Leibengood v. The Missouri
| Decision Date | 09 July 1910 |
| Docket Number | 16,495 |
| Citation | 83 Kan. 25,109 P. 988 |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
| Parties | C. E. LEIBENGOOD, Appellee, v. THE MISSOURI, KANSAS & TEXAS RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant |
Decided July, 1910.
Appeal from Miami district court.
Judgment reversed.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
RAILROADS--Transportation of Stock--Statutory Speed Limitation--Interstate Commerce. The act requiring corporations and others operating railroads as common carriers to transport live stock within the state at a speed of not less than fifteen miles per hour, unless prevented by some unavoidable cause (Laws 1907, ch. 276), does not apply to nor affect interstate commerce; and a shipment of live stock between points in the state which passes for a short distance over the territory of another state is interstate commerce, and noncompliance with the requirements of the statute in such a shipment affords no grounds for recovery against the carrier.
John Madden, and W. W. Brown, for the appellant.
Frank M. Sheridan, for the appellee.
This was an action by C. E. Leibengood against the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company to recover damages resulting from an alleged negligent delay of the railway company in transporting two carloads of cattle from Beagle to Kansas City. The petition was in two counts. The first set forth a cause of action under the common law, and the second a violation of an act requiring common carriers to transport live stock at a speed of not less than fifteen miles per hour, unless prevented by some unavoidable cause. A recovery was had on the second count, which included damages for delay and an attorney's fee, and the railway company appeals.
The contention of appellant is that the shipment of the cattle was interstate, and therefore that the act under which recovery was had is without application. It appears that the shipment in question was from Beagle, a point in Kansas, to and through Missouri for a distance of at least a mile to Kansas City, another point in Kansas. How far the cattle were transported through Missouri is not definitely shown, but the railroad over which the cattle were taken passes out of Kansas at or near Rosedale and reenters the state near the stockyards where they were delivered. The statute under which the recovery was had provides:
Was the shipment from one point in Kansas through a portion of Missouri to another point in Kansas interstate, and, if so is a state regulation of such a shipment permissible? The shipment sought to be regulated is a single and indivisible thing. The statute purports to regulate the time which shall be consumed from the origin to the end of the transportation. If the carrier fails to transport for the whole distance within the specified time the prescribed penalties and liabilities attach. It is a regulation of a single act of transportation as a whole, and not of a part of it that may be wholly performed within the state. The effect of the regulation is direct and immediate upon a shipment that is interstate. It is unlike cases of regulating the speed of trains in cities within the state, or the receipt or delivery of freight at points in the state, or the imposition of some liability for some other default occurring entirely within the state. If the statute applies, it directly affects a single shipment which is partly within and partly without the state. According to a ruling of the supreme court of the United States such a shipment is interstate, and a regulation of it is beyond the legislative power of the state. In Hanley v. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co., 187 U.S. 617, 47 L.Ed. 333, 23 S.Ct. 214, the transportation of goods on a through bill of lading from a point in Arkansas to another point in the same state, over a road which passed a short distance through Indian Territory, was held to be interstate commerce, subject to the regulation of congress, and free from interference by the state of Arkansas, which had undertaken to regulate the shipment. It was there said that "the transportation of these goods certainly went outside of Arkansas, and we are of opinion that in its aspect of commerce it was not confined within the state." (p. 620.) It was in effect held that when the subject of regulation is indivisible there can be no division of regulation, either as between states or as between the state and the nation, and that there can be...
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