Co v. Railroad Commission of Louisiana, BROOKS-SCANLON

• Decision Date: 02 February 1920
• Docket Number: BROOKS-SCANLON,No. 386,386
• Citation: 64 L.Ed. 323,40 S.Ct. 183,251 U.S. 396
• Parties: CO. v. RAILROAD COMMISSION OF LOUISIANA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

251 U.S. 396

40 S.Ct. 183

64 L.Ed. 323

BROOKS-SCANLON CO.

v RAILROAD COMMISSION OF LOUISIANA.

No. 386.

Argued Jan. 6, 1920.

Decided Feb. 2, 1920.

Messrs. J. Blanc Monroe, of New Orleans, La., Robert R. Reid, of Hammond, La., and Monte M. Lemann, of New Orleans, La., for petitioner.

Mr. Wylie M. Barrow, of Baton Rouge, La., for respondent.

Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit by the Brooks-Scanlon Company, a Minnesota corporation organized to manufacture and deal in lumber and to carry on other incidental business, against the Railroad Commission of Louisiana. It seeks to set aside an order (Number 2228) of the Commission requiring the plaintiff either directly or through arrangements made with the Kentwood and Eastern Railway Company, to operate its narrow gauge railroad between Kentwood and Hackley in Louisiana upon schedules and days to be approved by the Commission. The plaintiff alleges that the order cannot be complied with except at a loss of more than $1,500 a month, and that to compel compliance would deprive the plaintiff of its property without due process of law, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, with other objections not necessary to be mentioned here. The defendant denies the plaintiff's allegations and in reconvention prays for an injunction against the tearing up or abandoning of the road and for a mandate upholding the order. In the Court of first instance a preliminary injunction was issued in favor of the Commission, but was dissolved upon bond. Subsequently a judgment was entered denying a motion of the Commission to set aside the order dissolving the injunction, and after a trial on the merits judgment was entered for the plaintiff, declaring the order void. The defendant appealed from both judgments to the Supreme Court of the State. That Court reversed the decision below and reinstated the injunction granted on the defendant's prayer.

It seems that the Banner Lumber Company, a Louisiana corporation, formerly owned timber lands, sawmills and this narrow gauge railroad. The road was primarily a logging road but it may be assumed to have done business for third persons as a common carrier. The Banner Lumber Company sold the whole property to the Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company on November 1, 1905, the stockholders of which obtained a charter for the railroad as the Kentwood and Eastern Railway Company on December 5 of the same year. In the interim it was managed by them with separate accounts. An oral lease of the road was made to the new company and soon afterwards the Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company transferred its property to the Brooks-Scanlon Company, the plaintiff in error. On the first of July, 1906, the Brooks-Scanlon Company made a written lease of the road to the Railway Company and sold to it all the rolling stock and personal property used in connection with the road. Thereafter the road was run as before, doing a small business as a common carrier but depending upon the carrying of logs and lumber to make it a profitable rather than a losing concern. In course of time the timber of the Brooks-Scanlon Company was cut and it terminated the lease to the Railway Company, which discontinued business on April 22, 1918, with the assent of the Railroad Commission, and sold its rolling stock. At that time the Commission being advised that it had no power did nothing more. But later, subsequent to a decision by the Supreme Court in May, it issued notice to the Brooks-Scanlon Company and the Railway to show cause why the road should not be operated,...