Atchison Ry Co v. United States
| Decision Date | 18 April 1921 |
| Docket Number | No. 256,256 |
| Citation | 65 L.Ed. 891,256 U.S. 205,41 S.Ct. 456 |
| Parties | ATCHISON, T. & S. F. RY. CO. v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Alexander Britton, of Washington, D. C., Gardiner Lathrop, of Chicago, Ill., and Evans Browne, of Washington, D. C., for appellant.
Mr. Assistant Attorney General Davis, for the United States.
On several occasions in 1914 and 1915 the railway company at the request of the United States furnished transportation from one state to another for officers and enlisted men in the United States Army. In each instance a through individual rate from the initial point to the destination was in force, and also individual rates to and from intermediate points. In no instance was there a through party rate; but in all there was a party rate for a part only of the distance. This situation was shown in schedules regularly filed and posted under the Interstate Commerce Act. In two instances the transportation was furnished under a contract calling for a special reduced rate for the full trip, and in the others it was furnished without any prior contract or special arrangement. Bills for the transportation—computed in the two instances at the contract rate, and in the others at the through individual rate with appropriate land grant deductions—were presented to the accounting officers, who allowed a part of what was claimed in each bill and disallowed the balance. The company then brought this suit in the Court of Claims to recover the part disallowed and the court, without opinion, sustained the action of the accounting officers.
As to the transportation furnished without a prior contract or special arrangement the accounting officers proceeded on the theory that the collectible rate should be determined by combining the party rate covering a part only of the distance and the individual rate for the remainder and then making any necessary land grant deductions, and not by taking the through individual rate, less any deductions arising from land grants, as claimed by the company. In this we think the accounting officers erred. The service requested and rendered was a through service. The only rate applicable to a like service for others was the through individual rate. By requesting and accepting the service without some special arrangement for a different rate the United States assented to and became obligated to pay that rate. Under a provision in the Interstate Commerce Act the United States could have arranged with the company for a different and reduced rate, if...
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