade as the "blanket territory." [Footnote 2] The distances from this region to Paducah are not greater than to Cairo; but, prior to the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission herein complained of, the through freight rate on logs and lumber was 22 cents per hundred pounds to Paducah, while it was only 16 cents to Cairo.
of the three complainants is via Memphis, Tennessee, but, prior to the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission herein complained of, only the Rock Island had established its through route via Memphis. The other two companies had through routes to Paducah via Cairo. These, which had been in operation for many years, are materially longer than possible routes via Memphis, and also necessitate crossing the Ohio as well as the Mississippi. Both the Cairo and the Memphis routes to Paducah involve using as connecting carrier the Illinois Central, which has a line extending from Memphis through Paducah to Cairo. [Footnote 3] The 22-cent rate from the "blanket territory" to Paducah via Cairo is made by adding to the "joint rate" or "local" of 16 cents to Cairo, the local rate of 6 cents from Cairo to Paducah, Cairo being a "rate-breaking" point. [Footnote 4] The connection of the Rock
An appropriate order was entered prohibiting the carriers from continuing to charge the existing rate to Paducah and directing them to establish and thereafter maintain through routes to Paducah via either Memphis or Cairo, and joint rates "not in excess of the rates at present in effect . . . to Cairo." Paducah Board of Trade v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 37 I.C.C. 719. [Footnote 5]
The complaining carriers having engaged in this particular commerce, it is clear that Congress has power to regulate it. Atlantic Coast Line Case, 219 U. S. 186. No reason appears why the regulation might not take the form of compelling the substitution of a joint rate for a through rate made by a combination of local rates or by a combination of a local rate with a joint rate to an intermediate point. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Ry. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 162 U. S. 184. So far as the order relates to the existing routes via Cairo and Memphis, respectively ,it did no more than this: it substituted for the through rate of 22 cents (made up on two of the lines of a combination of a joint rate or local rate of 16 cents to Cairo with a local rate on the Illinois Central of 6 cents from Cairo to Paducah), a joint rate of 16 cents from
That Congress has power to authorize the Commission to enter an order for through routes and joint rates like that here complained of has been heretofore assumed. [Footnote 6] No reason is shown for questioning its existence now. The provisions of the Act to Regulate Commerce as amended (1887, c. 104, §§ 1, 12, 15, 24 Stat. 379; 1906, c. 3591, § 4, 34 Stat. 584; 1910, c. 309, § 12, 36 Stat. 539, 552) are also appropriate to confer this authority upon
the Commission. And there is no foundation in fact or law for the contention of complainants that the Commission disregarded the provision of § 15, by which it is prohibited from embracing in a through route "less than the entire length of a" railroad "unless to do so would make the route unreasonably long." Whether a carrier engaged solely in intrastate commerce could be compelled by Congress to enter interstate commerce, or even whether a carrier, having entered into some interstate commerce, may be compelled to enter into all, we have no occasion to consider, [Footnote 7] for the complaining carriers had voluntarily entered into the particular class of interstate commerce with Paducah to which alone the order related.
one to prevent discrimination. Orders to remove discrimination, as commonly framed, do not fix rates. They merely determine the relation of rates, by prohibiting the carrier from charging more for carriage to one locality than under similar conditions to another, and they usually leave the carriers free to remove the discrimination either by raising the lower rate or by lowering the higher rate or by doing both. American Express Co. v. Caldwell, 244 U. S. 617, 244 U. S. 624. The order here complained of gives the carriers no such option. It directs that the rates to Paducah shall be "not in excess of the rates at present in effect from the same points or groups to Cairo, Illinois." In other words, the Commission having found the 22-cent rate unduly high, reduces it to 16 cents by establishing joint through rates. The injury resulting from discrimination was doubtless the reason which induced the Paducah Board of Trade to institute the proceedings, and the Commission may have considered the existence of the lower rate to Cairo persuasive evidence that the 22-cent rate to Paducah was unreasonably high and the resulting discrimination strong reason for establishing the 16-cent joint rate. But the order is strictly one under § 15 of the Act to Regulate Commerce to reduce existing through rates by establishing joint rates or, in the alternative, to establish new through routes with joint rates. It is not primarily an order to remove discrimination in violation of § 3.
A "through route" is an arrangement, express or implied, between connecting railroads for the continuous carriage of goods from the originating point on the line of one carrier to destination on the line of another. Through carriage implies a "through rate." This "through rate" is not necessarily a "joint rate." It may be merely an aggregation of separate rates fixed independently by the several carriers forming the "through route," as where the "through rate" is "the sum of the locals" on the several connecting lines or is the sum of lower rates otherwise separately established by them for through transportation. Through Rates and Through Routes, 12 I.C.C. 164, 166. Ordinarily "through rates" lower than "the sum of the locals" are "joint rates." Prior to the amendment of the Act to Regulate Commerce (1906, c. 3591, § 4, 34 Stat. 584, 590) authorizing the Commission to establish through routes and joint rates, all "joint rates" were (as most still are) the result of agreements between carriers, which fix also the "divisions" -- that is, the share of the "joint rate" to be received by each. New York, New Haven & Hartford R. Co. v. Platt, 7 I.C.C. 323, 329. The bases of such divisions differ greatly in practice. Sometimes all the carriers participate in the joint rate in the proportions which their local rates bear to the sum of the locals; in other words, the percentage of reduction from the local rate is the same for each. Sometimes one carrier is allowed the full local, while the rate of another is seriously reduced. The share of each being a matter of bargain, it may be fixed at an arbitrary amount. Chamber of Commerce of Milwaukee v. Flint & Pere Marquette R. Co., 2 I.C.C. 553, 567-568. In constructing the joint rates, the charge per mile ordinarily decreases with the increase of the length of haul. But even where the through route and through rates are matters of express agreement between the carriers, a continuous "joint rate" does not always extend from the point of origin to point of destination. There may be, on the "through route" an intermediate point at which, in common railroad practice, the rate "breaks." That is, the "joint rate" from the point of origin ends at this "rate-breaking point," and there is charged for the distance beyond the same local rate or joint rate that would have been charged had the business originated at this intermediate point. That is, instead of a "joint through rate," there is a "combination." The so-called "Ohio river crossings" or "gateways" are among the "rate-breaking points." See Rates on Lumber from Southern Points, 34 I.C.C. 652, 654; Lehigh Portland Cement Co. v. B. & O. S.W. R. Co., 35 I.C.C. 14, 17; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway, 218 U. S. 88, 218 U. S. 90.
O'Keefe v. United States, 240 U. S. 294; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Northern Pacific Ry. Co., 216 U. S. 538.
But see Michigan Central Railroad v. Michigan R. Co., 236 U. S. 615, 236 U. S. 631; Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Minnesota, 186 U. S. 257; Wisconsin, Minnesota & Pacific R. Co. v. Jacobson, 179 U. S. 287. Compare Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. v. Dixie Tobacco Co., 228 U. S. 593, 228 U. S. 595; Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 223 U. S. 481, 223 U. S. 491.
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