Southern Ry. Co v. Mills

• Decision Date: 07 July 1916
• Docket Number: (No. 9452.)
• Parties: SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. WILMONT OIL MILLS. SAME. v. BROADWAY COTTON OIL CO.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

89 S.E. 476

(105 S.C. 51)

SOUTHERN RY. CO.

v.WILMONT OIL MILLS.

SAME.

v.BROADWAY COTTON OIL CO.

(No. 9452.)

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

July 7, 1916.

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Anderson County; Thos. S. Sease, Judge.

Suits by the Southern Railway Company against the Wilmont Oil Mills and against the Broadway Cotton Oil Company respectively. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Watkins & Prince, of Anderson, for appellants.

Bonham, Watkins & Allen, of Anderson, for respondent.

FRASER, J. The appellants make this clear statement of their case:

"The plaintiff-respondent brought these suits to recover the difference between the freight charges paid by defendants for various shipments of freight over plaintiff's lines and the alleged legal rates which were higher than the rates quoted by the railway agents to the defendants and paid to the railway for transportation. It is admitted by the railway that it was paid the rates quoted by its agents to the shippers as the legal rates. The Railway Company now claims that a new rate had been legally established at the time of the shipments higher than the old and quoted rate, and that under the law the railway is entitled to and must collect the difference between the rates paid and the new rates contended for.

"The only issue in the case is this: Whether the rates which the Railway Company contendsfor in this action were legally established rates. This issue is to be decided by determining, by construction of section 6 of the act to regulate interstate commerce, what acts and steps are necessary to establish a legally effective freight rate under that act. The appellants here admit and concede that, if the rate contended for by the railway was legally established and effective at the times of the shipments in question, it is binding on these shippers, and they are liable to the railway for its payment even though they made the shipments in good faith on the basis of a lower rate quoted to them by the duly authorized agent of the railway, and sold the goods based on those rates; whereas if the proper rate had been quoted they would have sold the goods which were so delivered at a higher price. There is no question as to what was done by the Railway Company toward establishing the rate contended for. The case, as printed for this appeal, shows that the Railway Company proved at the trial on circuit:

"(1) That it filed with the secretary of the Interstate Commerce Commission schedules...