Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/217/136/case.html
Timestamp: 2016-05-27 00:34:09
Document Index: 687550470

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 10', '§ 6803', '§ 18', '§ 6813', '§ 17', '§ 861', '§ 1568']

St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Arkansas :: 217 U.S. 136 (1910) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
› St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Arkansas
St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Arkansas 217 U.S. 136 (1910)
U.S. Supreme CourtSt. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Arkansas, 217 U.S. 136 (1910)St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company v. ArkansasNo. 111Argued January 26, 27, 1910Decided April 4, 1910217 U.S. 136ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT
85 Ark. 311 reversed. Page 217 U. S. 137
The facts, which involve the constitutionality under the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States of a regulation of the Railroad Commission of Arkansas as to delivery of freight cars, are stated in the opinion. Page 217 U. S. 140
Prior to October, 1905, the Railroad Commission of Arkansas promulgated a rule by which, within five days after written application by a shipper, it was made the duty of a railway company, under the conditions prescribed in the rule, to deliver freight cars to such shipper, for the purpose of enabling him to load freight. The rule in question, known as order No. 305, is in the margin. * Page 217 U. S. 141
Complaint was made by Philip Reinsch before the commission, charging the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company with having violated this rule, in that it was fifty-one freight cars short in complying with written applications made at various times in October, November, and December, 1905, and January, 1906, for the delivery at a station called Stuttgart Page 217 U. S. 142 of a much larger number of freight cars. The commission found that the railway company was short in the delivery of cars, as alleged, and that its failures in that respect not only violated order No. 305, previously referred to, but also § 10 of an Act of March 11, 1899, embodied in Kirby's Digest as § 6803. It also declared that, by these violations of the statute and rule of the commission, the railway company had become subject to penalties in favor of the State of Arkansas, as provided in § 18 of the Act of 1899, being § 6813 of Kirby's Digest, which penalties were to be enforced as therein provided. Conformably to the section in question, the prosecuting attorney for the proper county commenced this action in the name of the state against the railway company to recover penalties to the amount of $1,950. Rule No. 305 of the commission was recited, the proceedings before the commission were detailed, and the order made by the commission finding the defaults on the part of the railway company was set out, and upon these considerations the prayer for the statutory penalty was based.
A demurrer having been overruled, an answer was filed on behalf of the railway company. By that answer, it was alleged that the company was engaged in the transportation of interstate shipments of freight over its line of railroad in the States of Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, and Missouri, and that its equipment of freight cars for the transaction of its business, both interstate and state, was ample. That, anticipating the possible increase of business, both interstate and state, and as a precautionary measure, the company had, prior to the autumn of 1905, endeavored to contract for the construction of a large number of additional freight cars, but failed to do so because the car manufacturers had such a press of work that they were unable to take the order. That thereupon, in an effort to provide for every future contingency, the corporation had, at a very large expense, commenced the construction of a plant of large capacity to enable it to manufacture its own cars, and was pressing the same to completion in the Page 217 U. S. 143 shortest possible time. It was alleged that, at the time of the alleged defaults, there was an extraordinary demand for cars both for the movement of interstate and local traffic, and when, as the result of this condition, the shortage developed, the company had equally distributed its cars to the shippers along its line, giving no preference to interstate over local shippers, or to local over those desiring cars for interstate shipments. It was alleged that it would have been impossible for the company to comply with rule No. 305 without discriminating against its interstate commerce shippers, and therefore obedience to the rule would have resulted in a direct burden upon interstate commerce. Referring to the interstate commerce business of the company, which it was alleged moved over its own line through the States of Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, and Missouri, and thence by connecting roads throughout the United States and Canada, it was charged the burden imposed upon the company to deliver cars to local shippers without reference to the effect and operation of such delivery upon the interstate commerce business of the company would be a direct burden upon interstate commerce, and therefore repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and that the same result would flow from enforcing the command of the commission as embodied in its rule No. 305. The rule, moreover, was especially assailed as being repugnant not only to the commerce clause, but to the Fourteenth Amendment, both because of the inherent nature of the duty which the rule sought to impose and also because of the unreasonable conditions which were expressed therein.
There was a trial to a jury. Without going into detail, it suffices to say that specific instructions were asked, in reiterated form, by the defendant company concerning its asserted defenses under the Constitution of the United States -- that is, the repugnancy to the Constitution of the rule of the commission and of the statute imposing penalties upon it for its failure to furnish cars. After verdict against the company for $1,350 and judgment thereon, the cause was taken to the Page 217 U. S. 144 Supreme Court of the State of Arkansas, and from the action of that court in affirming the judgment (85 Ark. 311), this writ of error is prosecuted.
"In fact, the appellant was shown to have a larger car equipment than the average freight-carrying road, and the failure to furnish cars was wholly due to an inability to regain Page 217 U. S. 145 its cars which were sent to other roads carrying freight from its own line."
"The evidence indisputably establishes that it is a benefit to the shipping public to interchange cars, and not to refuse to send cars off the line. . . . It is unquestionably good for the public that the railroads of the United States have a system of interchange of cars, instead of each road hauling to its termini only, and thereby force reloading and reshipment. The inconvenience and expense of such a system would at once condemn it as failing to meet public requirements. It is unquestionably the policy of both state and federal legislation to facilitate, if not require, an interchange Page 217 U. S. 146 of cars. The most recent illustration of this policy is found in § 17 of the Act of April 19, 1907 (Acts 1907, p. 463). For one railroad company to be an Ishmaelite among its associates would operate disastrously to its shippers. The shippers of Arkansas expect the public carriers to put their cotton to the spinners in New England, and their fruit to the North and their lumber and coal to the four quarters of the Union, without change from consignor to consignee."
"The result of these and other decisions, as summed up in an excellent textbook, is that these associations are lawful, and their rules and regulations, when reasonable, will be upheld. 2 Hutchinson on Carriers (3d ed.), § 861. Mr. Elliott says that such associations formed for the purpose of making and enforcing reasonable regulations to facilitate business and secure the prompt loading, unloading, and return of cars cannot be held illegal, upon the ground that the constituent companies, by becoming members, surrender their corporate Page 217 U. S. 147 functions and control to the association. 4 Elliott on Railroads, § 1568."
As the penalty, which the court sustained, was enforced solely because of its conclusion as to the inefficiency of the rules and regulations of the American Railway Association, which governed ninety percent of the railroads in the United States, the court was evidently not unmindful that the carrier before it was powerless, of its own motion, to change the rules thus generally prevailing, and therefore was necessarily either compelled to desist from the interchange of cars with connecting carriers for the purpose of the movement of interstate commerce or to conduct such business with the certainty of being subjected to the penalties which the state statute provided Page 217 U. S. 148 for. We say this since the court said:
When, by thus following the careful analysis made by the court below, the contentions which the case present are circumscribed and the issues to which all the controversies are reducible are accurately defined, we think no serious difficulty is involved in their solution. In the first place, it is suggested by the defendant in error that no federal question arises for decision, and therefore the writ of error should be dismissed. This rests upon the theory that, as the court below put the rule of the commission, No. 305, out of view, and declared in its statement of the case that no extraordinary or unusual rush of business on the line of the defendant company Page 217 U. S. 149 occasioned the car shortage, therefore no ground of federal cognizance remained, as, in other respects, the action of the court below was, in effect, placed purely upon matters of local concern broad enough to sustain its judgment. The contention is plainly without merit. It is to be conceded that the ruling of the court as to the irrelevancy of the rule adopted by the commission eliminates from consideration so much of the answer and of the instructions asked by the company and refused, relating to the repugnancy of the order to the commerce clause of the Constitution, both on account of its inherent operation and because of unreasonable provisions, which, it was alleged, it contained. But the constitutional defenses which were asserted by the answer, and which were embraced in the instructions asked and refused, were not confined to the mere order as such, but plainly challenged the power of the state to inflict the penalty for the failure to furnish the cars under the circumstances disclosed by the answer. And the ruling of the court that the asserted power arose from the statute, instead of from the rule adopted by the commission, but changed the form without in any way minimizing or obscuring the completeness of the federal defense which was made in the pleading and necessarily passed upon by the court below.
Coming to the merits, we think it needs but statement to demonstrate that the ruling of the court below involved necessarily the assertion of power in the state to absolutely forbid the efficacious carrying on of interstate commerce, or, what is equivalent thereto, to cause the right to efficiently conduct such commerce to depend upon the willingness of the company to be subjected to enormous pecuniary penalties as a condition of the exercise of the right. It is to be observed that there is no question here of a regulation of a state forbidding an unequal distribution of cars by a carrier for the benefit of interstate to the detriment of local commerce. This is the clear result of the finding below as to the proportion of the originating traffic of the road, and the extent of Page 217 U. S. 150 the cars retained and those permitted to go beyond the line of the road for the purposes of interstate commerce. If it be that the court below was right in its assumption that the rules of the American Railway Association, governing, as was conceded by the court, ninety percent of the railroads, and hence a vast proportion of the interstate commerce of the country, are inefficient to secure just dealing as to cars moved by the carriers engaged in interstate commerce, that fact affords no ground for conceding that such subject was within the final cognizance of the court below, and could by it be made the basis of prohibiting interstate commerce or unlawfully burdening the right to carry it on. In the nature of things, as the rules and regulations of the association concern matters of interstate commerce inherently within federal control, the power to determine their sufficiency, we think, was primarily vested in the body upon whom Congress has conferred authority in that regard.