Carton & Co. v. Illinois Central Railroad Co

• Decision Date: 12 July 1882
• Citation: 13 N.W. 67,59 Iowa 148
• Parties: CARTON & CO. v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD CO
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

13 N.W. 67

59 Iowa 148

CARTON & CO. v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD CO

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

July 12, 1882

Appeal from Hardin Circuit Court.

THIS is an action to recover certain alleged excessive freight charges paid by the plaintiff to the defendant for transporting grain from Ackley in this State to Chicago Illinois. The cause was tried in the court below without a jury, and upon an agreement as to facts, and judgment was rendered for the defendant for costs. Plaintiffs appeal.

AFFIRMED.

Huff & Reed and Brown & Carney, for appellants.

John F Duncombe, for appellee.

ROTHROCK J. BECK, J., dissenting.

OPINION

ROTHROCK, J.

I.

It appears from an agreed statement of facts that between the 11th day of April, A. D. 1875, and the 14th day of April, 1876, the plaintiffs delivered to the defendant at Ackley, Iowa to be shipped to Chicago, Illinois, through defendant; 129 car loads of wheat, and the defendant fixed the price and charged for freight thereon from Ackley to Chicago thirty-seven cents per 100 pounds, or $ 74 per car load of 20,000 pounds; and between April 14th, 1876, and March 11th, 1878, one hundred and twenty cars more, for which the defendant received and charged for shipment the same rate. The grain was loaded at Ackley in cars furnished by the defendant and carried through in bulk to Chicago in a continuous shipment. All of the cars were billed through from Ackley, Iowa to Chicago, Illinois, and the defendant fixed the rate of freight and gave plaintiffs through shipping receipts to Chicago.

It is claimed that the freight thus charged and paid by the plaintiffs was in excess of that authorized by the laws of Iowa at that time in force; that the distance from Ackley, by defendant's road, to Dubuque on the Iowa State line is 132 miles; and the distance from Dubuque to Chicago by defendant's line is 202 miles, making a total distance through both states of 334 miles, and that the rate of freight fixed by the law of Illinois was at that time less than the rate fixed by the statute of Iowa. Damages are claimed for the difference between what was authorized by the law of Iowa to be charged for the transportation, for the whole distance, also for attorney's fees for prosecuting the action.

It is claimed by counsel for the defendant that the law of Iowa then in force, being chapter 68 of the acts of the Fifteenth General Assembly, by its plain language and meaning had no application to contracts made for the transportation of freight into other states. Section three of that act, so far as applicable to this case, is as follows:

"The tariff of rates established in the following schedule shall be considered the basis on which to compute the compensation for transporting freights, goods, merchandise or property over any kind of railroad within this State * *."

Some of us think this language excludes contracts for the transportation of freight to points without the State, but as the plaintiffs claim that these were contracts made in Iowa for through shipments to Chicago, and that by tacking the law of Illinois to the law of Iowa thus making it one continuous haul, the rate for the continuous haul being in excess of that authorized by the law of Iowa such excess may be rerecovered back. We think it is not necessary to put a construction upon the law of this State in this regard, but rest our decision upon another ground.

It is claimed by the defendant that whatever construction may be put on the law of this State, it can have no application to shipments of freight from this State to other states, because State legislation of that character is void as being contrary to Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution of the United States, which confers upon Congress the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states." Now if this position be correct it is needless to enter into a discussion of all the questions, so elaborately and ably discussed by counsel in this case. If the law of Iowa conceding that it contemplates the control or regulation of shipment of freight to other states, is in that particular void, as being an infraction of the federal Constitution, it cannot be enforced, and the defendant was not bound to obey it, and could fix its own freight tariff, and the plaintiffs cannot recover for a violation of the statute, whatever other rights they may have.

It is not claimed that the fixing of rates of freight shipped from one State into another is not a regulation of commerce. "Any regulation of the transportation of freight upon the high seas, the lakes, the rivers, or upon the railroads, or other artificial channels of communication, is a regulation of commerce itself." The City of Council Bluffs v. The K. C., St. J. & C. B. R. Co., 45 Iowa 338. This has been repeatedly held by the Supreme Court of the United States. Reading Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania, 15 Wall. 232; Passenger Laws, 7 Howard 283; State of Pennsylvania v. Wheeling Bridge Co., 18 Howard 421; Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1, 9 Wheat. 1, 6 L.Ed. 23.

There is a line of cases determined by the Supreme Court of the United States, which hold that it is competent for the states, in the absence of legislation by Congress, to legislate respecting inter-state commerce. But those cases have been such as relate to bridges or dams across streams wholly within a State, police laws, laws relating to pilots of vessels, health laws, and the like. See Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 Howard 299; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 70 U.S. 713, 3 Wall. 713, 18 L.Ed. 96.

But that court has always held that the power to enact laws upon subjects in their nature national, and not merely local, is exclusively with Congress. In Cooley v. Board of Wardens, supra, it is said: "Whatever subjects of this power are in their nature national or admit of one uniform system or plan of regulation, may justly be said to be of such a nature as to require exclusive legislation by Congress."

That the act of this State assuming that its object and purpose was to control and regulate the shipments of freight to other states is of the character last defined, appears to us to be very clear, and we are not without authority upon this question, and from a source which so far as questions involving the construction of the Federal Constitution are involved, are binding upon this court, and all other courts in the Union.

The legislature of the State of Pennsylvania enacted a law imposing a tax upon freight taken up within the State and carried out of it, or taken up without the State and carried within it. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company refused to pay the tax upon the ground that the law was unconstitutional and void, in conflict with the Constitution of the United States which ordains that "Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states." In the case of the State Freight Tax, 82 U.S. 232, 15 Wall. 232, 21 L.Ed. 146, involving the validity of this act, it was held that the tax imposed thereby was upon the freight carried, and that it was a regulation of inter-state transportation or commerce among the states. The court in that case say: "If, then, this is a tax upon freight carried between states and a tax because of its transportation, and if such tax is in effect a regulation of inter-state commerce, the conclusion seems to be inevitable that it is in conflict with the Constitution of the United States."

In Henderson v. The Mayor of New York, 92 U.S. 259, 23 L.Ed. 543, the following language is used: "It is said, however, that under the decisions of this court there is a kind of neutral ground, especially in that covered by the regulation of commerce, which may be occupied by the State, and its legislation be valid so long as it interferes with no act of Congress, or treaty of the United States. Such a proposition is supported by the opinions of several of the judges in the Passenger Cases; by the decisions of this court in Cooley v. The Board of Wardens, 12 Howard 299; and by the cases of Crandall v. Nevada, 73 U.S. 35, 6 Wall. 35, 18 L.Ed. 745; and Gilman v. Philadelphia, 70 U.S. 713, 3 Wall. 713, 18 L.Ed. 96. But this doctrine has always been controverted in this court, and has seldom, if ever, been stated without dissent. These decisions, however, all agree, that under the commerce clause of the Constitution, or within its compass, there are powers, which, from their nature, are exclusive in Congress; and in the case of Cooley v. The Board of Wardens, it is said that whatever subjects of this power are in their nature national, or admit of one uniform system or plan of regulation, may justly be said to be of such a nature as to require exclusive legislation by Congress."

In the case of Railroad Company v. Maryland, 88 U.S. 456, 21 Wall. 456, 22 L.Ed. 678, it was determined that the charter of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company for constructing and operating a branch railroad from Baltimore to Washington, upon a stipulation contained in the charter that the company should pay the State of Maryland one-fifth of the amount of money received for the transportation of passengers, was not an infraction of the Federal Constitution as being a regulation of inter-state commerce. It is there said: "The exercise of power on the part of the State is very different from the imposition of a tax or duty upon the movements or operations of commerce between the states. Such an imposition, whether relating to persons or goods, we have decided the states cannot make, because it would be a regulation of commerce between the states in a matter in which uniformity is essential to the rights of all, and therefore requiring the exclusive legislation of Congress."

In that case the State of Maryland...