Danciger v. Wells, Fargo & Co.

• Decision Date: 05 July 1907
• Docket Number: 3,222,3,223.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri
• Parties: DANCIGER et al. v. WELLS, FARGO & CO. SAME v. PACIFIC EXPRESS CO.

154 F. 379

DANCIGER et al. v. WELLS, FARGO & CO.

SAME v. PACIFIC EXPRESS CO.

Nos. 3,222, 3,223.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Missouri, Western Division.

July 5, 1907

J. M Schoenheit, J. H. Atwood, and I. J. Ringolsky, for complainants.

Lathrop Morrow, Fox & Moore, for defendant Wells, Fargo & Co.

J. N Watson, for defendant Pacific Express Co.

POLLOCK District Judge.

By the bills of complaint presented in the above-entitled suits there is involved the rights of complainants, wholesale liquor dealers, citizens of the city of Kansas City and state of Missouri, to a mandatory order of injunction commanding defendants, common carriers doing a general express business and citizens of states other than Missouri, on payment or tender of the usual amount charged for such service by defendants, to receive and carry liquors sold by complainants in the state of Missouri to many persons throughout the country, on written orders received, and to deliver such consignments of liquor to the person ordering the same, and to collect from such person the purchase price thereof and return it to complainants, or, failing to so deliver to the purchaser or to collect the purchase price for the same, to return the liquors to complainants at their cost; in other words, the right of complainants to compel by injunction in this court the doing of what is commonly known as 'C.O.D. express business.' At the time of the filing and presentation of the bills of complaint in the above-entitled suits, restraining orders were issued upon the giving of a bond by complainants, commanding the doing of the C.O.D. express business by the defendants for complainants until the matter might be presented to the court upon affidavits, oral argument, and briefs for a temporary order of injunction.

Complainants have a large, well-established business in the city of Kansas City, Mo., where under certain regulations it is lawful to engage in the wholesale liquor business, and such business has been built up by complainants at large cost, and has been conducted through the express companies on the C.O.D. express plan. About the 15th day of May the express companies, on account of state legislation in many sections of the country unfavorable to the transaction of such business, and on account of the annoyance, expense, and trouble incident to the conduct of such business, gave notice to all persons that the further conduct of the C.O.D. liquor business by defendants would cease and terminate on the 1st day of June. The principal question here presented is the right of the defendant companies upon notice to cease the conduct of such business, or the opposing right on the part of complainants to compel the defendants through the interposition of a court of equity to command the performance and further conduct of such business. While there are other questions raised for determination here, the above is the principal contention. It is apparent from this statement of the controversy that mandatory injunctive relief is the life of these suits; that the business of complainants will suffer greatly if the same is not destroyed by the failure to grant such relief.

Whatever may be the effect of the orders which should be made at this time in these suits, it is apparent the same must be based upon the rights of the parties under the law. If complainants have, as claimed, built up a lucrative business in this manner through the defendant companies, which will be destroyed if the defendants are not required to further conduct such business, without legal obligation on the part of the defendants to further continue such business, it is apparent complainants have built up such business, dependent alone upon the will of the defendants, and, if loss should occur from an order which refuses the relief sought by complainants, in such case complainants have brought such loss on themselves; or, if the established business of complainants has been built up on a right founded in the law to compel defendants to proceed with the transaction of such business, in such case its further continuance must be ordered by this court. In passing to a consideration of what I deem the controlling questions involved in this litigation, I shall but briefly mention certain of the contentions of solicitors for the defendants which I do not deem of merit or well taken. And I may state, further, I have not read and considered the ex parte affidavits and proofs offered in these cases, preferring to base my decision on questions purely of law. Hence I shall assume for the purpose of this decision that all the business transacted by the complainants was based upon bona fide written orders sent by customers of complainants to complainants in good faith, and filled by complainants in Missouri at their place of business in good faith, and that all the business heretofore transacted by complainants, and those shipments tendered to the defendants after June 1st, on which these suits are predicated, were ordered by the persons to whom complainants attempted to consign them in good faith.

It is first contended by the defendants that these suits are not brought in the proper federal district, and for that reason this court does not have jurisdiction, because such jurisdiction is not founded alone on diverse citizenship, but that the suits also raise federal questions, and hence should have been brought in the district whereof the defendants are citizens. A consideration of this question impels me to hold this contention of defendants is not sound. The relief here sought is an order compelling the defendants to perform an obligation imposed upon them by the law, and is brought by a citizen of this state against citizens of other states; the jurisdictional amount being involved. Hence to my mind the question involved is one of general law, and, being based upon the diverse citizenship of the parties, may be brought and maintained in the district of the residence of the complainants.

A further contention made by the defendants is that the court of exclusive original jurisdiction in this controversy is the Interstate Commerce Commission, and that this court has no jurisdiction in the first instance to afford to complainants the relief here sought and much reliance is placed by the defendants on the case of Texas & Pac. Ry. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U.S. 426, 27 Sup.Ct. 350, 51 L.Ed. 553. From a reading of that case I do not consider it applicable to the state of facts here presented. If the controversy here was as to whether the defendants were charging excessive or unreasonable rates for the shipments tendered by complainants, the case relied upon would to my mind be in point; but as the ground of relief sought by complainants in the case at bar is the performance by defendants of a duty imposed upon them by law, which they wholly neglect and refuse to perform, I think such question is one for the determination of the courts.

Laying aside, for the purpose of this decision, the questions raised by the affidavit filed in the case, and coming, now, to the real question of merit, it is this: Does the law compel the defendants to perform the service demanded by complainants? It must be observed the defendants have not denied, and do not now deny, the right of complainants to require them to carry interstate shipments of intoxicating liquors to any point reached by the defendants' lines, whether such points be within states where the sale of intoxicating liquors is prohibited or not. The sole question here raised is the right of the complainants to insist on the defendants carrying their C.O.D. shipments of liquors; complainants tendering or paying the lawful charges demanded by the defendants. Is such duty imposed upon the defendants by the law? The courts have many times been called to pass upon the common-law obligations of express companies in regard to C.O.D. shipments. Mr. Elliott, in his work on Railroads (volume 4, Sec. 1530), says:

'A common carrier is not obliged to collect or require the payment of the purchase price of goods offered to it for transportation before delivering them to the purchaser, as one of its common-law duties.'

In Amer. & Eng. Encyc. L. (2d Ed.) vol. 12, p. 533, it is said:

'There is no common-law duty devolving upon an express company to act as the collecting agent of the shipper. Such obligation arises only by contract, express or implied.'

In Cox, Hill & Thompson v. Columbus & Western Railway Co., 91 Ala. 392, 8 So. 824, it is held:

'From his mere avocation, or the nature of his business, no implied obligation or duty devolves on a common carrier to require payment of the price of goods transported by him as a condition of their delivery. Such obligation arises only by contract, express or implied.'

In Adams Exp. Co. v. Commonwealth, 92 S.W. 932, 29 Ky.Law Rep. 224, 5 L.R.A. (N.S.) 630, the Court of Appeals held:

'Appellant cannot shelter itself under its common-law duty as a common carrier of goods. There is no common-law duty devolving upon a common carrier to act as the collecting agent of the consignor. That is a matter of private contract, and one which the carrier may enter into, or refuse, at its option. When it does make such a contract, it stands with reference to it just as any other agent.'

Moore, in his work on Carriers (section 31), says:

'Where goods are sent, with instruction not to deliver them until they...