Missouri, K. & T.R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission

• Decision Date: 23 October 1908
• Docket Number: 5,646.
• Citation: 164 F. 645
• Parties: MISSOURI, K. & T.R. CO. et al. v. INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

164 F. 645

MISSOURI, K. & T.R. CO. et al. v. INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

No. 5,646.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Missouri.

October 23, 1908

W. D McHugh and J. W. Terry, for complainants.

P. J Farrell and S. H. Cowan, for defendant.

Before VAN DEVANTER, HOOK, and ADAMS, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

This is a suit in equity against the Interstate Commerce Commission by 49 railway companies and the receivers of 2 other railway companies to annul and enjoin the enforcement of an order of the commission requiring the railway companies to desist from exacting a terminal charge of $2 per car for the delivery of live stock at the Union Stockyards, in Chicago, Ill., as respects shipments originating outside that state, and prescribing a maximum charge of $1 per car for such terminal service, and also requiring the railway companies to desist from exacting the present through rates for transporting cattle in car loads from designated points in the Southwest to certain Northern ranges and to Chicago, Ill., National Stockyards, Ill., East St. Louis, Ill., St. Louis, Mo., St Joseph, Mo., Kansas City, Mo., New Orleans, La., Omaha, Neb and South Omaha, Neb., and prescribing for such through service certain maximum rates which are lower than the present ones.

In the bill the order is assailed upon the grounds that both the terminal charge and the through rates prescribed therein are unreasonably low, noncompensatory, and confiscatory, and that the through rates are unjustly discriminatory and unduly preferential, in that they cannot be enforced without necessarily giving an undue and unreasonable preference and advantage to shippers of cattle and to cattle traffic, and also subjecting other shippers and other classes of traffic to a corresponding prejudice and disadvantage.

The matter for instant consideration is an application for a preliminary injunction suspending the enforcement of the order until the final hearing, and this application has been submitted upon the bill, the answer, divers affidavits, and some other written and printed proofs. It is conceded that the order was made by the commission upon a sufficient complaint, after due notice thereof to each of the railway companies and after a full hearing, in which they made a showing of substantially everything that they rely upon here. See Cattle Raisers' Ass'n of Texas v. Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co., 11 Interst. Com. R. 296, s.c. 13 Interst.Com.R. 418. Shortly before the order was made, a preliminary injunction, suspending the enforcement of an earlier order containing a substantially identical requirement respecting the terminal charge at Chicago, had been granted by the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Minnesota, after due notice and a full hearing, in a suit brought against the commission by several of the present complainants. That injunction was in full force when the order now before us was made (July 6, 1908) and served upon the railway companies (September 9, 1908), and it is still in full force. Because of this we felt constrained to suggest that the repetition of the prior order in the later one was a violation of the preliminary injunction in the other suit, and thereupon the commission, which seems not to have considered the matter in that aspect before, promptly rescinded so much of the later order as relates to the terminal charge. It will therefore be dismissed from further consideration.

We do not stop to enumerate the various contentions advanced by counsel in respect of questions pertaining to the through rates, but proceed to state briefly the conclusions at which we have unanimously arrived respecting the rules of law applicable to the case as now presented and respecting the proper disposition, upon the proofs submitted, of the application for a preliminary injunction.

1. Neither Congress nor any legislative or administrative board acting by its authorization can competently establish rates for the transportation of property in interstate commerce that will not admit of the carrier earning such compensation for the service rendered as under all the circumstances is just and reasonable to it and to the public, for that would be depriving the carrier of its property without due process of law, and would be taking its property for public use without just compensation, in violation of the fifth amendment to the Constitution.

2. Power to determine and prescribe what are just and reasonable maximum rates to be charged in interstate commerce is, in a limited way, conferred upon the Interstate Commerce Commission by existing statute law; but as the commission acts only as a legislative or administrative board, and not judicially (Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Myatt (C.C.) 98 F. 335, 344), its determination or action does not, and cannot, preclude judicial inquiry into the justness and reasonableness of the rates, within the meaning of the constitutional guaranty, for that is a judicial question.

3. To be just and reasonable, within the meaning of the constitutional guaranty, the rates must be prescribed with reasonable regard for the cost to the carrier of the service rendered...