United States Louisville Cement Co v. Interstate Commerce Commission

• Decision Date: 29 April 1918
• Docket Number: No. 70,70
• Citation: 62 L.Ed. 914,246 U.S. 638,38 S.Ct. 408
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. LOUISVILLE CEMENT CO. v. INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

246 U.S. 638

38 S.Ct. 408

62 L.Ed. 914

UNITED STATES ex rel. LOUISVILLE CEMENT CO.

v INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

No. 70.

Argued March 14, 1918.

Decided April 29, 1918.

Messrs. J. Van Dyke Norman, of Louisville, Ky., and Frank Lyon and George H. Lamar, both of Washington, D. C., for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Charles W. Needham, of Washington, D. C., and Joseph W. Folk, of St. Louis, Mo., for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice CLARKE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The facts of this case are not disputed and are as follows:

By mistake in printing its tariff, the published rate of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company on coal from mines in Kentucky to Speeds, Ind., was increased on July 29, 1906, to $1.10 per ton from $1, which had been the rate before.

The mistake was not noticed and the old rate was charged and paid by relator (plaintiff in error) on shipments until the following February, when, the increased published rate being discovered, it was charged and collected until the next April, when the former rate was restored.

Promptly on April 19, 1907, the relator wrote the Interstate Commerce Commission, explaining the circumstances, and requesting that the railroad company be authorized to refund the overcharges paid, February 11 to April 10, 1907, amounting to $595.65.

The Commission replied to this letter, that if the railroad company would file with the Commission an admission that the rate had been increased through error and would ask for authority to make the refund, the subject would receive consideration.

This statement of the Commission was immediately communicated to the railroad company, but it refused to make the required admission of mistake and to request authority to make the refund until the full published rate was paid on shipments made before the mistake was discovered. This led to dispute and delay, with the result that these excess charges ($1,335.25) were not paid until February 1, 1911.

In the following November the relator filed its petition with the Commission asking for an order permitting the railroad company to refund the entire amount, in excess of the former rate, paid under the mistakenly published tariff.

The railroad company admitted that it never in ended to increase the rate and consented that the reparation order prayed for should be issued.

The Commission found, as a matter of fact, that the mistakenly published rate of $1.10 was unreasonable to the extent that it exceeded $1 per ton, and then, holding that all complaints for the recovery of damages must be filed with the Commission within two years from the date of the delivery of the shipment, it ruled that the letter of the relator to the Commission of April 19, 1907, making claim for the overcharges which had been paid between February 11 and April 10, 1907, was sufficient to satisfy the law, and ultimately issued to the railroad company authority to pay this amount to the relator; but the Commission further held that the complaint for the recovery of the overcharges for the period prior to February 11th, although filed within nine months of the date of their payment, was not in time to meet the requirement of section 16 of the act that 'all complaints for the recovery of damages shall be filed with the Commission within two years from the time the cause of action accrues, and not after,' and that 'they (the overcharges) are, therefore, barred from our consideration.'

The relator filed its petition for a writ of mandamus in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, which petition was denied, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District affirming this holding is here for review.

The lower courts arrived at their conclusion by holding that the Commission entertained jurisdiction over the portion of the relator's claim which was rejected; that in the exercise of that jurisdiction it held the claim to be barred and that this was an exercise of discretion committed by law to the Commission which is not subject to control by the writ of mandamus.

We think the courts fell into error in thus interpreting the language used by the Commission in its report.

As to the portion of the claim which we are considering, the report of the Commission is as follows:

'The only question left for determination is whether the claim is barred, in whole or in part, by the following limitation of the act: 'All complaints for the recovery of damages shall be filed with the Commission within two years from the time the cause of action accrues, and not after.'

'The Commission holds that the date when the cause of action accrues is the date of the delivery of the shipment. Blinn Lumber Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 18 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 430. * * * No complaint was filed by complainant [relator] with reference to shipments made before February 1st, 1907, until the petition here in question was filed on November 15th, 1911, and these shipments had all been delivered more than four years before the filing of that petition. They [the overcharges] are therefore barred from our consideration.'

The concluding sentence thus used by the Commission, that 'They [the overcharges] are therefore barred from our consideration,' implies that in the opinion of the Commission the two-year provision of the sixteenth section of the act is a limitation upon its power, and that the construction which it gave to this limitation placed the claim we are considering so beyond its jurisdiction that it could not consider it, and reference to the case cited as authority for its conclusion, Blinn Lumber Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 18 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 430, makes it clear that such was the intended holding. In that case the Commission expresses its conclusion in this form:

'After careful consideration of the contentions of all parties * * * as to the right of the complainant' (after two years) 'to maintain this proceeding for reparation before the Commission, it is our conclusion that we are without power to grant the relief prayed for.'

And in Anaconda Copper Mining Co. v. C. & E R. R. Co., 19 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 592, decided seven months later, the Commission makes a yet more emphatic announcement of its views upon the subject, saying:

'In this report only such shipm nts will be considered as moved within two years from the time the complaint embracing them was filed, and with respect to shipments moving prior to such two-year period we think it proper...