Interstate Commerce Com'n v. Southern Pac. Co.

• Decision Date: 12 May 1896
• Docket Number: 3,377.
• Citation: 74 F. 42
• Parties: INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION v. SOUTHERN PAC. CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Colorado

74 F. 42

INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION v. SOUTHERN PAC. CO. et al.

No. 3,377.

United States Circuit Court, D. Colorado.

May 12, 1896

H. V Johnson, for complainant.

Wolcott & Vaile, Chas. E. Gast, and H. T. Rogers, for defendants.

HALLETT District Judge.

This is a bill by the interstate commerce commission against the Southern Pacific Company and several other railroad companies to enforce an order of the commission, made November 25 1895, in a suit of the Colorable Fuel & Iron Company against the said railroad companies. The Southern Pacific Company has filed a plea to the jurisdiction, alleging that it is not an inhabitant of this district, that it is a corporation of the state of Kentucky, and that it has its principal office in the city of San Francisco, in the state of California. Following this there is in the plea this language:

'This defendant further alleges that no violation or disobedience on its part of any order or requirement of the interstate commerce commission, as set forth in the petition herein or of any order or requirement of said interstate commerce commission, has happened within the said district of Colorado.'

The order of the commission relates to charges for transportation between Pueblo, Colo., and San Francisco, Cal., as to which it is averred that the respondent roads are 'under a common control, management, or arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment' between the said points. Section 16 of the interstate commerce act, as amended in 1889 (25 Stat. 860), provides that a petition of this kind shall be filed 'in the judicial district in which the common carrier complained of has its principal office, or in which the violation or disobedience of such order or requirement shall happen. ' This is not the district in which the Southern Pacific Company has its principal office, but it is the district in which the violation or disobedience of the order of the commission has happened. The pleader is careful to state that no violation or disobedience of the order has occurred in this district on the part of respondent, but it does not say what has been done by the co-respondents. The fact appears to be that the Southern Pacific Company has lines in California, and in some of the states and territories between California and Colorado, which connect with lines of the other respondents, extending into and through the state of Colorado and to the city of Pueblo. If...