Missouri Pacific Railway Company v. State of Kansas Ex Rel Carr Taylor

• Decision Date: 21 February 1910
• Docket Number: No. 38,38
• Parties: MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. STATE OF KANSAS EX REL. CARR W. TAYLOR, Attorney for the Board of Railroad Commissioners, and C. C. Coleman, Attorney General of the State of Kansas
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

216 U.S. 262

30 S.Ct. 330

54 L.Ed. 472

MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v STATE OF KANSAS EX REL. CARR W. TAYLOR, Attorney for the Board of Railroad Commissioners, and C. C. Coleman, Attorney General of the State of Kansas.

No. 38.

Argued and submitted November 30, 1909.

Decided February 21, 1910.

Mr. Balie P. Waggener for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 263-266 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Fred S. Jackson and G. F. Grattan for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a writ of error to a judgment of the supreme court of Kansas ordering a peremptory mandamus commanding the Missouri Pacific Railway Company to obey an order of the state board of railroad commissioners. The order directed the putting in operation of a passenger train service between Madison, Kansas, and the Missouri-Kansas state line, on what is known as the Madison branch of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company.

The branch road in question lies between Madison, Kansas, and Monteith Junction, Missouri. From Madison to the state line is 89 miles, and from the state line to Monteith Junction is 19 miles, the total distance between the two terminal points being 108 miles. At Monteith Junction the Madison branch intersects with the Joplin line of the Missouri Pacific, by means of which connection is made with Kansas City and other points. There being no terminal facilities at Monteith Junction, the trains operated on the Madison branch do not remain over at the junction, but run as far as Butler station, 3 miles distant on the Joplin line, where terminal facilities exist.

There are no large towns on the Madison branch, either in Kansas or Missouri, and the country which that branch serves is largely agricultural, Kansas City being the nearest and most natural market for the products of the territory. The greater volume of the passenger travel, however, originating on the Madison branch, does not move to Kansas City by going to Monteith Junction, but leaves the branch at various points between Madison and the state line, at which points the branch crosses various roads, which, generally speaking, run in a northerly or northeasterly direction, affording a means of reaching Kansas City more directly than by going to Moneteith and thence via the Joplin line to that city. Three of these intersecting roads are operated by the Atchison & Topeka, two by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, one by the St. Louis & San Francisco, one by the Kansas & Colorado Pacific, and one by the Missouri Pacific. Pleasanton is the last station on the branch in Kansas, and is six miles distant from the state line.

Without clearing up some confusion in the record upon the subject, we take the fact to be as stated by the court below, that the branch between Madison and Monteith Junction, at least, so far as it was constructed within the state of Kansas, was built by a Kansas corporation chartered in 1885, known as the Interstate Railroad Company, and that to aid in the building of the road within the state of Kansas about $200,000 was contributed by counties through which the road passed. A construction company did the work, at the contract cost of $1,095,000, and this sum was paid by the railway company by delivering to the contractors an issue of $1,622,000 of 6 per cent mortgage bonds. The Interstate Railroad Company, in July, 1890, consolidated with another Kansas corporation known as the St. Louis & Emporia Railroad Company, the consolidated company being designated as the Interstate Railway Company. Subsequently, in December, 1890, by authority of a statute of Kansas, the Interstate Railway Company and eleven other Kansas railway corporations were consolidated, the consolidated company being designated as the Kansas & Colorado Pacific Railway Company.

The Missouri Pacific Railway Company is a corporation chartered in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. It owns virtually all the mortgage bonds issued by the Interstate Railroad Company for the construction of the Madison branch and a majority of the stock of that company. Indeed, it is the owner of a majority of the stock and mortgage bonds of all the constituent companies which united in forming the consolidated company known as the Kansas & Colorado Pacific Railway Company, and, as the lessee of the latter company, operates its lines of road, including, of course, the Madison branch. It is not questioned that substantially all the equipment used in operating the roads covered by the leases is owned by the Missouri Pacific Railway Company.

In September, 1905, residents along the Madison branch within the state of Kansas filed a petition with the board of railroad commissioners, alleging, in substance, that only a mixed train was furnished for passenger service on the branch, that such service subjected the public to great inconvenience, prevented anything like a regular and timely passenger service, and, besides, was dangerous to those traveling over the road. An order was prayed requiring the Missouri Pacific to operate a regular passenger train over the branch road between Madison and the state line. The evidence introduced before the board is not in the record. After a hearing, the following finding and order were made:

'Now, on this 7th day of December, 1905, after hearing the evidence and argument of counsel, in the above-entitled action, the board finds that during the years 1902 and 1903, when the respondent railway company operated a passenger train on the Madison branch of its line, that the said passenger train was operated at a loss, and there was no testimony introduced at this hearing that the train, if put on as asked for by the petitioners, could be operated at a profit to the respondent company. The board belives that the people along the line of the Madison branch of said company are entitled to better passenger train service than they are now receiving, and it has been represented to the board of officers of said company that the respondent is constructing motor cars for establishment on its branch lines, that can be operated at a much less expense than steam service.

'It is therefore ordered by the board that on or before the first day of May, 1906, a motor passenger car service be put on and operated on said Madison branch, from Madison, Kansas, to the Kansas and Missouri state line, and in the event said railroad company is unable at that time to put on a motor car passenger service, a regular steam passenger train service be forthwith put on and operated.'

The road not having obeyed, this proceeding by mandamus was commenced to compel compliance.

Three special defenses were set up in the return to the alternative writ. In the first it was insisted that the branch road was an interstate road and could only be operated as such, and therefore was not subject to the jurisdiction of the railroad commission or the courts of the state of Kansas, and in the second it was claimed that the burden which would be occasioned by compelling the operation of a passenger train service would be confiscatory and in violation of rights protected by the 14th Amendment. The court below, in its opinion, thus, we think, accurately summarized the elaborate averments relating to the two defenses just referred to:

'To the alternative writ an answer was filed which denies that the company operated the Madison branch as a line of road wholly within the state of Kansas, and alleges that said branch is a part of the Missouri Pacific general system; that defendant maintains terminal facilities for the branch at Butler, Missouri, 20 miles east of the Kansas state line, where the branch connects with the main line of defendant's railroad; that the company has no terminal facilities near the state line within the state of Kansas, and that the branch road cannot be operated as a road within the state of Kansas without such terminal facilities, to maintain which would involve the company in ruinous expense. It also alleges that the order is unreasonable and confiscatory, and that the company cannot comply with it without great financial loss; that the entire revenue of the road within the state of Kansas, including passenger and freight business, is insufficient to meet the expense and cost of operating the road within the state; that from July 1, 1903, to April, 30, 1905, it maintained separate passenger train service upon this branch, but was obliged to abandon the same and return to the mixed passenger and freight service because the total receipts of passenger and freight business during that period proved wholly insufficient to meet the expenses of operation. It further alleges that compliance with the order of the board would compel defendant to divert its revenues from other lines and parts of its system outside the state of Kansas to the maintenance of separate passenger train service in the state, and that the extent of such additional cost would amount to a confiscation of its property.'

The third defense set up that the company was diligently endeavoring to perfect a motor car for experimental purposes, that the practical utility of such service on railway tracks was problematical, and that it was the design of the company 'to test the practicability of said character of service on its said Madison branch line as soon as the same can be done, and is also its design to furnish said motor car service for separate passenger traffic if the cost of said service can be brought within the passenger service cost of the mixed train service, which it now furnishes, and if said motor car service can be successfully operated from the standpoints of utility and safety and other considerations necessary to be taken into account.'

By stipulation a referee was appointed to take evidence and report findings of fact and conclusions of law. The referee transmitted the evidence taken and made lengthy findings of fact, upon which his conclusions of law...