Champlin Refining Co v. United States

• Decision Date: 18 November 1946
• Docket Number: No. 21,21
• Citation: 329 U.S. 29,91 L.Ed. 22,67 S.Ct. 1
• Parties: CHAMPLIN REFINING CO v. UNITED STATES et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

329 U.S. 29

67 S.Ct. 1

91 L.Ed. 22

CHAMPLIN REFINING CO

v UNITED STATES et al.

No. 21.

Argued Oct. 18, 21, 1946.

Decided Nov. 18, 1946.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 16, 1946.

See 329 U.S. 831, 67 S.Ct. 363.

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Oklahoma.

Messrs.Dan Moody, of Austin, Tex., and Harry O. Glasser, of Enid, Okla., for appellant.

Mr. Edward Dumbauld, of Washington, D.C., for appel-

[Argument of Counsel from page 30 intentionally omitted] lees. Mr. Justice JACKSON delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Interstate Commerce Commission, acting under § 19a of the Interstate Commerce Act,¹ ordered the appellant to furnish certain inventories, schedules, maps and charts of its pipe line property.² Champlin's objections that the Act does not authorize the order, or if it be construed to do so is unconstitutional, were overruled by the Commission and again by the District Court which dismissed the company's suit for an injunction.³ These questions of law are brought here by appeal. Judicial Code, § 238, 28 U.S.C. § 345, 28 U.S.C.A. § 345.

Champlin owns and operates a line of six-inch pipe 516 miles in length lying in five states. Originating at Champlin's Enid, Oklahoma refinery, it crosses Kansas, Nebraska, a part of South Dakota, and ends in Iowa. It is used only to convey the company's own refinery products to its own terminal stations at Hutchinson, Kansas; Superior, Nebraska, and Rock Rapids, Iowa, at each of which the line connects with storage facilities from which deliveries are made.

The statute, so far as relevant, says that it shall apply 'to common carriers engaged in,' 'transportation of oil or other commodity' by pipe line from one state to another. It provides also, that 'common carrier' includes 'all pipe-line companies.'⁴ This language on its face would seem to cover the appellant's operation.

Champlin contends, however, that the 'transportation' mentioned in the Act does not refer to the carriage of one's own goods. The District Court has found that Champlin is the sole owner of the products transported through its pipe line; it has never transported, offered to transport, or been asked to transport any products belonging to any other company or person; its pipe line does not connect with any other pipe line but only with storage tanks at the three terminal points; there are no facilities for putting any petroleum product into the line other than at the Enid refinery; delivery of the products at the three terminal points is made from Champlin's storage tanks by means of truck racks or railroad tank car racks and is not made directly from the pipe line in any instance; no tariffs stating transportation charges have been filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission or with any State commission or regulatory body.

Because of these facts the appellant suggests that the language and holding of this Court concerning the Uncle Sam Oil Company in The Pipe Line Cases, 234 U.S. 548, 34 S.Ct. 956, 58 L.Ed. 1459, approved in Valvoline Oil Company v. United States, 308 U.S. 141, 60 S.Ct. 160, 84 L.Ed. 151, govern this case. The Uncle Sam Company operation is described as 'simply drawing oil from its own wells across a state line to its own refinery, for its own use, and that is all, * * *.' The Pipe Line Cases, 234 U.S. 548, 562, 34 S.Ct. 956, 959, 58 L.Ed. 1459. The Court considered this was not 'transportation' within the meaning of the Act.

But we think it would expand the actual holding of that case to apply its conclusion to Champlin. The controlling fact under the statute is transporting commodities from state to state by pipe line. Admittedly Champlin is not a common carrier in the sense of the common law carrier for hire. However, the Act does not stop at this but goes on to say that its use of the term 'common carrier' is to include all pipe line companies—a meaningless addition if it thereby included only what the term without more always had included. While Champlin technically is transporting its own oil, manufacturing processes have been completed; the oil is not being moved for Champlin's own use. These interstate facilities are operated to put its finished products in the market in interstate commerce at the greatest economic advantage.

Examination of Champlin's pricing methods supports the view that appellant is engaged in transportation even though the products are still its own when moved. The District Court found that price at the terminal points includes f.o.b. price at the Enid refinery and an additional sum called a differential. The differential is the through railroad freight rate from Enid to the final destination (usually the purchaser's place of business) less the carrying charges from the pipe line terminal to final destination. The District Court found, however, that competitive and other conditions 'sometimes cause departures from the prices arrived at in accordance with the formula above described.' Appellant states that as to some deliveries 'rail rates were used merely as a basis for calculating a delivered price, not as a charge for transportation.' Even so, and even though departures from the calculated differential are substantial and frequent, we think this practice points up a significant distinction from the Uncle Sam case.

We hold that Champlin's operation is transportation within the meaning of the Act and that the statute supports the Commission's order to furnish information.

Appellant further contends that, as so construed, the Act exceeds the commerce power of Congress and violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment because it is argued that this interpretation converts a private pipe line into a public utility and requires a private carrier to become a common carrier. But our conclusion rests on no such basis and affords no such implication. The power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce is not dependent on the technical common carrier status but is quite as extensive over a private carrier. This power his yet been invoked only to the extent of requiring Champlin to furnish certain information as to facilities being used in interstate marketing of its products. The commerce power is adequate to support this requirement whether appellant be considered a private carrier or a common carrier.

The contention that the statute as so construed violates the due process clause by imposing upon a private carrier the obligations of a conventional common carrier for hire is too premature and hypothetical to warrant consideration on this record. The appellant in its entire period of operation has never been asked to carry the products of another and may never be. So far, the Commission has made no order which changes the appellant's obligations to any other company or person. If it does, it will be timely to consider concrete requirements and their specific effects on appellant. At present, appellant is asked only to provide information about a subject within the power possessed by Congress and delegated to the Commission, and that cannot be considered a taking of property even if it arouses appellant's premonitions.

We hold that the order before us is authorized by statute and that in this respect the statute is within the commerce power and does not offend the Fifth Amendment.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice REED, with whom Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice BURTON join dissenting.

This appeal brings into question the extent to which the Interstate Commerce Act covers pipe lines by virtue of the provisions of § 1 and § 19a.¹ Acting under the authority of these sections, the Interstate Commerce Commission called upon the appellant, Champlin Refining Company, for reports deemed appropriate for it to make, if it is a common carrier under the act. The appellant challenged the Commission's order on the ground that it was not covered by the sections.

Champlin owns a pipe line for the carriage of oil or other similar commodity from its refinery in Oklahoma to various distributing points in other states. It carries no commodities except its own produced in its own refinery and delivered at the ends of the pipe line into its own storage or holding tanks for sale to its customers. It also is sole owner of the stock of the Cimarron Valley Pipe Line Company, admittedly an intrastate common carrier, that supplies the Champlin refinery with its crude oil. The Commission's orders for valuation reports do not treat Champlin and Cimarron as a unitary operation. The Commission, at this bar, disclaimed expressly any intention to test the subjection of Champlin's distributing pipe line to Commission power by Champlin's ownership of the Cimarron stock. As the Court treats the situation as though Champlin's distributing pipe line, between the refinery and the sale tanks only, were involved, we accept for the purpose of this dissent the Commission's view of the test to be applied to Champlin.

Section 1 of the act applies its provisions to 'common carriers engaged in—* * * the transportation of oil' or similar commodities. In The Pipe Line Cases, 234 U.S. 548, 34 S.Ct. 956, 58 L.Ed. 1459, and Valvoline Oil Co. v. United States, 308 U.S. 141, 60 S.Ct. 160, 84 L.Ed. 151, this Court interpreted the term 'common carrier' to include all interstate pipe line companies that are engaged, within the purview of the act, in the transportation of oil. In these cases, pipe line companies that carried only their own oil, although all or a large part of it was purchased from producers prior to its carriage in the pipe lines, were held common carriers within the meaning and purpose of the act, though not common carriers in the technical sense of holding one's self out to carry indiscriminately all oil offered, because the act's evident purpose was to bring within its scope all pipe lines that would carry all oil offered 'if only the offerers would sell' at the carrier's price. In the Valvoline case, this...