Court Opinion

ID: 9418842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:41:14.025583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:11.812797
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Butler
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These are separate appeals from a decree of a three judge court dismissing a suit to enjoin enforcement of an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission. & F. Supp. 825. The suit was brought by 24 railroads, appellants in No. 606, for convenience called “carriers,” against the United States and Interstate Commerce Commission. Twenty-one are line carriers; the other three perform only switching service. The Union Stock Yard & Transit Company, appellant in No. 607, and the Hygrade Food Products Corporation, the complainant before the Commission and one of the appellees here, intervened.
By its complaint to the Commission the Hygrade Company attacked as unreasonable in violation of § 1 of the Interstate Commerce Act (Title 49, U. S. C.) the carriers’ tariff charges applicable to switching livestock to *195its packing plant. And it assailed as inapplicable the yardage charge collected by the Yards Company on livestock delivered at the stockyards. It claims that the service covered by the charge is included in transportation, §§ 1 (3), 15 (5); that, not being specified in carriers’ tariffs, they are unlawful, § 6; and that the practice of the carriers and Yards Company in making the stockyards their depot for delivery of livestock pursuant to an arrangement by which the Yards Company imposes a yardage charge is an unjust and unreasonable practice in violation of § 1.
Subject to regulation by the Secretary of Agriculture under the Packers and Stockyards Act, 1921, 42 Stat. 159, 7 U. S. C., c. 9, the Yards Company operates public stockyards in Chicago. The Hygrade Company in 1929 acquired and has since operated a packing plant that many years ago was established on the Chicago Junction Railway a short distance from the unloading pens in the stockyards. Tracks of the Junction Railway extend into, and are used to haul dead freight to and from, the Hygrade plant. The charge for switching livestock into the plant is $12 per car. To avoid that burden, the Hygrade Company elects, as did its predecessors, to have all livestock intended for slaughter at the plant shipped to the stockyards. These yards are livestock terminals of the carriers and are served by trains operated by them over the tracks of the Junction Railway. Each carrier’s tariff specifies rates covering transportation of livestock to Chicago including delivery to consignee on the carrier’s own line. But, as practically all shipments to Chicago are consigned to the public stockyards, there is little, if any, need or use of individual carrier unloading facilities.
To cover the movement over the Junction Railway to the public stockyards, western carriers add to the Chicago rate $2.70 and eastern carriers $1.35 per car. No additional charge is made for unloading. The carriers employ and pay the Yards Company for unloading the livestock *196the amount — $1 per car — specified in its tariffs filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission. That work is accomplished by means of platforms and chutes down which the animals are driven from the cars into pens. These pens are not suitable places in which long to hold livestock. At peak periods of stock train arrivals these facilities are so much in use that the Yards Company is able to permit the animals to remain in the unloading pens only a short time — often not more than a few minutes. And, unless promptly taken away by consignee, the Yards Company transfers them to holding pens.
About 85 per cent, of all consignments to the Hygrade Company are so transferred. The others are by it taken from the unloading pens and driven through ways or alleys within the extensive yards properties over scales, where for the purpose of computing freight charges they are weighed, to and along an elevated runway over pens in the yards and the tracks of the Junction Railway, thence to and through a tunnel, under the proposed extension of Pershing Road (located along what was formerly a part of the Chicago River) ending at the Hygrade Company’s plant which abuts on that highway. The Yards Company, in accordance with its tariffs filed with the Secretary of Agriculture, makes and collects a specified charge per head on all livestock received in the yards — being 35, 25, 12 and 8 cents respectively for cattle, calves, hogs and sheep. These charges apply to animals taken by the consignee immediately from unloading pens to its plant as well as to those transferred by the Yards Company to the holding pens, later to be taken by consignee. The tariffs of the Yards Company also specify charges for other services.1 As to each carload, it makes a statement showing separately the carrier’s charges and its own. It *197collects the total, accounts to the carriers for those covered by their tariffs filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission, and retains the balance.
The report of the Commission (195 I. C. C. 553) states: The stockyards are livestock terminals of the carriers. Consignees are entitled to delivery at suitable pens without charge for the mere placement therein of the livestock. The unloading pens are suitable for the accomplishment of proper delivery to consignee. The method of handling is efficient and satisfactory. The fact that the carriers have at Chicago destinations other places of delivery where no charge is made is not a legally sufficient reason for an extra charge at the stockyards. As to about 15 per cent, of all shipments consigned to complainant “ it has taken delivery before the animals were placed in holding pens.” There is no occasion for putting them in holding pens if prompt delivery is desired. The fact that other freight is subject to storage or demurrage charges only after the lapse of considerable time is not a sufficient reason why similar rules should apply in respect of yardage charges on livestock. After unloading, livestock requires unusual attention and care such as is not required by other freight.
The Commission concluded: The switching charge is not shown to be unreasonable or otherwise unlawful.
Prompt delivery does not require pens to be so equipped as to provide rest, feed and water for livestock. If placement into pens that are so equipped is desired, an extra charge therefor is not within the inhibition of § 15.
There are no services performed after unloading for which defendants may assess charges in instances where delivery is taken at the unloading pens. The livestock in carloads consigned to complainant at the yards is not subject to yardage charges in instances where delivery is so taken. Complainant is entitled to reparation.
The Commission ordered that the carriers and Yards Company cease and desist from practices which subject *198complainant to payment of yardage charges on livestock, in instances where delivery is taken at the unloading pens, and that the proceeding may be reopened to ascertain the amount of reparation.
Appellants contend that transportation ends with unloading of livestock into suitable pens and that, for lack of essential findings of fact, the order is void.
Transportation of ordinary livestock in carload lots from and to points other than public stockyards has always been deemed to include furnishing of facilities at the place of shipment for loading and at destination for unloading and suitable ways for convenient ingress and egress. Covington Stock-Yards Co. v. Keith, 139 U. S. 128, 134-135. Erie R. Co. v. Shuart, 250 U. S. 465, 468. 2 Hutchinson, Carriers, 3d ed., § 510. Cf. Norfolk & Western Ry. v. Public Service Comm’n, 265 U. S. 70, 74. And, in the absence of understanding or agreement to the contrary, transportation includes loading and unloading. 4 Elliott, Railroads, 3d ed., § 2346. Indiana Union Traction Co. v. Benadum, 42 Ind. App. 121, 123; 83 N. E. 261. Davis v. Simmons (Tex. Civ. App.), 240 S. W. 970, 976. Massey v. Texas P. Ry. Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 200 S. W. 409, 410. Benson v. Gray, 154 Mass. 391, 394; 28 N. E. 275.
But for many years, in virtue of custom and ,as well by the terms of shipping contracts in general use, that burden has been laid upon shippers. 2 Hutchinson, Carriers, 3d ed., § 711. London & L. Fire Ins. Co. v. Rome, W. & O. R. Co., 144 N. Y. 200, 205; 39 N. E. 79. Indeed, October 21,1921, the Interstate Commerce Commission, acting under authority of § 15 (1) and following a form of clause submitted by shippers and carriers, prescribed a uniform livestock contract containing § 4 (a): “ The shipper at his own risk and expense shall load and unload the live stock into and out of cars, except in those instances where this duty is made obligatory upon the carrier by statute or *199is assumed by a lawful tariff provision.” 64 I. C. C. 357, 363, App. F. But the practice has long been otherwise at the Chicago Union Stockyards. Eor more than 50 years prior to 1917 the carriers without any additional charge to shipper or consignee unloaded livestock into pens provided by the Yards Company. Adams v. Mills, 286 U. S. 397, 410. Paragraph (5) of § 15 enacted in 1920'made the practice general and compulsory in public stockyards throughout the United States. And the Yards Company has always collected a charge on all animals received in its yards. It may be assumed that shippers, commission men and packers, including the Hygrade Company, have had knowledge of this long existing practice.
Paragraph (5) of § 15 was passed February 28, 1920, during and presumably with knowledge of the controversy later brought here in Adams v. Mills, supra. While declaring that transportation of livestock to public stockyards shall include unloading without extra charge, it left undisturbed the Yards Company’s practice of making a charge for livestock received.2 The Packers and Stockyards Act, approved August 15, 1921, subjects public stock*200yards to regulation by the Secretary of Agriculture. Section 301 (b) defines stockyards services to include, among other things, facilities furnished at a stockyard in connection with the receiving, holding and delivery of livestock.3 Section 406 provides that the Act shall not affect the jurisdiction of the Commission or confer upon the Secretary concurrent jurisdiction over any matter within the jurisdiction of the Commission.4
There is here involved no question as to the adequacy of individual carriers’ unloading or other facilities for the delivery of livestock. The Hygrade Company did not seek and the Commission did not grant relief upon the ground that the carriers failed to provide egress from the unloading pens in the public stockyards to the city streets by means of which consignee’s animals might be removed to its plant. Consignee sought free delivery in cars switched into its plant, but the Commission found the switching charge not unreasonable. Consignee also sought free use of the Yards Company’s properties, including the overhead runway to take its animals from holding pens as well as from unloading pens to its plant. The Commission held against it as to the first and in its favor as to the other of these demands.
Long continued practice and special conditions made unloading at these yards a transportation service to be performed by the carrier. Adams v. Mills, supra, 410. So the long established and uniform practice to provide a *201route via the overhead runway to the Hygrade plant distinguishes the use of the Yards Company’s properties for this service from mere egress such as is included in transportation of livestock to destinations other than public yards. Plainly there is ,an essential difference between the route from unloading pens to consignee’s plant and a mere way out to the public highways. Transportation does not include delivery within the Hygrade plant or the furnishing of the properties, overhead runway and all, that are used for that purpose. Usage and physical conditions combined definitely to end transportation, at least in respect of these shipments, with unloading into suitable pens as is now required by § 15 (5). Like the railroads, public stockyards are public utilities subject to regulation in respect of services and charges. The statutes cited clearly disclose intention that jurisdiction of the Secretary shall not overlap that of the Commission. The boundary is the place where transportation ends.
The Commission’s ruling that the imposition of the yardage charge on animals taken by consignee from holding pens does not violate the Act implies that as to those animals transportation ended at the unloading pens. On the other hand, its ruling that in the instances where consignee takes delivery at unloading pens the animals are not subject to the yardage charge suggests that delivery is not completed by unloading into suitable pens. That necessarily implies something more to be done or furnished by the carrier. But the Commission, in respect of the shipments covered by its order, made no definite finding as to what constitutes complete delivery or where transportation ends. Its report does not disclose the basic facts on which it made the.challenged order. This court will not search the record to ascertain whether, by use of what there may be found, general and ambiguous statements in the report intended to serve as findings may by construction be given a meaning sufficiently definite and certain to *202constitute a valid basis for the order. In the absence of a finding of essential basic facts, the order cannot be sustained. Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194, 215. Recently this court has repelled the suggestion that lack of express finding by an administrative agency may be supplied by implication. Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388, 433. See Beaumont, S. L. & W. Ry. v. United States, 282 U. S. 74, 86. Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 186 U. S. 320, 341.

Reversed.

 They include: Feed and feeding, bedding, dipping and spraying, immunizing and incidental care of swine, cattle testing, cleaning and disinfecting of pens, etc., branding, and other special services.

 Section 15 (5) of the Interstate Commerce Act, added by § 418 of the Transportation Act, 1920, 41 Stat. 486, provides:
“ Transportation wholly by railroad of ordinary livestock in carload lots destined to or received at public stockyards shall include all necessary service of unloading and reloading en route, delivery at public stockyards of inbound shipments into suitable pens, and receipt and loading at such yards of outbound shipments, without extra charge therefor to the shipper, consignee or owner, except in cases where the unloading or reloading en route is at the request of the shipper, consignee or owner, or to try an intermediate market, or to comply with quarantine regulations. The Commission may prescribe or approve just and reasonable rules governing each of such excepted services. Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to affect the duties and liabilities of the carriers now existing by virtue of law respecting the transportation of other than ordinary livestock, or the duty of performing service as to shipments other than those to or from public stockyards.” 49 U. S. C., § 15 (5).

 “ The term ‘ stockyard services ’ means services or facilities furnished at a stockyard in connection with the receiving, buying or selling on a commission basis or otherwise, marketing, feeding, watering, holding, delivery, shipment, weighing, or handling in commerce, of livestock.” 7 U. S. C., § 201 (b).

 “ Nothing in this Act shall affect the power or jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission, nor confer upon the Secretary concurrent power or jurisdiction over any matter within the power or jurisdiction of such Commission.” 7 U. S, C., § 226.