Court Opinion

ID: 9809870
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:30:54.55359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:55.683792
License: Public Domain

BeowN, J".,
dissenting. There are two questions presented by this appeal:
1. 'When the plaintiff tendered her goods for shipment from Charlotte, N. 0., to Davis, West Virginia, and demanded a bill of lading, was the transaction one of interstate commerce, so as to exclude the imposition of penalties under the State law?
2. Can the State penalize the defendant for refusing to give a bill of lading to Davis, West Virginia, a point beyond its own line, and to which point it had made and published no rates ?
These questions are discussed in my dissenting opinion in Burlington Lumber Co. v. R. R., 152 N. C., 76, and for the reasons given therein I cannot concur in the judgment of this Court.
The case of Twitty v. Southern Railway Co., 141 N. C., 356, in which I wrote the opinion of the Court, is cited as authority for the ruling in this case. In the Twitty case the shipment tendered was from Rutherfordton, N. C., to Hendersonville, N. C., points in same State and on defendant’s line of railway.
I think a cursory reading of the facts of the case and the opinion of the Court will disclose that the case has no application here.
*497Harrill v. Railway Co., 144 N. C., 532, likewise has no application to tbis case, for there the transportation bad been completed and there was nothing to do but to deliver the goods. There was no regulation of commerce or anything which was calculated to embarrass or impede the railroad company in the performance of its duty as an interstate carrier. That case was governed by the decision in Telegraph Co. v. James, 162 U. S., 650. The company was not required to receive and carry goods beyond the State but merely to deliver those which it had brought into it. The distinction between the two eases is apparent.
MR. Justioe Walker concurs in dissenting opinion.