Case Name: MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES
Court: United States Court of Claims
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1917-12-03
Citations: 53 Ct. Cl. 12
Docket Number: No. 31672
Parties: MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
Judges: Downey, Judge; Barney, Judge; Booth, Judge; and Campbell, Chief Justice, concur.
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Volume: 53
Pages: 12–18

Head Matter:
MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
[No. 31672.
Decided December 3, 1917.]
On the Proofs.
Mail pay; statutes, construction of. — Congress by the act of March 4, 1911, 36 Stat., 1335, in providing that no pay shall be allowed for the use of “ wooden full railway post-office cars run in any train between adjoining steel cars ” did not intend that this provision should apply to cars with steel under-frames.
Object of statutes considered, when. — It is only where the language of a statute is not clear or is of doubtful construction that the court may consider the evil intended to be remedied. Departmental construction, when not considered. — Departmental construction of a statute will be considered only when the true construction is uncertain.
The Reporter's statement of the case:
Messrs. Benjamin Garter and Philip M. Ashford for the plaintiff.
Mr. Joseph Stewart, with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General Huston Thompson, for the defendants.
The term “ steel cars ” included steel underframe cars as well as all-steel cars within the meaning of the act under consideration as intended by Congress. This intent may be gathered not only from the language of the act but from a consideration of the evil which Congress sought to remedy by the legislation. That evil was the hazard to life and limb of the railway postal clerks who distributed the mails in wooden full railway post-office cars en route. That hazard and the purpose to remove it is amply shown by the history of the times as evidenced by the reports of the Postmaster General and the debates in Congress.
In Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S., 457, the Supreme Court points out with clearness, quoting ancient and modern authorities, that the reason for the law in such cases shall prevail over its letter; that courts have construed statutes quite contrary to the letter in some appearance and that those statutes which comprehend all things in the letter have been expounded to extend to but some things, and those which generally prohibit all people from doing such an act they have interpreted to permit some people to do it, and that those which include every person in the letter, they have adjudged to reach to some persons only, and that all these constructions of statutes have been founded upon the intent of the lawmaking body, which intent has been collected sometimes by considering the cause and necessity of making the act, sometimes by comparing one part of the act with another, and sometimes by foreign circumstances. {Id., 459.)
Following this rule of ascertainment of intention, we should inquire into the evil which was sought to be remedied. The court in the above-cited case said:
“Again, another guide to the meaning of a statute is found in the evil which it is desired to remedy; and for this the court properly looks at contemporaneous events, the situation as it existed, and as it was pressed upon the attention of the legislative body. United States v. Union Pacific Railroad, 91 U. S., 72, 79.” {Id., 463.)
From the reports of the Postmaster General there can be no doubt that at all times the safety of the railway postal clerks was the first consideration with the department in encouraging and requiring, where practicable, the operation of railway post-office cars of the highest type of construction and safety. This could be best accomplished by requiring all railway post-office cars to be constructed of steel or with steel underframes; but where wooden full railway post-office cars were operated it was intended that they should be placed in a train in connection with other cars in such a position as to safeguard the lives of the clerks, and certainly not in such a position as to entail additional danger by operation between cars of stronger construction than the wooden cars.
The act of August 24, 1912, which followed in time the provision now under discussion, distinctly recognized the two types of cars as permissible in providing that—
“After the first of July, nineteen hundred and seventeen, the Postmaster General shall not approve or allow to be used or pay for any full railway post-office car not con structed of steel or steel underframe or equally indestructible material, and not less than twenty-five per centum of the railway post-office cars of a railroad company not conforming to the provisions of this act shall be replaced with cars constructed of steel annually after June, nineteen hundred and thirteen; and all cars accepted for this service and contracted for by the railroad complete after the passage of this act shall be constructed of steel * * *.”
By the provisions of this act all steel underframe cars built and operated by July 1, 1917, were approved by Congress for additional payment for their operation. Unless the words “steel cars” in the act of March 4, 1911, shall be construed as including steel underframe cars as well as all-steel cars the purpose sought thereby to be accomplished, namely, the safeguarding of the lives of the postal clerks, was partially nullified by the provision of the act of August 24, 1912, which permitted the operation of all steel underframe cars then in the service; for there can be no doubt that in case of accident the destruction to a wooden car would be just as great when operated between steel underframe cars as when operated between all-steel cars.
In Smythe v. FisJce, 23 Wall., 374, 380, the Supreme Court said that—
“A thing may be within the letter of a statute and not within its meaning, and within its meaning, though not within its letter. The intention of the lawmaker is the law.”
In Lau Ow Bew v. United States, 144 U. S., 47, the court said:
“ Nothing is better settled than that statutes should receive a sensible construction, such as will effectuate the legislative intention, and, if possible, so as to avoid an unjust or an absurd conclusion.”
The claimant company was fully informed by the officers of the department as to the construction which would be placed upon the act in question, and at all times operated the wooden cars, for which it is claiming additional compensation in disregard of the law as so construed and with the full knowledge that the department, under its view of the law, could not allow them additional pay for such operation. Furthermore, they were informed that if they did operate the wooden cars in this manner, while no additional compensation could be paid under the provisions of law authorizing payment for full railway post-office cars, such operation of the wooden cars would not in fact be without compensation, for Revised Statutes, section 4002, specifically provides, as one of the conditions upon which a railroad company may earn its transportation pay, that it shall furnish sufficient and suitable room in which the railway postal clerks may accompany the mails and distribute them en route. The operation of such cars was, therefore, not without compensation but with full compensation for the character of the service rendered. The companies simply forfeited a right to the additional compensation provided for under other acts, because the wooden cars were operated in a manner discouraged by the department and by Congress as endangering the lives and the limbs of railway postal clerks.

Opinion:
Hay, Judge,
reviewing the facts found to be established, delivered the opinion of the court:
The plaintiff brings this suit to recover the sum of $223.02, being the amount which was deducted by the Post Office Department in making settlement with the plaintiff for the transportation of mails over the plaintiff's line of railroad during the period from July 1,1911, to February 1, 1912, the Post Office Department having refused the plaintiff compensation for wooden full railway post-office cars on the ground that said cars were operated either between the engine and a steel underframe car or between a steel and a steel underframe ear. There is no dispute about the facts. The cars in question were constructed strictly in accordance with the departmental specifications for such cars. These cars were operated between the engine and a steel underframe car or between a steel and a steel underframe car. The case turns upon the construction of the act of Congress of March 4, 1911, 36 Stat., 1335, which, in so far as it concerns this case, reads as follows:
"For railway post-office car service, $5,010,000: Provided, That no part of this amount shall be paid for the use of any car which is not sound in material and construction, and which is not equipped with sanitary drinking water containers and toilet facilities, nor unless such car is regularly and
thoroughly cleaned: Provided further, That after the first of July, nineteen hundred and eleven, no pay shall be allowed for the use of any wooden full railway post-office car unless constructed substantially in accordance with the most approved plans and specifications of the Post Office Department for such type of cars, nor for any wooden full railway post-office car run in any train between adjoining steel cars or between the engine and a steel car adjoining, and hereafter additional cars accepted for this service shall be of steel, or with steel under frame, if used in a train in which a majority of the cars are of like construction: Provided further, That after the first day of July, nineteen hundred and sixteen, the Postmaster General shall not approve or allow to be used or pay for any full railway post-office car not constructed of steel or with steel underframe if such post-office car is used in a train in which a majority of the cars are of steel or of steel underframe construction."
The Post Office Department in construing the following words in the above-quoted provision, "no pay shall be allowed for any wooden full railway post-office car run in any train between adjoining steel cars, or between the engine and a steel car adjoining," held that the words "steel cars" included cars with steel underframe; that no pay could be allowed for any wooden full railway post-office car run in any train between adjoining cars with steel underframe, or for any wooden full railway post-office car run in any train between the engine and a car with steel underframe. Is this a proper construction of the statute? Are steel cars and cars with steel underframe the same? Did Congress intend that the above provision should apply to cars with steel underframes as well as to steel cars ?
The defendants say that this was the intention of Congress, and that steel cars included steel-underframe cars.
It is said that this intent may be gathered from a consideration of the evil which was sought to be remedied by Congress, from the debates in Congress when the legislation was under consideration, and from the construction of the act by the Post Office Department.
Where the language of a statute is not clear and is of doubtful construction the court may consider the evil intended to be remedied, but when the language of the statute is clear it is not for the court to say that it shall be so con strued as to embrace cases which might or might not have been intended by the legislation. For " when the language of the act is explicit there is great danger in departing from the words used to give an effect to the law which may be supposed to have been designed by the legislature." Denn v. Reid, 10 Pet., 527. If the words of a statute " convey a definite meaning which involves no absurdity, nor any contradiction of other parts of the instrument, then that meaning apparent on the face of the instrument must be accepted." Lake County v. Rollins, 130 U. S., 662, 670, and cases there cited.
In this case the statute under consideration conveys a definite meaning. There is no ambiguity about the words used. On the face of the act it appears that " no pay shall be allowed for any wooden full railway post-office car run in any train between adjoining steel cars, or between the engine and a steel car adjoining." The words " cars with steel underframes" are not mentioned in this connection and can not be read into this provision without great danger of giving an effect to the law which Congress never intended. This view is strengthened and confirmed by the fact that this proviso of the law contains a few lines below the above quoted provision the following:
"Provided further, That after the first day of July, nineteen hundred and sixteen, the Postmaster General shall not approve or allow to be used or pay for any full railway post-office car not constructed of steel, or with steel widerframe, if such post-office car is used in a train in which a majority of the cars are steel or of steel underframe construction." (Italics ours.)
It will be thus seen that Congress had in mind both steel cars and cars with steel underframe; and while providing against the use of wooden cars in trains made up of steel and steel underframe cars after July 1, 1916, yet did not see fit to include the steel underframe cars in the provision providing for pay.
It is also urged that the debates in Congress and before the committees show that the words " steel cars " include cars with steel underframe. Counsel refer in considerable detail to the history of this proviso in its passage through Con gress. Looking at the debates while this provision was under consideration we find nowhere any reference to steel underframe cars. Nor can we infer from anything there said that Congress intended to include cars with steel underframe in the same class as steel cars. Besides, the purposes for which debates in Congress may be consulted are limited. Caminetti Case, 242 U. S., 496. We are left to determine the meaning of this provision in the statute from the language used therein, and arrive at the conclusion that the Postmaster General was not authorized by this provision to refuse compensation to the plaintiff because the plaintiff had run wooden cars in its train between the engine and steel underframe cars and adjoining steel underframe cars.
As to the construction placed upon the provision by the department it is only necessary to observe that we do not consider the true construction doubtful. That being so, the construction placed upon it by the department can not be taken into consideration. United States v. Healey, 160 U. S., 136, 141.
It follows from the foregoing that judgment will be rendered in favor of the plaintiff for the sum of $223.02, and it is so ordered.
Downey, Judge; Barney, Judge; Booth, Judge; and Campbell, Chief Justice, concur.