Louisville Nashville Railroad Company v. Joe Higdon

• Decision Date: 22 June 1914
• Docket Number: No. 322,322
• Citation: 234 U.S. 592,34 S.Ct. 948,58 L.Ed. 1484
• Parties: LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. JOE HIGDON, Doing Business under the Firm Name of Crescent Coal Company
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

234 U.S. 592

34 S.Ct. 948

58 L.Ed. 1484

LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v JOE HIGDON, Doing Business under the Firm Name of Crescent Coal Company.

No. 322.

Submitted March 19, 1914.

Decided June 22, 1914.

Messrs. Benjamin D. Warfield, Henry Lane Stone, Charles H. Moorman, Edward S. Jouett, Malcolm Yeaman, and William A. Colston for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 592-594 intentionally omitted] Messrs. James W. Clay, J. F. Clay, and A. Y. Clay for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Day delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant in error, Joe Higdon, doing business under the name of the Crescent Coal Company, brought suit in the Henderson circuit court, of Kentucky, to recover damages for alleged loss because of the failure of the railroad company to furnish him with cars at the Keystone Mining & Manufacturing Company's mine at Henderson, Kentucky, with which to perform certain contracts which he had made, and which he was prevented from fulfilling by the refusal of the railroad company. While the action was originally brought at law, it was transferred upon motion of the plaintiff in error to the equity docket. The decree of the circuit court dismissing the petition was reversed in the court of appeals for Kentucky, and the case was remanded for a new trial in conformity to the opinion of that court (143 Ky. 73, 33 L.R.A.(N.S.) 442, 135 S. W. 768. The case was again tried and a decree for Higdon for damages was affirmed by the court of appeals (149 Ky. 321, 148 S. W. 26), and the case was brought here on writ of error. A motion to dismiss the writ for want of jurisdiction was, on December 16, 1912, postponed to the hearing upon the merits.

From the facts found and apparent in the record it appears: Higdon, doing business as the Crescent Coal Company, was engaged in buying and selling coal in the city of Henderson, and the railroad company was a common carrier having its main line running in and through that city. It had a belt line and various spurs and tracks leading from its main and belt lines into industrial plants in Henderson. The Keystone Company was operating a coal mine in Henderson, which was connected with the main and belt lines of the plaintiff in error's road by a spur which the latter operated and controlled. Higdon contracted with the Keystone Company for 20,000 tons of coal to be delivered to him on the spur track, and afterwards contracted with various plants having spur connections to deliver coal in carload lots at certain prices. Thereafter he applied to the railroad company to furnish him cars at the Keystone Company's mine, and to transport coal in them to other spurs at Henderson, offering to pay therefor $4 per car, or at the rate of about 10 cents a ton, which he contended was according to the published rates of the railroad company. It refused to furnish him cars except at the rate of 50 cents a ton, which Higdon declined, and afterwards the railroad company informed him that it would not furnish cars at any price. This action was brought with the result which we have stated.

No Federal question was raised in the first trial or upon the first appeal to the Kentucky court of appeals. The alleged Federal questions are said to arise because of two amended answers which the plaintiff in error tendered, and which the circuit court refused to permit it to file. In its first amended answer the plaintiff in error alleged that it had built side tracks and spurs from its main track to certain industries in Henderson for the delivery and receipt of freight to and from points beyond that city; that it had constructed such a spur to the mine of the Keystone Company, with the express understanding that the plaintiff in error would not transport coal for the Keystone Company of for anyone else between that spur and other spurs at Henderson, but that it should be used solely for traffic coming into and going out of Henderson; that it was not engaged and did not propose to engage in the business of transportation as a common carrier between industries at Henderson or any other station, or in transporting coal from the Keystone Company's mine to spur tracks at Henderson, and that while it performed a switching service, it did so only when it preceded or followed transportation beyond Henderson. It further alleged that the service requested by Higdon was a transportation service which the railroad company declined to perform because it did not profess to and did not engage in that business, and that it was not its duty as a common carrier so to do or to furnish cars for such purpose. It also alleged that its tariffs did not fix a rate for the movement of coal from the mine of the ...