Cotting v. Kansas City Stock-Yards Co.

• Citation: 82 F. 850
• Decision Date: 28 October 1897
• Docket Number: 7,427,7,453.
• Court: United States District Courts. 10th Circuit. United States District Courts. 10th Circuit. District of Kansas
• Parties: COTTING v. KANSAS CITY STOCK-YARDS CO. et al. HIGGINSON v. SAME.

82 F. 850

COTTING v. KANSAS CITY STOCK-YARDS CO. et al.

HIGGINSON v. SAME.

Nos. 7,427, 7,453.

United States Circuit Court, D. Kansas, First Division.

October 28, 1897

J. M Woolworth, A. H. Horton, and D. R. Hite, for complainants.

L. C Boyle and David Martin, for the attorney general.

Before THAYER, Circuit Judge, and FOSTER, District Judge.

THAYER Circuit Judge.

These cases have been before this court on two previous occasions-- First, on an application for a preliminary injunction; and second, on a motion to continue the injunction. 79 F. 679; 82 F. 839. The nature of the litigation, and the questions involved therein, have therefore become well known, and are familiar to the bar. For these reasons it does not seem necessary on the present occasion to do more than announce in a succinct form the conclusions which have been reached on the points in controversy.

1. The property of the Kansas City Stock-Yards Company located in Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., which is used for yarding, feeding, watering, and weighing cattle, has, by the voluntary act of the corporation which owns the same, become affected with a public use, and is therefore subject to legislative control, state or national, to the extent, at least, that the proper legislative body may prescribe a maximum rate of compensation to be charged for the services rendered at said yards in caring for live stock. The public have a greater interest in said property, and in the management thereof, than in other private property, because it is located in a large city, at the junction point of many lines of railroad, which radiate therefrom in all directions; because of the vast number of cattle and other live stock which annually seek a market in the cities where the property is located, or pass through said cities on their way to other markets; and because of the manner in which, according to business usage, the traffic in cattle is carried on. The stock yards in question furnish the only proper facilities in the cities where they are located for unloading, resting, and feeding stock which is in course of transit to other markets. It is the place where buyers and sellers of live stock congregate and transact their daily business, and for that reason it is the only available market place in said cities where live stock can be conveniently sold and delivered. The stock-yards company, by its foresight and energy, has doubtless done much to create these conditions; but the fact remains that nearly all cattle shippers and dealers residing in states and territories tributary to the Kansas City market are compelled to avail themselves of the facilities which the stock-yards company affords, and to pay such charges as it may see fit to impose. Therefore it is that the proper legislative body has the power to fix a limit to such charges, to the end that they may not become excessive and unreasonable. To such regulations every person and corporation must submit, when their property is of such character, or is so situated and subject to such environments, that many people are compelled to become their patrons. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113, 130.

2. While much business is transacted at the Kansas City stock yards, consisting in the purchase and sale of live stock shipped to that market from other states than Kansas, which is interstate business, yet it is doubtful whether the stock-yards company itself is engaged in interstate commerce. It neither buys nor sells cattle or other animals. Its business consists in yarding, feeding, watering, and weighing live stock for its customers. It also loads and unloads stock from cars, but in this latter respect it acts merely as employe of the various railroad companies, from whom alone it receives compensation for such services. The claim of the stock-yards company that it is engaged in interstate commerce derives no additional support from the accidental location of its yards on the boundary line between two states. The inherent character of the business which it transacts, as above described, is not changed by the fact that its yards are located partly in Kansas and partly in Missouri, and that its herds cattle on both sides of the line, and drives them, while in its custody, to and fro across the line, to suit its own convenience, or the convenience of its customers. This shifting of live stock from one side of the state line to the other, within its own yards, and for its own convenience, is not interstate commerce, within the proper meaning of that phrase. Conceding, however, but without deciding, that the business in which the stock-yards company is engaged is so intimately related to interstate business transacted in its yards by other persons that congress might lawfully prescribe a maximum rate of charges for yarding and feeding cattle shipped thereto from other states than Kansas, still the court is of the opinion that this power to fix a limit to such charges is not of such an exclusive character as to prevent the state of Kansas from exercising a similar power, in the absence of any legislation on the subject by congress. It is not necessary, or even expedient, that such charges should be uniform in the various stock yards throughout the country, because stock can be yarded and fed more cheaply in some localities than in others. Diverse regulations on this particular subject by the different states will create no conflict of authority, and lead to no embarrassments. The subject, therefore, with which the Kansas statute undertakes to deal, is not national in its character, as was the case with the statutes involved in Wabash, St. L. & P. Ry. Co. v. Illinois, 118 U.S. 557, 7 Sup.Ct. 4, and in Covington & C. Bridge Co. v. Kentucky, 154 U.S. 204, 14 Sup.Ct. 1087; but it is a matter susceptible of local regulation and control, without trenching on the exclusive authority of congress. The statute in question does not impose a tax on interstate commerce, nor exact a license fee from those engaged in such business, nor prescribe conditions subject to which such business shall be carried on, nor interpose obstacles to the free flow of such traffic. Its effect on interstate traffic is purely incidental, and, to the extent that it prevents excessive charges for yarding and feeding cattle in course of transit, it tends to facilitate, rather than to hinder, such traffic. In short, it may be said with reference to the claim that the Kansas statute is void, because it is a regulation of interstate commerce, that such contention in behalf of the complainants must be overruled, on the strength of Munn v. Illinois, already cited, and several other cases, notably Budd v. New York, 143 U.S. 517, 12 Sup.Ct. 468, and Brass v. North Dakota, 153 U.S. 391, 14 Sup.Ct. 857, wherein state statutes limiting the rate to be charged for elevating grain into elevators, and storing and delivering the same, were upheld, as not being in violation of the commerce clause of the federal constitution. The case at bar differs from those last cited, in that the state of Kansas is here attempting to control the conduct of a corporation of its own creation; but, without laying any stress on the latter fact, it is sufficient to say that the cases last referred to and the one at bar are in all essential respects parallel, and that the distinction between them which counsel attempt to draw is more fanciful than real.

3. The important question presented by these cases, and the only question which is not foreclosed by controlling authority, is whether the maximum rates prescribed by the Kansas statute for yarding and feeding live stock are reasonable, or in their nature confiscatory. If confiscatory, the act, or so...