Frederick Ellis v. Interstate Commerce Commission, No. 712

• Court: United States Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Holmes
• Citation: 237 U.S. 434,35 S.Ct. 645,59 L.Ed. 1036
• Docket Number: No. 712
• Decision Date: 10 May 1915
• Parties: FREDERICK W. ELLIS, Appt., v. INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION

237 U.S. 434 35 S.Ct. 645 59 L.Ed. 1036 FREDERICK W. ELLIS, Appt.,

v.

INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

No. 712. Argued April 12 and 13, 1915. Decided May 10, 1915.

Page 435

Messrs. Frank B. Kellogg, Cordenio A. Severance, Robert E. Olds, Alfred R. Urion, and Charles J. Faulkner, Jr., for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 435-436 intentionally omitted]

Page 437

Messrs. Edward W. Hines and Joseph W. Folk for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 437-442 intentionally omitted]

Page 442

Assistant Attorney General Underwood for the United States.

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from an order of the district court, made upon a petition of the appellee, the Interstate Commerce Commission, filed under the act to regulate commerce, § 12. The order directs the appellant to answer certain questions propounded and to produce certain documents called for by the appellee. There is no doubt that this appeal lies. The order is not like one made to a witness before an examiner or on the stand in the course of a proceeding inter alios in court. Alexander v. United States, 201 U. S. 117, 50 L. ed. 686, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 356. It is the end of a proceeding begun against the witness. Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baird, 194 U. S. 25, 48 L. ed. 860, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 563. Therefore we pass at once to the statement of the case.

The Interstate Commerce Commission, reciting that it appeared from complaint on file that the allowances paid for the use of private cars, the practices governing the handling and icing of such cars, and the minimum carload weights applicable to the commodities shipped

Page 443

therein, on the part of carriers subject to the act to regulate commerce, violated that act in various ways, ordered that a proceeding of investigation be instituted by the Commission of its own motion to determine whether such allowances, practices, or minimum carload weights were in violation of the act as alleged, with a view to issuing such orders as might be necessary to correct discriminations and make applicable reasonable weights. It ordered that carriers by railroad subject to the act be made parties respondent, and, later, that all persons and corporations owning or operating cars and other vehicles and instrumentalities and facilities of shipment or carriage of property in interstate commerce be made parties also. In the proceedings thus ordered the questions propounded were put to the appellant, the vice president and general manager of the Armour Car Lines.

The Armour Car Lines is a New Jersey corporation that owns, manufactures, and maintains refrigerator, tank, and box cars, and that lets these cars to the railroad or to shippers. It also owns and operates icing stations on various lines of railway, and from these ices and re-ices the cars, when set by the railroads at the icing plant, by filling the bunkers from the top, after which the railroads remove the cars. The railroads pay a certain rate per ton, and charge the shipper according to tariffs on file with the Commission. Finally it furnishes cars for the shipment of perishable fruits, etc., and keeps them iced, the railroads paying for the same. It has no control over motive power or over the movement of the cars that it furnishes as above, and in short, notwithstanding some argument to the contrary, is not a common carrier subject to the act. It is true that the definition of transportation in § 1 of the act includes such instrumentalities as the Armour Car Lines lets to the railroads. But the definition is a preliminary to a requirement that the carriers shall furnish them upon reasonable request,

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not that the owners and builders shall be regarded as carriers,...