Court Opinion

ID: 8765185
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 12:22:23.891925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:01:49.529693
License: Public Domain

GROSSCUP, Circuit Judge
(concurring), I cannot bring myself to the conclusion that until the cars loaded with the products of the Si *563& S. Company actually reached the rails oí the Terminal Railroad Company, such products were not already in course of interstate transportation — that until the rails of the Terminal Company were reached, neither the shipper nor carrier were subject to the obligations, or entitled to the rights, that shippers and carriers are subject to, and acquire, only when the things to be shipped have reached the stage of being actually in course of interstate transportation. My personal view is that the moment the products of the S. & S. Company passed out of its hands into the cars of the Terminal Company for transportation, whether the cars thus receiving such products were at the time on the rails belonging to the S. & S. Company, or on the rails belonging to the Railroad Company, the interstate transportation of those products had already commenced; and that the published rate is a rate for the whole of that transportation, from the moment it thus begins to the moment the goods reach their destination; from which if. follows, it seems to me, that as against the S. & S. Company, notwithstanding the fact that the Railroad Company receives the goods at the S. & S. Company warehouses, and on its rails (no additional terminal charges having been fixed) the Railroad Company could not lawfully exact more than the regular published rates; while in the performance of its obligations to other shippers, under the Interstate Commerce law, it could not lawfully accept less. In other words, under the facts presented, the published rate is not affected by the fact that the cars were loaded at the S. & S. Company’s warehouses, and uot on the Company’s rails — such place of loading being, along with the Railroad Company’s freight stations, “Kansas City” within the meaning of the published rates.
Now I am inclined strongly to the judgment that through contract with the parties interested, the Railroad Company could, at its own expense, lawfully have laid its own rails up to and along side of the S. & S. Company’s warehouses, notwithstanding the fact that title to the land under the rails should remain in the S. & S. Company; or could have leased the rails laid by the S. & S. Company of that company; provided always that the transaction was not a subterfuge to cover up discriminations. But an arrangement of that kind between the two companies cannot, in my judgment, for reasons of public policy that the Interstate Commerce Act was intended to carry out, be lawfully based on division of rates, or in any other way be connected with, or affect, the rate making function of the Railroad Company; for to secure equality among shippers, the law commands, not only that the rates shall be equal, but that they shall be fixed and certain— subject to no addition or diminution against, or in favor of, any one — - so fixed and certain that any shipper can with his head and pencil figure out from the tariff sheets just what the rate is, both for himself and for his competitors; from which it follows that, while the Railroad Company, through its appropriate department, might lawfully perhaps have leased these rails of the S. & S. Company, paying therefor a reasonable rental, it could not lawfully for the reasons of public policy named, through its tariff department, and on the basis of a division of rates (the whole arrangement secret so far as the published *564tariff sheets were concerned) have made the arrangement that was offered as a defense to the offense prosecuted.
The judgment is affirmed.