Chicago, R.I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Gist
| Decision Date | 15 June 1920 |
| Docket Number | 8820. |
| Parties | CHICAGO, R.I. & P. RY. CO. ET AL. v. GIST. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
State courts have jurisdiction in an action against a common carrier to recover the difference between illegal and excessive freight charges and the established rate prescribed by law, the issue involved being one of fact, though in passing on the facts it may be necessary for the court to construe the rate established by law.
At common law, where a carrier refused to receive goods offered for carriage except upon the payment of an unreasonable sum or received the goods and carried them and then exacted an unreasonable charge as a condition of the delivery of the goods, an action could be maintained in court to recover the excess over a reasonable charge.
After the passage of Act Cong. Feb. 4, 1887, known as the Interstate Commerce Act, a shipper could not maintain an action against a common carrier to obtain relief from an alleged unreasonable freight charge exacted from him for an interstate shipment or shipment from one territory to a point of destination in another territory, without reference to any previous action by the Interstate Commerce Commission, where such rate had been filed with that Commission and promulgated as provided by the Commerce Act as the rate which it was the duty of the carrier under that act to enforce against the shipper until changed in accordance with the provisions of that statute.
The United States had full sovereignty within the Indian Territory.
The provisions of the Choctaw Coal & Railway Company Right of Way Act of Congress, approved February 18, 1888, prohibiting the railway from charging the inhabitants of Indian Territory a greater rate of freight than authorized by the laws of the states of Arkansas and Texas for services and transportation of the same kind, were superseded, abrogated, and annulled by Act Cong. May 2, 1890, known as the Organic Act, under which the territory of Oklahoma was carved out of the Indian Territory and became an organized territory, in so far as rates on shipments from Indian Territory to points of destination in Oklahoma Territory were concerned.
Oklahoma Territory, by Act Cong. May 2, 1890, though carved out of the Indian Territory, became a political entity as an organized territory of the United States, and thenceforth was as separate and distinct from the Indian Territory as any other organized territory of the United States.
The Oklahoma Territorial Organic Act of Congress of May 2, 1890 operated to cut the Indian Territory into two separate territories, one organized and the other unorganized, and immediately and concurrently with the creation of the territory of Oklahoma the transportation of property by railroad from point of origin in the Indian Territory, as that territory existed after Act May 2, 1890, to a place of destination within the territory of Oklahoma, fell under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
The provisions of Interstate Commerce Act Feb. 4, 1887, covered transportation from a territory to a territory, without regard to the geographical boundary lines of the territories at the time it was enacted. The act looked to the future as well as the then present.
The rate-making power is legislative and not judicial.
Courts in construing a statute, may with propriety recur to the history of the times when it was passed; and this is frequently necessary in order to ascertain the reason as well as the meaning of particular provisions in it.
The history of the times during which a law was enacted tends strongly to disclose the reasons for the act, and therefore the evils sought to be remedied.
Whenever light can be derived from such sources, the courts will take judicial notice of the facts of contemporaneous history, the prior state of the law, the particular abuse or defect which the act was meant to remedy, and will then apply the language of the act to such state of affairs.
Error from District Court, Garfield County; James B. Cullison Judge.
Action by J. T. Gist against the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company and the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad Company. Judgment for plaintiff, motion for new trial overruled, and defendants bring error. Reversed and cause remanded, with direction to dismiss plaintiff's case at his cost.
Interstate Commerce Act Cong. Feb. 4, 1887, covered transportation from a territory to a territory, without regard to the geographical boundary lines of the territories at the time of its enactment, as the act looked to the future.
The defendant in error, as plaintiff below, commenced this action against the plaintiff in error in the district court of Garfield county November 5, 1906, to recover $3,737.50, plus 7 per cent. interest as the alleged amount due plaintiff for freight overcharges on coal shipped over the lines of defendants from Alderson, Wilburton, Haileyville, Dow, Krebbs, Bakers, McAlester, and other points in the Indian Territory, to Enid, Oklahoma Territory. Counsel for defendant in error, beginning on page 2 of his printed brief, states plaintiff's case as follows:
"The petition alleged that the defendants were railway corporations operating in the Indian Territory and the territory of Oklahoma; that they were common carriers of property, and as such carried coal to the city of Enid, Oklahoma Territory, during the three years before the filing of the petition; that the place from which the coal was transported to Enid, with the number and initial of the car transporting it, the amount of coal, the amount of freight and expenses, the date of payment, and the amount which plaintiff says was overcharged, are each correctly set out in a schedule attached to the petition, marked Exhibit A, and made a part thereof; and that the defendants, at the times named in the schedule for the transportation of the coal at Enid, collected from the plaintiff a large sum of money in excess of the legal rate.
The petition then alleges four grounds of illegality: (1) That the charges were not reasonable and just, but were unreasonable and unjust; (2) that the sum collected subjected plaintiff to an undue and unreasonable prejudice and disadvantage; (3) that the charge received by the carrier was greater compensation in the aggregate for the transportation of like kind of property, under similar circumstances and conditions, for shorter than for longer distances, over the same line, in the same direction; (4) that the charges were unreasonable and illegal, in that the same exceed the sums allowed by law as a maximum to be charged by the railroads to the plaintiff as an inhabitant of the territory embraced within the limits of what was formerly the Indian Territory, and as to him the said defendants not being authorized by law to charge a greater amount than is authorized by the laws of the state of Arkansas, and that by the laws of the state of Arkansas a lesser sum in each instance was authorized than that charged, the amount of the overcharge calculated upon the rates authorized by the rates of Arkansas being shown in the list claimed in the schedule marked Exhibit A.
The petition also alleged that the sums were paid by plaintiff under compulsion, as the only condition under which he could get possession of the coal, and after demanding that the coal be delivered to him at the lower legal rate.
It is unnecessary to consider the first, second, and third grounds of illegality above stated, because they are but different ways of pleading what is set out in greater detail in the fourth ground. In short, the whole petition was that the defendants, although authorized under the federal law to charge the inhabitants of Oklahoma Territory a rate not greater than that of Arkansas for the same service and transportation, did in fact charge a greater rate than this in the amount stated in the overcharge, and, as a consequence, the pleader deemed this unreasonable and unjust; that it subjected the plaintiff to an undue prejudice and disadvantage, in that the same is a greater charge than is made by the carriers in other localities of other persons for similar services (meaning, of course, in the state of Arkansas); and that the same is an unjust and unreasonable charge, in that the carriers received a greater compensation in the aggregate for the transportation of a like kind of property and under similar circumstances and conditions.
Upon the third ground no evidence was offered. The second and third grounds are the consequences that flow from the proof offered on the fourth ground, so it is only necessary to consider the fourth ground to have the entire case in hand. * * * We did entirely fail to offer any evidence under the third ground, and it may be considered that we have abandoned that.
Now, the second and third causes of action are precisely like the first, except that in the second cause of action it is stated that the Enid Ice & Fuel Company was a corporation under the laws of the territory of Oklahoma, and that it transported coal under exactly similar facts as those alleged by the plaintiff here; that it paid similar overcharges, and before the bringing of the action the Enid Ice & Fuel Company assigned its claim for damages to the plaintiff for value, as shown by copy of the written assignment attached to the petition and made a part of it as Exhibit C. The third cause of action is just like the second cause of action, except that in this case the transporter of the coal is W. B. Johnston."
(Italics ours.)
The defendants filed separate demurrers on the ground:
"(1) That the court has no jurisdiction of the subject of the action; (2) that there is a defect of parties plaintiff; (3) that...
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