Case: MISSOURI, KANSAS & TEXAS RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES
Abbreviation: Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Co. v. United States
Decision Date: 1921-06-06
Docket Number: 
Citation: 56 Ct. Cl. 480
Volume: 56
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Parties: MISSOURI, KANSAS & TEXAS RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
Judges: 
Pages: 480–480

Head Matter:
MISSOURI, KANSAS & TEXAS RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
[53 C. Cls., 641 ; 256 U. S., —.]
Judgment was rendered in favor of the United States in the court below. On appeal the judgment was affirmed, and the Supreme Court decided:
After a railroad company had entered into a contract to carry the mails with notice that it would be subject to all postal laws and regulations which were or might become applicable during the term of the service and that the adjustment of compensation based on weighings of the mails carried during ninety working days was subject to further orders, as well as fines and deductions, it discontinued an important train and thereby occasioned a diversion of part of the mails to other lines; the Post Office Department, upon the authority of the act of August 24, 1912, c. 389, 37 Staff 539, enacted after the contract was entered into, weighed the diverted mails for 21 days and readjusted the compensation accordingly. Held, that such-readjustment did not violate the contract although it diminished the compensation, and in part retroactively. Delaioare, LacJcawanna & Western R. R. Go. v. United States, 249 TJ. S. 385; Mail Divisor eases, 251 U. S. 326.
The act of 1912, supra, allows the readjustment to be made after a weighing of the diverted mails only, and the proviso (since repealed) that they must equal ten per cent “of the average daily weight on any of the routes affected,” referred to the average daily weight ascertained by the last previous general weighing, and meant ten per cent, not upon all, but upon some one of the routes affected.
The act also allows the readjustment to relate back to the first of July previous to the date of the act.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Holmes
delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court June 6, 1921.