El Dorado & W. Ry. Co. v. Chicago, RI & P. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 04 May 1925
• Docket Number: No. 6784.,6784.
• Citation: 5 F.2d 777
• Parties: EL DORADO & W. RY. CO. v. CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

5 F.2d 777 (1925)

EL DORADO & W. RY. CO. v. CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO.

No. 6784.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

May 4, 1925.

T. J. Gaughan, J. T. Sifford, J. E. Gaughan, and E. E. Godwin, all of Camden, Ark., for appellant.

Thomas S. Buzbee, George B. Pugh, and H. T. Harrison, all of Little Rock, Ark., for appellee.

Before SANBORN, Circuit Judge, and POLLOCK and SYMES, District Judges.

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company, the complainant, brought a suit in equity in the court below for an injunction against the prosecution by the El Dorado & Wesson Railway Company, the defendant, of its petition to the Arkansas Railroad Commission for an order authorizing it to make an extension of one of its railroad tracks at El Dorado, Ark., for a distance of about 1,500 feet on the right of way of and across four of the railroad tracks of the complainant to a connection with one of the railroad tracks of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. The defendant answered the bill of the complainant, evidence was introduced, a final hearing had, and the court below found and held "that defendant has not obtained a certificate of convenience from the Interstate Commerce Commission, authorizing the construction or extension of said track, and that to construct or attempt to construct same without obtaining said certificate is a violation of Transportation Act 1920," and that court temporarily enjoined the defendant from prosecuting its petition before the Arkansas Railroad Commission or constructing its proposed extension until it obtained a certificate of convenience or authority therefor from the Interstate Commerce Commission or until the further order of the court.

The defendant has appealed from this injunction and the question in this court is not whether or not it would have granted such an order upon the pleadings and evidence before the court below, but whether or not the record clearly establishes the fact that the court below failed fairly to exercise its discretion in granting its injunction. It is to the discretion of the trial court, and not to that of the appellate court, that the law has intrusted the power to grant or dissolve such an injunction, and when that court has not departed from the rules and principles of equity established for its guidance and has not fallen into any error of law, its orders in this regard may not be reversed by an appellate court, without clear proof that it abused its discretion. American Grain Separator Co. v. Twin City Separator Co., 202 F. 202, 206, 120 C. C. A. 644; Magruder v. Belle Fourche Water Users' Ass'n, 219 F. 72, 82, 135 C. C. A. 524; Kemmerer v. Midland Oil and Drilling Co., 229 F. 872, 876, 144 C. C. A. 154; Lion Tractor Co. v. Bull Tractor Co., 231 F. 156, 161, 145 C. C. A. 344.

The three railroad companies interested in this controversy are common carriers. The complainant and the Missouri Pacific Company have lines of railroad extending into and through many states and are engaged in transportation in interstate commerce. The defendant has a railroad, about 12 miles long, extending from Wesson to El Dorado, Ark. Its business is the transportation of lumber from Wesson and oil from a point about 4 miles southeast of El Dorado to the latter city, and then over the railroads of the complainant and the Missouri Pacific Company to points in distant states. It sends over these railroads about 16,800 cars of freight per annum; about 40 per cent. of them pass over the railroads of the complainant, and about 60 per cent. of them over the railroads of the Missouri Pacific Company. The defendant brings all these cars into El Dorado, where its tracks connect with the tracks of the complainant. The complainant then transports the 60 per cent. destined to points on or over the Missouri Pacific lines over complainant's tracks to the tracks of the Missouri Pacific Company in El Dorado, and transports the 40 per cent. destined to points on and over its lines toward their destination over its own lines. The complainant charges $3.60 per car for transporting the cars from the defendant's tracks to those of the Missouri Pacific Company. The Missouri Pacific Company absorbs this charge of $3.60.

The extension of the railroad of the defendant from its tracks to the tracks of the Missouri Pacific, which the defendant seeks to construct, will lie exclusively on the right of way of the complainant and will cross four of its tracks on its terminal grounds at El Dorado. The complainant has large and valuable terminals at that city, and it claims that the proposed extension of the defendant's railroad and the operation thereof will seriously interfere with the complainant's use and operation of its terminal and tracks, and the defendant claims and its witness testifies to the contrary. The testimony is undisputed that the construction and operation of this extension will deprive the complainant of the revenue it derives from its transportation of the cars of the defendant from its tracks to those of the Missouri Pacific. The main line of the complainant does not pass the station at El Dorado, but that station is reached by its trains over a Y. The defendant's proposed extension will cross over the tracks which connect the complainant's passenger station with complainant's main line. The complainant has adequate facilities to transport the cars from the tracks of the defendant to those of the Missouri Pacific Company and can perform this transportation on its own tracks.

Mr. Buchner, the vice president and general manager of the defendant, testified that the convenience with which its...