Railroad Commission of Louisiana v. Texas Pacific Railway Company

• Decision Date: 10 June 1913
• Docket Number: No. 335,335
• Parties: RAILROAD COMMISSION OF LOUISIANA and Walter Guion, Attorney General of Louisiana, Appts., v. TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, St. Louis, Iron Mountain, & Southern Railway Company, and Kansas City Southern Railway Company
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

229 U.S. 336

33 S.Ct. 837

57 L.Ed. 1215

RAILROAD COMMISSION OF LOUISIANA and Walter Guion, Attorney General of Louisiana, Appts.,

v TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, St. Louis, Iron Mountain, & Southern Railway Company, and Kansas City Southern Railway Company.

No. 335.

Submitted May 8, 1913.

Decided June 10, 1913.

Mr. Ruffin G. Pleasant, Attorney General of Louisiana, and Messrs. E. Howard McCaleb and Wylie M. Barrow for appellants.

Messrs. Charles Payne Fenner, Walker B. Spencer, Philip S. Gidiere, Esmond Phelps, Henry Bernstein, John Potts, and F. G. Hudson for appellees.

Mr. Justice McKenna delivered the opinion of the court:

Suit in equity to declare void certain orders of the railroad commission of the state of Louisiana, and to restrain the enforcement of penalties for the alleged violation thereof. The ground of the suit is that the orders and the penalties constitute a regulation of interstate commerce, and therefore are in violation of the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States.

An amended and supplemental bill was filed by leave of the court, making the appellant Walter Guion, attorney general of the state, a party on the ground that he had asserted a right and intention to bring suits in the state courts to collect the fines and penalties imposed by the state railroad commission.

A demurrer was filed to the bill, stating as grounds thereof (1) That neither the original nor the supplemental bill stated any cause for the relief prayed. (2) That the suit was one against the state, being one brought to restrain the state in her sovereign character and capacity from instituting suits to recover and enforce the collection of penalties imposed under and by virtue of the provisions of her Constitution of a penal nature. (3) That the amount involved is not sufficient to give the court jurisdiction, not being over $2,000.

The demurrer was overruled. An answer was then filed. The case was referred to a master, who reported his conclusions of fact and of law, and recommended that the bill be dismissed, basing his recommendation on Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Texas, 204 U. S. 403, 51 L. ed. 540, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 360.

The circuit court, however, drew a different conclusion from the facts, and entered a decree perpetually enjoining the fines impossed. The decree was affirmed by the circuit court of appeals, expressing, without a decree perpetually enjoining the fines imposed. below that on the facts found by the master, the commerce involved in the case was interstate.

The facts as found by the master may be summarized as follows:

The appellee railroad companies are corporations engaged in interstate and intrastate commerce from points within and without the state of Louisiana to the city of New Orleans, and the freight transported by them is subsequently loaded on board ships and transported to foreign ports and countries. The railroad commission of Louisiana, on May 25, 1905, promulgated and put in effect an order which fixed the freight rates that the railroads should be entitled to charge on all intrastate traffic, and the rates were effective and in force at the date of the shipment in controversy. In the months of July, August, and September, 1905, certain persons (their names are unimportant) delivered to the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company at certain stations on the line of its road, within the state, eighteen carloads of logs and staves. The logs and staves were transported by the railway from said stations and delivered to Alexandria, and there delivered to the Texas & Pacific Railway Company, which transported them to New Orleans, where they were unloaded from the cars, put on board ship, and exported to foreign countries.

When the shipments were made, the local tariff filed with and approved by the state railroad commission was 10 cents per hundred pounds; the local tariff filed with and approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission on such shipments, at that time, was 12 cents per hundred pounds.

The consignees were notified of the arrival of the cars at New Orleans, and the Texas & Pacific Railway Company was ordered by them to deliver the freight to certain steamships ships plying between New Orleans and plying between New Orleans and in accordance with the orders and exported from Louisiana. A freight rate of 12 cents per hundred pounds was charged on the shipments and collected by the railway company.

In March, 1905, a shipper delivered to the Kansas City Southern Railway Company at Leesville, Louisiana, on its line of road, three carloads of tank staves, which were loaded in cars of the Texas & Pacific Railway Company to be transported to a named consignee at New Orleans....