Kalispell Lumber Co. v. Great Northern Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 04 December 1907
• Docket Number: 852.
• Parties: KALISPELL LUMBER CO. et al. v. GREAT NORTHERN RY. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Montana

157 F. 845

KALISPELL LUMBER CO. et al. v. GREAT NORTHERN RY. CO.

No. 852.

United States Circuit Court, D. Montana.

December 4, 1907

John Lind, A. Ueland, and H. D. Folsom, Jr., for complainants.

I Parker Veazey, for defendant.

HUNT District Judge (orally).

Complainants are citizens of Montana, engaged in the business of manufacturing lumber in Flathead county, Mont. Defendant is a citizen of Minnesota and a common carrier. The bill alleges in substance, that complainants have invested large amounts in the acquisition of timber and the establishment of mills for manufacturing lumber in Flathead county; that they have been engaged in the lumber business for a number of years last past; that their investments have been made and their business has been built up in reliance upon the permanency of reasonable freight rates for the transportation of the products of their mills to the markets of the state of North Dakota. It is alleged that the rates which were in force for many years prior to November 1, 1907, have been reasonable and just, but that defendant, pretending to exercise its power to make and modify transportation rates over its railroad to the Dakota markets, upon November 1st established and is now enforcing a schedule of extortionate rates between points in Flathead county, Mont., and the markets in Dakota that such rates were not established to secure just and reasonable rates for the services rendered by the defendant as a carrier, but for the purposes of extortion, and to further defendant's interests as a private manufacturer at the expense of complainants, and to deprive complainants of their market, and to restrain competition, and to create monopoly.

The allegations of the complaint are supported by affidavits filed, and it appears that the rates which defendant is now enforcing have increased the former rates from 20 to 30 per cent., and will very seriously injure, if not entirely destroy, complainants' business. It is alleged that defendant has owned, and still owns, the capital stock of the John O'Brien Lumber Company; that this corporation carries on a lumber business in said Flathead county on defendant's railroad line, and has large mills for the manufacture of lumber; that the lumber so manufactured by such corporation is shipped by defendant company, and, to a large extent, is sold by defendant, in the Dakota markets in competition with complainants and other manufacturers in Flathead county; and that defendant, by means of the increased rates, has sought to depress the business of complainants and other manufacturers, and to depress and lower the value of timber and stumpage in said Flathead district, so as to be able to acquire the same at less cost for its own said manufacturing business.

Complainants say that they are advised that it will take several months before relief can be had from the Interstate Commerce Commission, to which tribunal counsel state they are about to apply, and that if defendant is permitted to exact rates prescribed by its tariff put into operation November 1, 1907 until the reasonableness thereof has been passed upon by the Interstate Commerce Commission, the damage will be of such a nature that it cannot be established and recovered under the provisions of the act to regulate commerce, or the acts supplementary thereto and amendatory thereof. Complainants pray for an order temporarily restraining defendant from putting into effect, or continuing in effect, the advance in rates of freight on lumber and other forest products from the Flathead district, in Montana, and especially to points in North Dakota west of Devils Lake.

The defendant company, by way of special appearance, and as cause why the writ prayed for should not be issued, alleges that the court is without jurisdiction, in that the matters in dispute arise under the laws of the United States, and involve a judicial interpretation of the provisions of the interstate commerce law; that complainants seek to enforce the provisions of the act of Congress known as the 'anti-Trust Law'; that jurisdiction is not founded only on the fact that the action is between citizens of different states; that defendant, being a Minnesota corporation, and resident and citizen of the district of Minnesota, can only be proceeded against in the...