Louisville Nashville Railroad Company v. Cook Brewing Company

• Decision Date: 22 January 1912
• Docket Number: No. 64,64
• Citation: 223 U.S. 70,32 S.Ct. 189,56 L.Ed. 355
• Parties: LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD COMPANY, Appt., v. F. W. COOK BREWING COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

223 U.S. 70

32 S.Ct. 189

56 L.Ed. 355

LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD COMPANY, Appt.,

v F. W. COOK BREWING COMPANY.

No. 64.

Submitted November 13, 1911.

Decided January 22, 1912.

This suit started in a court of the state of Indiana, and was removed by the defendant, now the appellant, to the circuit court of the United States.

The brewing company is an Indiana corporation, engaged in brewing beer at Evansville, Indiana, and sells its product in state and interstate trade. The railroad company is a Kentucky corporation, owning and operating a line of railway extending into many states, including Indiana and Kentucky.

The complaint averred that although prepayment of freight had been tendered and every shipping regulation complied with, the railroad company had refused to accept for carriage from Evansville, Indiana, to stations on the line of its railway in the state of Kentucky, beer in kegs and cases, consigned to points which were 'local-option' or 'dry' localities under the law of Kentucky, and had notified complainant and the public that it would discontinue receiving consignments of beer or other liquors for points in the state of Kentucky where the local-option law of that state was in operation. The prayer of the bill was that the railroad company be enjoined from so refusing to accept the product of the brewing company for transportation from Evansville to such local-option points in Kentucky.

A preliminary injunction was issued as prayed. Thereupon the defendant removed the case to the circuit court of the United States, upon the ground that there was diversity of citizenship, and also because the case involved questions arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States; namely, the validity of the law of Kentucky, prohibiting the transportation and delivery of liquors to points in that state where the sale was prohibited, and also as a case arising under the act of Congress regulating interstate commerce of February 4, 1887 [24 Stat. at L. 379, chap. 104, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3154], as amended June 29, 1906 [34 Stat. at L. 584, chap. 3591, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1909, p. 1149]. An answer was then filed and the cause heard upon bill and answer, with the result that the preliminary injunction allowed by the state court was made permanent, and the railroad company enjoined from refusing to receive and carry beer from Evansville to any point upon its line of road in the state of Kentucky, wet or dry. An appeal by the railroad company to the circuit court of appeals resulted in an affirmance of the order of the circuit court. For the opinion see 172 Fed. 117 Messrs.Henry L. Stone, Philip W. Frey, and George R. DeBruler for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from Pages 73-77 intentionally omitted] Mr. George A. Cunningham for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from Pages 77-79 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Lurton, after making the above statement, delivered the opinion of the court:

1. The jurisdiction of this court to entertain an appeal in this case cannot be seriously controverted. The jurisdiction of the circuit court was not dependent alone upon diversity of citizenship. There was involved not only the validity of the law of Kentucky as a regulation of interstate commerce, but a question as to whether the sole remedy in any such case was not by an application to the Interstate Commerce Commission.

2. The objection that there was an adequate remedy at law, assuming that the subject is one for any tribunal other than the Interstate Commerce Commission, comes too late, if ever available, the objection being now made for the first time, so far as is discoverable from the record. The announced purpose of the railroad company to abjure its function and duty as a common carrier in respect of interstate shipments of all intoxicating liquors to localities in the state of Kentucky where the Kentucky local-option prohibition laws prevailed threatened the ruin of complainant's business, and relief by injunction against such a continued course of conduct was certainly one which in such circumstances might be granted. Where the case is one in which, under any circumstances, relief in equity may be admissible, it is too late to say that there was an adequate remedy at law only upon review proceedings. Kilbourn v. Sunderland, 130 U. S. 505, 32 L. ed. 1005, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 594.

3. The case was heard upon bill and answer. The defense is based solely upon the terms of the Kentucky act of March 21, 1906, now § 2569a, Carroll's Kentucky Statutes of 1909, entitled an act 'to Regulate the Carrying, Moving, Delivery, Transferring or Distribution of Intoxicating Liquors in Local-option Districts.' By that act it is made unlawful for any common carrier to transport beer or any intoxicating liquor to any consignee in any locality within the state where the sale of such liquors has been prohibited by vote of the people under the local-option law of the state. A violation of the law subjects the offender to a fine of not less than fifty nor more than one hundred dollars for each offense.

Upon the assumption that this legislation effectively prohibited both state and interstate transportation of such commodities within the state, the railroad company notified all of its agents, in and out of the state, to refuse to receive such liquors when consigned to any local-option point. This notification was by a printed circular letter, which set out the full...