Court Opinion

ID: 9419820
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:37.322546+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:20.767875
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
dissenting in part.
I do not think it should be left to the shipper and the car owner to determine what portion of the tariff paid by the railroad should be paid to the shipper. But that is *23exactly what the Court permits when it measures the shipper’s allowance by the amount of rental he has agreed to pay the car owner.
As Commissioner Splawn pointed out in his dissent from the opinion of the Interstate Commerce Commission (258 I. C. C. 371, 382-383), the Commission in following this course failed to comply with our opinion in General American Tank Car Corp. v. El Dorado Terminal Co., 308 U. S. 422. We there said (pp. 429-30):
“As the Circuit Court of Appeals has pointed out, different shippers may have differing costs in respect. of privately owned cars furnished the carriers. Nevertheless, as the allowances to be made them by the carriers for the use of such cars must be the subject of published schedules, and must be just and reasonable, the Commission is compelled to ascertain in the light of past and present experience a fair and reasonable compensation to cover such costs and prescribe a uniform rate which will reflect such experience. It is inevitable that some shippers may be able to furnish facilities at less than the published allowance while others may find their costs in excess of it. This fact, however, does not militate against the fixing of a uniform rate applicable to shippers properly classified by the Commission.”1
Unless that course is followed, a situation is sanctioned in which concessions and discriminations condemned by § 1 *24of the Elkins Act, 32 Stat. 847, 34 Stat. 587, 49 U. S. C. § 41, are likely to thrive.
There is a further objection to the course which the Court sanctions. As stated by Commissioner Splawn in his dissenting opinion (2581. C. C. at 384):
“It is elementary that the form of an allowance for the use of cars must be such as to reflect the extent of the use by the railroads of the facilities furnished. Whenever we have had occasion to determine such allowances, we have prescribed either per diem or mileage allowances. The railroads cannot be held responsible for the amount of rent reserved by the Car Corporation in an agreement with the shipper as the car may be left idle during the entire period. The car has value to the railroad only when it is used in transporting lading and results in the payment of freight charges.”
Any allowance based on cost to the shipper rather than on the use of the facility furnished violates that principle.
Only an appropriate uniform rate would obviate both of the objections I have mentioned.2 I would remand the *25case to the Commission so that it could now do what, according to my understanding, we originally intended it to do in accordance with the requirements of § 15 (13) of the Interstate Commerce Act.3

 Sec. 15 (13) of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U. S. C. § 15 (13), provides:
“If the owner of property transported under this chapter directly or indirectly renders any service connected with such transportation, or furnishes any instrumentality used therein, the charge and allowance therefor shall be published in tariffs or schedules filed in the manner provided in this chapter and shall be no more than is just and reasonable, and the commission may, after hearing on a complaint or on its own initiative, determine what is a reasonable charge as the maximum to be paid by the carrier or carriers for the services so rendered or for the use of the instrumentality so furnished, and fix the same by appropriate order, which order shall have the same force and effect and be enforced in like manner as the orders above provided for under this section.”

 The Commission’s finding was “That the rental paid or to be paid by El Dorado Oil Works to General American Tank Car Corporation under the terms of the lease agreement between those parties, dated September 28, 1933, was the only cost incurred by the former in furnishing the tank cars in which its shipments moved. A just and reasonable allowance as a maximum to have been paid by the respondents, rail carrier or carriers, to the Oil Works for the furnishing of such cars would have been an amount not to exceed such rental. Such an amount and allowance has been paid to the Oil Works through credits made to the account of the Oil Works by the Tank Car Corporation.”
There are no facts of record which show the relationship between the rental paid and the extent of the use by the railroads of the facilities furnished. The Commission made no findings in that regard.
Whether a uniform rate which is just and reasonable would be greater or less than the rental is wholly conjectural on the present record.

 Note 1, supra.