Cotting v. Kansas City Stock-Yards Co.

• Decision Date: 04 October 1897
• Docket Number: 7,453.,7,427
• Citation: 82 F. 839
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas
• Parties: COTTING V. KANSAS CITY STOCK-YARDS CO. HIGGINSON V. SAME.

82 F. 839

COTTING V. KANSAS CITY STOCK-YARDS CO. HIGGINSON V. SAME.

Nos. 7,427, 7,453.

United States Circuit Court, D. Kansas, First Division.

October 4, 1897

Albert H. Horton and D. R. Hite, for complainants.

L. C Boyle and David Martin, for the attorney general.

Pratt Dana & Black, for other defendants.

FOSTER District Judge.

These cases are again before the court on the complainants' applications for a temporary injunction. In connection therewith, the demurrers to the bills, the master's report, and exception thereto, have been discussed by counsel. The chief question involved is the validity of the act of the legislature of March 3, 1897, regulating stock yards; fixing compensation for yarding, feeding, and watering live stock; and fixing a limit for the prices of feed, etc. This law is assailed by the complainants on several grounds First, because its title was never adopted by the legislature; second, because the business of the stock-yards company is interstate commerce, and the law is inapplicable and, third, because it deprives the complainants of a fair and reasonable return on their capital invested, and is in violation of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution. I shall consider the several questions in the order stated.

Without reference to the oral testimony of members of the legislature as to what was done by that body in its proceedings touching this law, and adopting this title, we find from the house journals that house bill No. 87, 'An act to regulate stock yards, and providing punishment for the violation thereof,' was introduced on January 15, 1897, and referred to the committee on live stock. On February 3rd the chairman of that committee reported the bill back to the house, with a substitute. From that time forward this substitute is described in the journals as 'substitute for house bill No. 87, an act to regulate stock yards, and providing punishment for the violation thereof. ' This substitute was finally passed, and its title, as published, appears for the first and only time in the journal in the report of the committee on enrolled bills. The engrossed and enrolled bills both bear the title as published. It seems that the title, wherever it is used in connection with house bill 87, was the title of the original bill, and not of the substitute; and all that we know of the substitute or of its title is that is was a substitute for 'house bill 87, an act of regulate stock yards,' etc. The chief object of numbering bills is to identify them. There is nothing in the constitution or laws requiring the journals to disclose the title of any bill. All of the legislative proceedings could have been had on this substitute, and its identity preserved, by simply calling it 'Substitute for House Bill No. 87. ' When the title of this act does not appear in the journals, it is in the words of the act as enrolled and published in the official paper and chapter 240 of the Session Laws. It seems to me, this is sufficient.

Is this live stock, as transported by the railroad companies, and handled by the Kansas City Stock-Yards Company, the subject of interstate commerce? It appears from the evidence and the report of the master that the shipments of live stock received at these yards originate from various states and territories. The following tabulated statement gives complete information of the sources and the numbers of stock received at the yards during the year 1896:

ORIGIN OF STOCK BY STATES AND TERRITORIES. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- State Horses or and Territory. Cattle. Calves. Hogs. Sheep. Mules. Total. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kansas .......... 863,430 33,133 1,625,848 294,997 32,188 2,849,596 Texas ........... 217,257 19,036 12,842 145,555 45 394,735 Missouri ........ 204,271 6,908 667,248 109,521 20,525 1,008,373 Indian Ty ....... 188,918 20,247 68,375 2,994 27 280,511 Oklahoma ........ 78,720 6,673 87,579 5,769 122 178,863 Colorado ........ 44,746 2,737 582 90,866 782 139,715 New Mexico ...... 35,876 2,988 494 88,941 128,299 Nebraska ........ 28,178 1,023 136,394 31,527 1,863 198,985 Iowa ............ 11,451 2,651 232 49 590 14,973 Minnesota ....... 9,909 2,879 42 2 12,832 Old Mexico ...... 6,512 3,120 9,632 Utah ............ 5,552 15 162,531 176 168,274 Arkansas ........ 4,327 984 5,143 4,1 7 1 14,572 Idaho ........... 4,304 151 490 6,910 99 11,954 Arizona ......... 2,808 33,638 65 36,511 Wyoming ......... 2,077 252 3,479 641 6,429 Oregon .......... 1,410 1 7,550 293 9,234 Illinois ........ 694 11 63 56 824 Montana ......... 491 91 582 California ...... 293 225 29 547 Washington ...... Alabama ......... Georgia ......... Louisiana ....... Nevada .......... South Dakota .... Tennessee ....... Wisconsin ....... 3,306 497 306 1,344 252 5,705 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total ........... 1,714,532 100,166 2,605,575 993,126 57,847 5,471,246 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- It will be observed that, of the 5,471,246 head of live stock received during that year, Kansas furnished 2,849,596 (more than one-half of the whole number); Missouri furnished 1,008,473; Texas, 394,735; Nebraska, 198,985; Utah, 168,274; Colorado, 193,715; Indian Territory, 280,511; Oklahoma Territory, 178,863; New Mexico, 128,299; and other states and territories lesser amounts. About 60 per cent of the whole shipments were consigned to the Kansas City stock yards, and about 40 per cent were billed through to other markets, with the privilege of stopping over at Kansas City, testing the market there, and, if not satisfactory, they were to be shipped forward on the original bills. It resulted, however, as the master reports, that over 95 per cent of all the stock received was disposed of at the Kansas City stock yards. There can be no doubt that all live stock shipped from other states than Kansas and Missouri to these yards is subject of interstate commerce; nor can there by any doubt that shipments of stock originating in Kansas and Missouri, and consigned to other states, come under the same designation. Stock shipped from points in Kansas, consigned to the yards, and sold there, would be local business. So it will be seen that a large proportion of the stock, by reason of the points of loading, and the places to which it is consigned, enters upon the stream of interstate commerce; and, having become the subject of commerce, it remains such until it reaches its destination, and is sold and mingled with the general mass of property of the state. Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U.S. 108, 10 Sup.Ct. 681. All interstate commerce, and all instrumentalities of such commerce, are under the control of congress; and the state cannot regulate or tax them, except in a limited respect. In a general sense, the failure of congress to act is indicative that commerce between the states shall be free and untrammeled. Such matters, however, as appertain to the police power of the state, and such as are merely aids or incidents to commerce, where congress has not acted, are recognized as being within the limit of state authority. Robbins v. Taxing Dist., 120 U.S. 489, 7 Sup.Ct. 592; Bowman v. Railway Co., 125 U.S. 497, 8 Sup.Ct. 689, 1062; Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U.S. 110, 10 Sup.Ct. 681. It is contended that congress has taken such action in the matter of the shipment and transportation of this live stock as would prohibit the state from passing the act in controversy, and stress is laid especially upon the interstate commerce act (24 Stat. 379). It will be observed that this act, by its terms, is confined to common carriers engaged in the transportation of persons and property by rail or water, or both, and includes all instrumentalities of such shipment or carriage. It prohibits discrimination or preference in rates for like services. It prohibits a greater charge for transporting persons or property for a shorter than for a longer distance. It prohibits pooling of earnings between common carriers. It requires them to publish their rates and fares for freight and passengers, and exacts a great many other requirements of common carriers. It further provides that:

'All charges made for services rendered or to be rendered in the transportation of passengers or property as aforesaid or in connection therewith, or for the receiving, delivering, storage or handling of such property, shall be reasonable and just, and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service is prohibited and declared to be unlawful.'

This declaration by congress that all charges shall be reasonable and just, if applicable to the stock-yards company, has added nothing to the requirements of the law before that act was passed. It is merely a reiteration of the common law. It does not undertake to fix any specific price for any service rendered, and it cannot be said that the stock-yards company is in any sense a common carrier. The master's report shows that the company neither owns, operates, nor uses any railway motive power or rolling stock. Section 8 of the act provides that any common carrier, subject thereto, who shall do, cause to be done, or permit to be done, any act prohibited or declared to be unlawful, etc., shall be liable to the person injured for all damages sustained. This penalty being aimed at, and recoverable only from, common carriers makes it clear that the act was intended to apply to them alone. No one would think of suing this stock-yards company, under that section, for excessive charges. The law of congress concerning the unloading of cattle during their shipment (sections 4386-4388, Rev. St.) is a humane provision, fixing a...