Merchants' Coal Co. v. Fairmont Coal Co.

• Decision Date: 15 January 1908
• Docket Number: 779.
• Citation: 160 F. 769
• Parties: MERCHANTS' COAL CO. v. FAIRMONT COAL CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

160 F. 769

MERCHANTS' COAL CO. v. FAIRMONT COAL CO. et al.

No. 779.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

January 15, 1908

William A. Glasgow, Jr., and George Weems Williams (Frank Gosnell, on the brief), for appellant.

Edgar H. Gans (Charles Markell, Jr., on the brief), for appellees.

Before PRITCHARD, Circuit Judge, and PURNELL, District Judge.

PRITCHARD Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from an order or decree of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Maryland passed on the 21st day of October, 1907, granting a preliminary injunction restraining the appellant from prosecuting its petition against the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and restraining the said railroad company from answering or defending said petition. On the 4th day of October, 1907, the appellees, who are the Fairmont Coal Company, Clarksburg Fuel Company, Southern Coal & Transportation Company, Pittsburg & Fairmont Fuel Company Somerset Coal Company, Consolidation Coal Company, and Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and who, with the exception of the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad Company are engaged in the mining, shipping, and selling of coal, filed their bill of complaint in equity against the appellant, which is a West Virginia corporation, also engaged in the mining, shipping and selling of coal, and against the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, which is a Maryland corporation engaged as a common carrier in interstate commerce.

The object of the bill was to have the appellant enjoined from prosecuting its petition before the Interstate Commerce Commission against the railroad company, and to restrain the railroad company from answering or defending said petition. The bill of complaint alleges substantially as follows:

That in January, 1907, there was filed in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Maryland a petition for mandamus by the United States of America ex rel. Pitcairn Coal Company, against the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company and certain other corporations (154 F. 108), all of which other corporations were organized under the laws of West Virginia for the purpose of mining and disposing of coal, and operated coal mines grouped about the Monongah division of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in West Virginia. That said petition for mandamus substantially charged the Baltimore &amp Ohio Railroad Company with violating the interstate commerce law in such a way as to prevent the relator, the Pitcairn Coal Company, from having interstate traffic moved by that railroad company upon terms and conditions as favorable as those given by the railroad company for like traffic under similar conditions to those who are complainants in said bill of complaint. That said petition for mandamus charges that the railroad company, in its distribution and assignment of cars for service in shipment from the coal mines operated along its road, subjected the relator and all of the other independent coal operators who were made defendants in said petition to undue and unreasonable prejudice and disadvantage in its system of coal distribution, and that all of those who are now the complainants in said bill of complaint, except the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad Company, were privileged corporations in whose favor the railroad company in the supply of cars gave undue and unreasonable preference and advantage, and that when the supply of cars on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company was insufficient to fill all orders cars were distributed by said company on a percentage basis to all the mines in the Monongah division, but that before such distribution was made certain arbitrary assessments of cars were made reducing the said total number of cars to be distributed on said percentage basis as follows: (1) All cars placed at mines for the fuel of the railroad company were not charged against the percentages to which the mines furnishing such fuel were entitled. (2) When foreign railroads-- that is, companies other than the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company-- sent their own cars for coal to mines on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, such fuel cars were not charged against the percentages to which such mines were entitled. (3) Cars owned by operators and commonly known as 'individual cars' were placed at the mines of their owner, and not charged against the percentages of such mines. (4) That whenever a coal shipper on the railroad company shipped cars to Curtis Bay, a tide terminal of the railroad company, if such cars were handled properly in any one month such shipper was allowed in the succeeding month a premium of fifty per cent. of the number of cars so shipped in addition to his regular percentage.

(5) That when certain consignees of coal shipped by those who are now complainants in said bill of complaint, on the line of said railroad company sent their own individual cars for coal to the mines of said complainants on the railroad such cars were not charged against the percentage of the mines to which they were sent.

That the petition for mandamus further asserted that all of these exceptions, limitations, and rules as aforesaid were made to the undue advantage and preference of the appellees, except the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which is not a coal company, and for the reason that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company was financially interested in said corporation, and that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company arbitrarily took from its equipment a very large number of cars each day, and assigned the same to the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad Company at its junction with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company at Cumberland, and thus took from its equipment a large number of cars to which the shippers on its own lines were entitled, and this arbitrary allotment of cars was unjust, unfair, and unreasonable, and gave an undue and unreasonable advantage to shippers over the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and subjected the Pitcairn Coal Company and other shippers of coal on the Monongah division to undue and unreasonable prejudice and advantage. That the petition further stated that the motive for the undue preference and advantage given to the appellees was found in the ownership by the railroad company of a majority of the capital stock of the Consolidation Coal Company, one of the defendants in said petition and one of the appellees herein, which had been sold prior to the filing of said petition, but in which the railroad company was still interested by reason of the balance of the purchase money due to it from the sale of said stock. That the petition prayed that in the event of a scarcity of cars to be furnished by the railroad company to shippers of coal on the Monongah division that the railroad company be required to furnish the relator with the proper percentage of cars without deducting the arbitraries above mentioned. That the railroad company on February 15, 1907, filed its return to said petition, wherein it denied that its distribution of coal cars to any coal company served by it violated the interstate commerce law, or had the effect of giving the appellees any undue advantage or preference. That the appellees filed an answer to the petition (a copy of the answer was filed as an exhibit with and as a part of the bill of complaint), and that the other defendants filed formal answers to the said petition (a copy of one of said answers was filed as an exhibit and as a part of said bill of complaint) asking that their rights might be adjudicated and determined.

That when said petition for mandamus was at issue the court took evidence on all the allegations thereof as the same were put in issue, and, after a full hearing, adjudicated all matters involved in said mandamus proceeding, determining that the system of coal car distribution of the railroad company did not violate the interstate commerce law, and did not give any undue or unreasonable preference to the appellees except that the individual cars owned by them should be charged against the percentages of their mines, but that such individual cars should not be used by the independent operators.

That on July 8, 1907, the court signed an order for the issuance of a mandamus requiring the railroad company, in case of car shortage, without discrimination, exception, or limitation and upon conditions as favorable as those given to any other shipper, to furnish to the Pitcairn Coal Company for the transportation of its coal, and to those shippers in like condition as the Pitcairn Coal Company, their just and fair proportion of the total car supply on the said railroad at that time properly distributable by the railroad company on the Monongah division, and, in making the pro rata distribution of car supply for the shipment of coal from the mines on the railroad and to the shippers thereon, the railroad company should include in the available car supply as the basis of calculation for distribution to the Pitcairn Coal Company and all shippers on the Monongah division the individual cars of mine operators used on the railroad, and charge such individual cars against the percentage which the mines using such individual cars are entitled. That the railroad company and the Pitcairn Coal Company both appealed from the judgment of the court in the mandamus proceeding. The appeal of the railroad company and the appellees herein was accompanied by a supersedeas bond of the Pitcairn Coal Company. That an examination of the mandamus proceeding will show that the question of car distribution of the railroad among all the mines on its lines was before the court therein, not only as the system of car distribution affected the parties to the proceeding, but as it involved...