Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/236/615/case.php
Timestamp: 2019-12-07 14:25:37
Document Index: 230290123

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 49', '§ 6223', '§ 6434', '§ 25', '§ 26', '§ 24', '§ 15', '§ 28', '§ 7']

MICHIGAN CENTRAL R. CO. V. MICHIGAN R. COMM'N, 236 U. S. 615 (1915) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 236 > MICHIGAN CENTRAL R. CO. V. MICHIGAN R. COMM'N, 236 U. S. 615 (1915)
MICHIGAN CENTRAL R. CO. V. MICHIGAN R. COMM'N, 236 U. S. 615 (1915)
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Michigan Central R. Co. v. Michigan R. Comm'n, 236 U.S. 615 (1915)
An order of a state railroad commission requiring carriers to exchange freight and passengers in accordance with the provisions of the act establishing the Commission, which has been construed by the state court as relating only to intrastate commerce, because the jurisdiction of the Commission is limited thereto, held not to disregard the needs of interstate commerce or to be a burden thereon, and also held chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The facts, which involve the validity of an order of the State Railway Commission of Michigan requiring a railway with respect to intrastate traffic to interchange cars, freight, and passengers with another railway, are stated in the opinion. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
This writ of error brings under review a judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan (168 Mich. 230) awarding a peremptory writ of mandamus directing plaintiff in error, with respect to intrastate traffic, to interchange cars, carload shipments, less than carload shipments, and passenger traffic with the Detroit United Railway at the point of physical connection between the tracks chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Michigan Railway Commission, defendant in error, is a public administrative body, continued and existing under Act No. 300 of the Public Acts of 1909 as the successor of a similar Commission established by Act No. 312 of the Public Acts of 1907. It has ample regulative powers, originally conferred by the 1907 act and continued by the 1909 act without modification material to the present controversy. * The mandamus proceeding was based chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
upon an order made by the former Commission in the year 1908, which, it is admitted, was preserved by § 49 of the 1909 act. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Michigan Central Railroad Company is a corporation existing under the General Railroad Law of the state (Comp.Laws 1897, c. 164, §§ 6223 et seq.), and as lessee operates a line of railroad extending from Detroit to Bay City, and passing through the village of Oxford, all in chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
the State of Michigan, this line being part of a railroad system extending through that state and into adjoining states and the Dominion of Canada, and over which the company transports passengers and property in interstate and foreign, as well as in intrastate commerce. The Detroit United Railway Company is a corporation organized and existing under the Street Railway Act (Comp.Laws 1897, c. 168, §§ 6434 et seq.), and operates an interurban electric railway extending from Detroit to the City of Flint, and likewise passing through the Village of Oxford. Between Oxford and Flint, which are 28 miles apart, the line passes through the Villages of Ortonville, Goodrich, and Atlas, distant respectively 10, 16, and 18 miles from Oxford.
In the early part of the year 1908, petitions were filed before the Commission by certain merchants resident in Ortonville and Goodrich asking that a physical connection be established between the tracks of the Michigan Central and Detroit United at Oxford for the interchange of cars, carload shipments, less than carload shipments, and passenger traffic. The Michigan Central answered denying that it would be practicable to construct and maintain such a physical connection, and denying the authority of the Commission to order any such connection for the purposes mentioned in the complaint. The Detroit United answered denying the practicability of interchanging carload shipments (supposing a physical connection to have been established), without out unreasonable expenditure of money in changing its road and equipment. There was a full hearing at which both companies were represented. The questions before the Commission were three: (a) is a physical connection between the tracks at Oxford practicable? (b) can the interchange of business be accomplished without endangering the equipment, tracks, or appliances of either party? and (c) are the facts and circumstances such as to reasonably justify chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
the Commission in requiring such connection and interchange? The question of through billing was not involved. The Commission held that the statute in terms conferred upon it the authority which it was asked to exercise, and declined to pass upon the question of its validity, deeming that to be a judicial question and not within its province. It found the construction and maintenance of the connection between the tracks to be feasible and practicable, and the expense of construction approximately $500. Upon the evidence introduced and a personal inspection of the line of the Detroit United, the Commission found that line to be of standard gauge, with rails of the same pattern and weight as those used on many steam roads, and without heavy grades offering resistance to freight traffic, and that the handling of freight in steam railroad cars over that line was practicable and might be accomplished without endangering the equipment, tracks, or appliances of either company, and without involving either in unreasonable, expense. Whether steam or electricity should be used as a motive power was declared to be a question to be solved by the Detroit United Company in the light of its own experience. The Commission also found the proposed interchange to be reasonable from the standpoint of the Michigan Central, and that it entailed small sacrifice to that company, which would have to expend its proportion of the amount necessary to install the connection, but would not be involved in further expenditure, and that the business to be derived from Ortonville, Goodrich, and the surrounding country via the Detroit United Railway and the proposed connection promised to be considerable in amount, making the Michigan Central a beneficiary by the connection, and held that, under its charter it owed a duty as common carrier to the entire state, so that, while required to give greatest consideration to those most accessible to its operations, it must further give as great consideration to those not immediately chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The issuance of the mandamus was opposed upon the ground (among others) that the Commission's order and the statutes purporting to authorize it were repugnant to chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The act establishing the Michigan Railroad Commission, as it stood after amendment by Public Acts 1911, No. 139, was under consideration in Grand Trunk Ry. v. Michigan Ry. Comm., 231 U. S. 457, which dealt with the compulsory interchange of intrastate traffic at Detroit. With respect to judicial review, it will be observed that, by § 25 (set forth in the margin, supra), the regulations prescribed by the Commission are to be treated as lawful and reasonable until found otherwise in an action brought for the purpose pursuant to the provisions of § 26, or until modified by the Commission, as provided in § 24. Section 26 permits the railroad company or other party in interest, being dissatisfied with the Commission's order, to commence an action in the circuit court in chancery to set it aside on the ground of unreasonableness, with opportunity to introduce original evidence in addition to that which was submitted to the Commission. If new evidence is offered, the court may refer it to the Commission for its consideration, and that body may thereupon chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
rescind or modify the original order. The court passes upon either the original or the modified order, and may affirm or set it aside in whole or in part, and make such other order as may be in accordance with the facts and the law. From its judgment there is an appeal to the supreme court. The respective functions of the Commission and the courts under this legislation were considered, in a rate case, by the state supreme court in Detroit & Mackinac Ry. v. Michigan Railroad Comm'n, 171 Mich. 335, 346, and by this Court in a subsequent case between the same parties in 235 U. S. 235 U.S. 402, affirming 203 F.8d 4.
That a state, in virtue of its authority to regulate railroads as public highways, may, in a proper case, require two companies to make a connection between their tracks so as to facilitate the interchange of traffic, without thereby violating rights secured by the Constitution of the United chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
states, is settled by the decisions of this Court in Wisconsin &c. R. Co. v. Jacobson, 179 U. S. 287, 179 U. S. 296, 179 U. S. 301, and Oregon R. & N. Co. v. Fairchild, 224 U. S. 510, 224 U. S. 528.
That a state, acting within its jurisdiction, and not in hostility to any federal regulation of interstate commerce, may compel the carrier to accept loaded cars from another line and transport them over its own, such requirement being reasonable in itself is settled by Chi., Mil. & St. P. Ry. v. Iowa, 233 U. S. 334, 233 U. S. 344. In that case, it was held there was no essential difference, so far as concerned the power of the state, between such an order and one requiring the carrier to make track connections and receive cars from connecting roads in order that reasonably adequate facilities for traffic might be provided.
It seems to us that the principle of these decisions sustains also the state's power to make a reasonable order requiring a carrier to permit empty or loaded cars owned by it to be hauled from its line upon the connecting line for purposes of loading or delivery of intrastate freight, and to permit the cars of other carriers loaded with such freight consigned to points on the connecting line to be hauled from its line upon the connecting line for purposes of delivery. This question was left undetermined in McNeill v. Southern Railway, 202 U. S. 543, 202 U. S. 563, which had to do with a state regulation operating directly upon interstate commerce.
And it is insisted that the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It is said the statute, as construed and enforced by the Commission and the supreme court, is repugnant to the "due process" clause because it in effect requires a delivery chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
by the Michigan Central at points off its own lines. By its terms, however, the order does not require the Michigan Central to haul the cars to points on the Detroit United, but only to permit them to be hauled by the latter company. At common law, a carrier was not bound to carry except on its own line, and probably not required to permit its equipment to be hauled off the line by other carriers. A., T. & S.F. R. Co. v. D. & N.O. R. Co., 110 U. S. 667, 110 U. S. 680; Kentucky &c. Bridge Co. v. Louis. & Nash. R. Co., 37 F.5d 7, 620; Oregon Short Line v. Northern Pacific Ry., 51 F.4d 5, 472, 475, aff'd, 61 F.1d 8. But in this as in other respects, the common law is subject to change by legislation, and so long as the reasonable bounds of regulation in the public interest are not thereby transcended, the carrier's property cannot be deemed to be "taken" in the constitutional sense. Minn. & St.L. R. Co. v. Minnesota, 193 U. S. 53, 193 U. S. 63; Atlantic Coast Line v. N. Car. Corp. Comm'n, 206 U. S. 1, 206 U. S. 19; Grand Trunk Ry. v. Michigan Ry. Comm'n, 231 U. S. 457, 231 U. S. 470; Wisconsin &c. R. Co. v. Jacobson, supra; Chi., Mil. & St.P. R. Co. v. Iowa, supra.
The insistence that the property of plaintiff in error in its cars is taken by the order requiring it to deliver them to the Detroit United Railway involves, as we think, a fundamental error in that it overlooks the fact that the vehicles of transportation, like the railroad upon which they run, although acquired through the expenditure of private capital, are devoted to a public use, and thereby are subjected to the reasonable exercise of the power of the state to regulate that use, so far, at least, as intrastate commerce is concerned. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113. That it is not, as a rule, unreasonable to require such interchange of cars sufficiently appears from the universality of the practice, which became prevalent before it was made compulsory and may be considered as matter of common knowledge, inasmuch as a freight train made up wholly chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
of the cars of a single railroad is, in these days, a rarity. In Michigan, car interchange has long been a statutory duty. Mich.Gen. Acts 1873, No. 79, § 15, p. 99; No.198, § 28, p. 521; Michigan Central R. Co. v. Smithson, 45 Mich. 212, 221. And see Peoria & P. U. Ry. v. Chicago, R.I. & P. Ry., 109, Ill. 135, 139; Burlington &c Ry. v. Dey, 82 Ia. 312, 335; State v. Chicago &c. Ry., 152 Ia. 317, 322, aff'd, 233 U. S. 334; Pittsburgh &c. Ry. v. R. Commission, 171 Ind. 189, 201; Jacobson v. Wisconsin &c. R. Co., 71 Minn. 519, 531, aff'd, 179 U. S. 179 U.S. 287.
The contention that no provision is made for the paramount needs of plaintiff in error for the use of its own equipment, nor for the prompt return or adjustment for loss or damage to such equipment, nor for compensation for the use thereof, is not substantial. The order is to receive a reasonable interpretation, and, according to its own recitals, is to be read in the light of the opinion of the Commission, which shows that it is not intended to have an effect inconsistent with the other operations of the company. It was expressly found that there was no special ground for apprehending loss or damage to the equipment. Certainly the order does not exclude the ordinary remedies for delay in returning cars or for loss or damage to them. Nor does it contemplate that plaintiff in error shall be required to permit the use of its cars (or of the cars of other carriers for which it is responsible) off its line without compensation. The state court expressly held that § 7c provides for reasonable compensation to the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Plaintiff in error relies upon Central Stock Yards v. Louis. & Nash. R. Co., 192 U. S. 568, and Louis. & Nash. R. Co. v. Stock Yards Co., 212 U. S. 132. The former of these was an action in the federal court, and came here by appeal from the circuit court of appeals. This Court held as a matter of construction that the Constitution of Kentucky did not require that the railroad company should deliver its own cars to another road. The second case was a review of the judgment of the court of last resort of the state. That court having held that the state constitution did require the carrier to deliver its own cars to the connecting road, it was contended that this requirement was void under the Fourteenth Amendment as an unlawful taking of property. This Court said (212 U.S. 212 U. S. 143):
There remains the contention that the statute and the order made in pursuance of it operate as a burden upon and interference with interstate commerce. That the order intrinsically applies only to intrastate traffic was held by the state court in this case, upon the ground that the jurisdiction of the Commission is thus limited, and in this, the court did but follow its previous ruling in Ann Arbor R. Co. v. Railroad Commission, 163 Mich. 49. Therefore, the contention under the commerce clause is narrowed to the single point that the order requires the cars of the Michigan Central to be turned over to the connecting carrier "at all times and under all circumstances and without reference to the needs and demands of interstate commerce." But it seems to us that this is an unreasonable construction of the order. By its terms, as thus far construed by the state court, it merely requires the two companies to interchange cars, carload shipments, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Manifestly, this involves no disregard of the needs of interstate commerce, and we must indulge the presumption, until the contrary is made to appear, that the state will not so construe or enforce the order as to interfere with or obstruct such commerce. Ohio Tax Cases, 232 U. S. 576, 232 U. S. 591; St. Louis S.W. Ry. v. Arkansas, 235 U. S. 350, 235 U. S. 369. The recent decisions of this Court, cited in support of the contention that the order interferes with interstate commerce (Houston & Tex. Cent. R. Co. v. Mayes, 201 U. S. 321, 201 U. S. 329; McNeill v. Southern Railway, 202 U. S. 543, 202 U. S. 561; St. Louis S.W. Ry. v. Arkansas, 217 U. S. 136, 217 U. S. 149; Chi., R.I. &c. Ry. v. Hardwick Elevator Co., 226 U. S. 426, 226 U. S. 433), are so plainly distinguishable that no time need be spent in discussing them.