Interstate Commerce Commission v. Atchison, T. & S.F.R. Co.

• Citation: 50 F. 295
• Court: United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. United States District Court (Southern District of California)
• Decision Date: 25 April 1892
• Parties: INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION v. ATCHISON, T. & S.F.R. CO. et al.

50 F. 295

INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION v. ATCHISON, T. & S.F.R. CO. et al.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. California.

April 25, 1892

M. T Allen, U.S. Atty., and Harris & Gregg, for petitioner.

A Brunson and C. N. Sterry, for defendants.

ROSS District Judge.

This proceeding was instituted by virtue of the sixteenth section of the act of congress entitled 'An act to regulate commerce,' as amended March 2, 1889, (25 St. at Large, p 855,) to enforce an order made by the Interstate Commerce Commission on the 19th day of July, 1890, directing that from and after September 1, 1890, the defendants, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, the California Southern Railroad Company, the Chicago, Kansas & Nebraska Railway Company, the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, and the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Company, cease and desist from charging or receiving any greater compensation, in the aggregate, for the transportation in car-load lots of certain enumerated commodities over their several lines or the routes formed by them, from Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati, or New York, or from corresponding points, for the shorter distance to San Bernardino, in the state of California, for the shorter distance over the same line, in the same direction, to Los Angeles, in the state of California. The order of the commission here sought to be enforced was made in a proceeding instituted before that body by a complaint on the part of the San Bernardino Board of Trade, setting forth that the railroad companies above mentioned were charging and receiving higher rates for each car load of reapers, mowers, harvesters, hay presses, plows, horse rakes, seed drills, corn planters, forks, (hay or manure,) hoes, hand rakes, shovels, spades, bags, burlap and gunny, compressed in bales, beer in glasses or stone, packed bottles, wine or beer in bulk, coffee in sacks, crockery, common china and white ware, packed, chairs, common wooden seated, cane seated, perforated, worth not more than nine dollars a dozen, school furniture, iron, bar or rod, fruit and jelly glasses, pumps, steam or hydraulic, sewing machines, soap, Castile, imitation Castile, common balls, and laundry, stoves, ranges, registers, radiators, black iron stove furniture and hollow ware, sugar, buggies and carriages, and farm wagons without springs, from the Missouri river, St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, and New York, over the same line, in the same direction, to San Bernardino, than to Los Angeles, San Bernardino being the shorter and Los Angeles the longer distance; thereby giving Los Angeles an unlawful preference over San Bernardino. To this complaint a demurrer was interposed by the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad Company, and answers were filed by the other defendant companies. The commission held that the complaint was sufficient to put the carriers to proof that the services were rendered under such dissimilar circumstances as to justify the greater charge for the shorter haul; and, after hearing evidence, found certain facts, which are set out in its report and opinion. Holding that the greater charge for the shorter haul was not justified by the facts found, the order was entered which this court is now asked to enforce.

The petition of the commission for such enforcement sets forth, among other things, that, subsequent to the filing of the complaint of the San Bernardino Board of Trade before the commission, the California Central Railway Company and the California Southern Railroad Company were consolidated, and constituted into a new corporation, under and by virtue of the laws of California, called the 'Southern California Railway Company,' which last-mentioned corporation claims to have some interest in the subject-matter of this suit, and accordingly it is also made a defendant herein.

To the petition all of the defendant companies, except the Chicago Kansas & Nebraska Railway Company, filed an answer, admitting the allegations of the petition respecting the corporate existence of the defendant companies, and the location of their principal places of business; also the consolidation of the California Central Railway Company and the California Southern Railroad Company, forming the Southern California Railway Company; but alleging that, in addition to the California Central Railway Company and the California Southern Railroad Company, the Redondo Beach Railway Company, at the time being a corporation duly incorporated under the laws of California, having its principal place of business in the city of Los Angeles, was duly consolidated with the aforesaid two companies, under the name of Southern California Railway Company; that the Redondo Beach Railway Company, at the time of such consolidation, owned and operated a line of road running from Los Angeles city, and there connecting with the California Central Railway Company, westerly to Redondo Beach, a point immediately upon the shore of the Pacific ocean, which road is now a part of the line owned and operated by the Southern California Railway Company. The defendants, answering, also admit that all of the aforesaid corporations, except the Southern California Railway Company, and its component corporations, were at the times mentioned in the petition, and still are, common carriers, engaged in the transportation of persons and property by their railroads extending through several of the United States, under a common control, management, or arrangement for a continuous carriage, and were then engaged in such business from the Missouri river, St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, and New York to Barstow, in the county of San Bernardino, state of California. But the defendants, answering, deny that they are interstate common carriers between Barstow and Los Angeles or San Bernardino, and allege that the defendant companies, other than the Southern California Railway Company, carry only from the eastern points named to Barstow, where all goods and merchandise shipped and hauled by them as common carriers are turned over and delivered to the Southern California Railway Company; that said Southern California Railway Company is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of California, having its principal place of business in the city of Los Angeles, and neither owns nor operates any line of railroad outside of the state of California, and is not subject to the provisions of the interstate commerce act. The answer admits the proceedings before the Interstate Commerce Commission as stated in the petition, but alleges that neither the Redondo Beach Railway Company nor the Southern California Railway Company was a party thereto, and that neither of them had a hearing before the commission upon any of the matters in question. The defendants, answering further, allege, among other things, as reasons why the order of the commission should not be enforced, that the true and existing state of facts as to ocean competition existing at the time of the filing of the petition by the San Bernardino Board of Trade, and of the answers of the respective defendants therein, were not fully proven and established before the commission; but that when the petition was filed, and when those answers were made, and when the hearing thereon was had, there did actually exist such water competition as to take the rates upon freight to Los Angeles out of the operation of the interstate commerce act, and that the carrying and transportation of the freight in question to Los Angeles and San Bernardino was not under substantially similar circumstances and conditions, but was made wholly dissimilar by reason of water competition actually existing; and, further, that, since the making of the order here sought to be enforced, there has grown up and now exists a new, substantial, and continuous competition, by ocean carriers, between all of the points east of the Missouri river named in the pleadings herein and the Pacific ports, including the ports of San Francisco, Redondo Beach, and San Pedro, and that there is now being carried by such ocean transportation large quantities of merchandise and general freight, including the commodities mentioned in the petition filed by the San Bernardino Board of Trade before the Interstate Commerce Commission, to the ports aforesaid, in rivalry with and in competition to the overland carrying by the defendant companies, and that such competition is actual and present and is increasing; and that the defendant companies, by reason of such competition, have been compelled to make special rates to terminal points upon the Pacific coast, including among the number the city of Los Angeles; that the Redondo Beach Railway Company, now forming part of the Southern California Railway Company, by reason of its aforesaid consolidation, creates a continuous line through to the ocean at Redondo Beach, through which point, directly from the east and from the shipping points named in the petition of the San Bernardino Board of Trade, large quantities of freight are not being consigned and shipped directly to Los Angeles, and to the port of San Francisco, by steam and sailing vessels, and from Redondo Beach and San Pedro for Los Angeles. The defendants, answering further, allege that there are now four transcontinental lines of railroad from the east to the Pacific ocean, other than that formed by the defendant companies, namely: The Southern Pacific Railroad Company, operating its line of road from the city of San Francisco to Galveston, Tex., and other points east, running through the city of Los Angeles, and passing (three miles) south of San Bernardino; the transcontinental line composed of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad Companies, operating a line from San...