Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. State Pub. Utilities Comm'n of Illinois

• Decision Date: 22 April 1915
• Docket Number: No. 9959.,9959.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: CHICAGO, M. & ST. P. RY. CO. v. STATE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF ILLINOIS.

268 Ill. 49

108 N.E. 729

CHICAGO, M. & ST. P. RY. CO.

v.STATE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF ILLINOIS.

No. 9959.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 22, 1915.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Sangamon County; James A. Creighton, Judge.

Proceedings by the Poehlmann Bros. Company, before the State Public Utilities Commission of Illinois, against the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, to establish local rates for freight. From an order of the circuit court, affirming an order of the Commission, the Railway Company appeals. Affirmed.O. W. Dynes and C. S. Jefferson, both of Chicago, and S. D. Scholes, of Springfield (Burton Hanson, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.

Everett Jennings and Timothy F. Mullen, both of Chicago, for appellee State Public Utilities Commission of Illinois.

M. F. Gallagher and E. M. Wilkinson, both of Chicago, for appellee Poehlmann Bros. Co.

CARTWRIGHT, C. J.

The appellant, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, charges the Poehlmann Bros. Company, a corporation owning and operating two greenhouses at Morton Grove, a village about three miles from the corporate limits of Chicago, 40 cents a ton on car load shipments of coal and 40 cents a ton on car load shipments of manure from Galewood to Morton Grove, a distance of 11 1/2 miles. The Poehlmann Bros. Company filed a complaint with the Railroad and Warehouse Commission, of which the appellee, the State Public Utilities Commission, is the successor, alleging that it was in the business of growing flowers and selling them in Chicago and Morton Grove; that it consumed in the operation of its business about 28,000 tons of bituminous coal per year, a large portion of which was shipped from points in this state, and used about 700 cars of manure each year; that Galewood is a station on the appellant's railroad; and that it made the charges stated from its station of Galewood, where it received cars from other common carriers, to Morton Grove. The complainant alleged that the charge was unjust, unreasonable, and excessive, and was discriminatory in relation to charges made for similar service to competitors of the complainant requiring substantially the same service at other points near Chicago, and prayed for an order of the Commission ascertaining and determining reasonableand lawful through rates and charges for transportation of coal from the mines in this state and ordering the appellant to conform thereto, and for such other and further order as the Commission might deem just and reasonable in the premises. The appellant filed an answer, denying that the charge of 40 cents per net ton for transporting coal, manure and other materials from Galewood to Morton Grove was unjust, unreasonable, excessive, or discriminatory. After a hearing of the parties and a consideration of the evidence produced, the Commission made an order reciting that complainant had asked for the establishment of through rates, but the only rate attacked was the charge from Galewood to Morton Grove, and the Commission did not feel it necessary to enter, or that it would be justified in entering, into the question of through rates or discrimination, believing that the matter could be properly disposed of without entering into those questions. It was ordered that the charge of 40 cents per net ton was unreasonable, and that the rate should be reduced and the charges should not exceed 20 cents per ton on coal and 25 cents per ton on manure from Galewood to Morton Grove. The appellant removed the case by appeal to the circuit court of Sangamon county, where the order was affirmed, and a further appeal was prosecuted to this court.

The first proposition of counsel for the appellant is that, so far as the rate on coal was concerned, the order was outside the scope of the prayer of the complainant, which asked the Commission to establish through rates on coal from the mines in Illinois to complainant's plant at Morton Grove and to establish a reasonable rate for moving manure from Galewood station to Morton Grove, and the Commission did not establish any through rate on coal, but, ignoring the prayer, merely fixed a local rate. There was a prayer for specific relief by the establishment of through rates from the mines to Morton Grove, but the reasonableness of the rate from Galewood to Morton Grove was directly attacked in the complaint as being unjust, unreasonable, and excessive, and there was no other fact alleged calling for relief. There was a general prayer for such other and further order as the Commission might deem just and reasonable in the premises, and what the Commission was asked or authorized to do depended rather upon the facts alleged than upon the form of the prayer. The appellant appeared and defended before the Commission, and the only controversy was whether the rate from Galewood to Morton Grove was unreasonable, excessive, or discriminatory as between the complainant and its competitors. The Commission found that it was not necessary to enter into the question of discrimination or to establish through rates, and the general prayer based upon the facts alleged was sufficient to authorize the relief granted.

[2][3] The next proposition of counsel is that the order discriminates against and places a burden upon interstate commerce, in violation of the commerce clause of the federal Constitution, and is therefore unreasonable, unlawful, and void. Neither the complaint nor the order in any way related to or affected interstate commerce. The complaint was confined to charges on coal shipped to the complainant from points in this state, the recitals of the order related only to such shipments, and the order did not purport to fix a rate on any interstate shipment. The argument is that because a car of coal coming to Galewood from another state would be hauled over the same track by the appellant to Morton Grove, and the appellant could not discriminate and charge more for hauling that car than for a car coming from a mine in this state, the Commission has discriminated against interstate commerce and placed an unlawful burden upon it-which is saying that the state has no concern with or control over rates for transportation which is purely local within its borders if the carrier performs similar service in interstate commerce. We do not understand that to be the law, or that any doubt has ever been entertained of the authority of the state to regulate rates for transportation that is wholly within the state, although the authority of the state does not extend to the regulation of charges for interstate transportation or to discrimination against interstate commerce. Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois, 118 U. S. 557, 7 Sup. Ct. 4, 30 L....