New York Cent. & H.R.R. Co. v. York & Whitney Co.

• Decision Date: 25 May 1918
• Citation: 230 Mass. 206,119 N.E. 855
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: NEW YORK CENT. & H. R. R. CO. v. YORK & WHITNEY CO.

230 Mass. 206

119 N.E. 855

NEW YORK CENT. & H. R. R. CO.

v.YORK & WHITNEY CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 25, 1918.

Report from Supreme Judicial Court, Suffolk County.

Action by the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company against the York & Whitney Company, resulting in verdict for plaintiff. On report to the Supreme Judicial Court. Judgment for plaintiff on the verdict.

W. L. Parsons, of Boston, for plaintiff.

Adams & Blinn and Amos L. Taylor, all of Boston, for defendant.

RUGG, C. J.

This case comes before us on a report, which states that it was tried before a jury on an ‘agreed statement of facts,’ which covers with its several exhibits more than 20 printed pages. Several of its paragraphs begin with the statement that certain persons ‘will testify’ as narrated. The report furthersays that the defendant ‘introduced in evidence the original freight bills. * * * There was no further evidence offered by either side.’ It follows that the case was tried upon the statement of agreed facts submitted as evidence, which, together with the other evidence, was the basis from which the ultimate decisive facts so far as necessary must be determined. Where more than one rational inference can be drawn from these, a question of fact is presented. It is when only one conclusion is possible that a point of law alone is raised. Frati v. Jannini, 226 Mass. 430, 432, 115 N. E. 746;Atlantic Maritime Co. v. Gloucester, 228 Mass. 519, 522, 523, 117 N. E. 924. See Donahoe v. Turner, 204 Mass. 274, 90 N. E. 549.

This is an action of contract to recover a balance claimed to be due for freight and refrigeration charges on various carloads of produce shipped in interstate commerce and consigned to the defendant in Boston. The plaintiff as the terminal carrier failed to collect the full amount of the correct tariff rates at the time of delivery. One group of the shipments relates to six carloads of cantaloupes originating at Payette, Idaho. ‘Straight bills of lading’ in the form established by the Interstate Commerce Commission were issued for those cars, each signed by the shipper and by the agent of the carrier, but they all were retained by the shipper, never came into the possession of the defendant, and it had no actual knowledge that any had been issued, or the terms thereof. Immediately upon being informed of the arrival of the first of these six cars, an agent of the defendant inquired of an agent of the plaintiff what the freight charge was, saying also that the six carloads of cantaloupes expected by the defendant from Payette, Idaho, ‘were commission goods and that the defendant wished to know what the charges would be before it decided to accept the consignment.’ Information later was given to the defendant that the rate was $222.20, which was $108.49 less than the lawful rate established by the tariffs filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission.

It is not now open to discussion that the rates published according to the requirements of the federal Interstate Commerce Act are absolutely binding upon all persons who are parties to a contract of interstate transportation. They have the force of statute. They cannot be varied under any pretext. The carrier cannot lawfully depart from them. It was said in Kansas Southern Railway Co. v. Carl, 227 U. S. 639, at page 653, 33 Sup. Ct. 391, at page 395 (57 L. Ed. 683):

‘Neither the intentional nor accidental misstatement of the applicable published rate will bind the carrier or shipper. The lawful rate is that which the carrier must exact and that which the shipper must pay. The shipper's knowledge of the lawful rate is conclusively presumed.’

It was ‘the purpose of the act to have but one rate, open to all alike and from which there could be no departure.’ Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Maxwell, 237 U. S. 94, 35 Sup. Ct. 494, 59 L. Ed. 853, L. R. A. 1915E, 665, and cases collected at page 99; Dayton Coal & Iron Co. v. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railroad, 239 U. S. 446, 36 Sup. Ct. 137, 60 L. Ed. 375;Pennsylvania Railroad v. International Coal Co., 230 U. S. 184, 197, 33 Sup. Ct. 893, 57 L. Ed. 1446, Ann. Cas. 1915A, 315. It was said in Erie Railroad v. Stone, 244 U. S. 332, at page 336, 37 Sup. Ct. 633, at page 635 (61 L. Ed. 1173):

‘The rules and regulations, duly published and filed, which in any wise affect the rates or value of the service to be rendered, are controlling upon both parties to the shipping contract. Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 586, § 2. The binding force of these contracts and regulations has been affirmed in many cases.’ Boston & Maine Railroad v. Hooker, 233 U. S. 97, 112, 34 Sup. Ct. 526, 58 L. Ed. 868, L. R. A. 1915B, 450, Ann. Cas. 1915D, 593;Pierce v. Wells Fargo & Co., 236 U. S. 278, 284, 285, 35 Sup. Ct. 351, 59 L. Ed. 576;Southern Railway v. Prescott, 240 U. S. 632, 638,36 Sup. Ct. 469, 60 L. Ed. 836.

The question is whether these rates are binding upon a consignee who is not a party to the bill of lading, who notifies the carrier that he is not the owner of the goods transported, but merely an agent to dispose of them on commission, and who decides, after having stated to him by the carrier the amount of charges said by it to be due, whether he will receive or decline to accept the consignment. More broadly stated, the question is whether everybody who deals with an interstate shipment, although not the owner of the goods, is bound inexorably to know and to pay the lawful and correct rates established by the tariffs filed and published in compliance with the Interstate Commerce Act, even though he is not a party to the shipment, is not bound to pay any rate at all except by his own volition exercised after the shipment is in progress or at an end, and who decides to pay only on the assumption that the charge stated by the carrier is the extent of his obligation. This point relates to the interpretation of an act of Congress, respecting which a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in final and binding upon all other courts. This precise point has not been decided by that court so far as we are aware. We must, therefore, decide it upon what appear to be the governing principles of law in the light of the decisions of that tribunal upon kindred and analogous questions.

The decisions already cited have settled that parties to an interstate shipment or carriage are bound, the carrier to collect and the shipper or owner to pay, the lawful rate no matter what mistake or misunderstanding may have entered into any statement of the rate. Congress has determined that the true and lawful rate, fixed according to the methods prescribed by it, shall have the force and effect of statute and shall be immutable by any conduct of the parties. That principle has been stated in the strongest possible form of expression.

There is ground for holding that the same principle should apply to all persons who may seek to deal with goods transported by interstate carriage to the extent of paying the charges for transportation. The purpose of the act being, as has been stated many times in various forms of words, to prevent utterly any discrimination between different shippers in interstate commerce, and to put everybody absolutely upon the same footing as to the rates in interstate commerce, there is much to be said in favor of the proposition that everybody, whether a party or a stranger to the contract for shipment, must pay the one and only legal rate if he undertakes to pay any rate at all. It may be that the evil of discrimination in rates can be exterminated only by such drastic interpretation.

[4] But the reasons against this view seem to us stronger. Transportation of goods in interstate commerce rests upon contract. Nobody is under legal compulsion to enter into such a contract. It is an economic adventure. Whether one shall enter into it depends in large measure, if not entirely, upon business considerations and a determination whether it will be profitable or not. After one enters into such a contract, he is bound by law as to the rate. The shipper both theoretically and practically has within his reach the facilities for ascertaining the lawful rate, because every carrier is required by section 6 of the act (as amended by the act approved June 29, 1906) to keep schedules of rates and charges ‘posted in two public and conspicuous places in every depot, station or office * * * where passengers or freight, respectively, are received for transportation, in such form that they shall be accessible to the public and can be conveniently inspected.’ It is true that the schedule becomes operative upon filing with the Interstate Commerce Commission and furnishing copies to its officers even though not thus publicly posted. Texas & Pacific Railway v. Cisco Oil Mill, 204 U. S. 449, 451, 27 Sup. Ct. 358, 51 L. Ed. 562. But it is the theory of the law that opportunity to ascertain the true rate must be open to one who wants to make a contract, the profit or loss of which may depend wholly upon the rate. The shipper is a necessary party to the contract for interstate shipment. Goods cannot be carried unless some one sends them. He must be bound to pay the lawful rate, unless by the contract of transportation, manifested usually by the bill of lading, he is not liable for any rate. But the consignee is not a necessary party to a contract for interstate shipment. The same opportunity is not or may not be open to him under the law to ascertain the true and lawful rate. That is illustrated by the facts in the case at bar. No through rate had been established on cantaloupes from Payette, Idaho, to Boston. So far as known, melons had never before been shipped from Idaho to Boston. The lawful rate could be found only by adding the rate of the Oregon Short Line Railroad from Payette to Chicago, and the rates of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad and other railroads from Chicago to Boston....