Porter v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 17 March 1906
• Citation: 95 S.W. 453
• Parties: PORTER v. ST. LOUIS SOUTHWESTERN RY. CO.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

95 S.W. 453

PORTER v. ST. LOUIS SOUTHWESTERN RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

March 17, 1906.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Arkansas County; Geo. M. Chapline, Judge.

Action by J. I. Porter against the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company. From the judgment in favor of defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

John L. Ingram and Geo. C. Lewis, for appellant. S. H. West and Bridges & Wooldridge, for appellee.

McCULLOCH, J.

Appellant purchased at Erin, Tenn., on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, a carload of lime to be transported to Stuttgart, Ark., on the railroad of appellee. He inquired of appellee's agent at Stuttgart as to the freight rate, and was advised that the through rate from Erin to Stuttgart, via appellee's road and connecting carriers, would be 22 cents per hundredweight. He also ascertained that the through rate from Erin to Brinkley, Ark., was 14 cents, and the local rate from Brinkley to Stuttgart fixed by the Arkansas railroad commission over appellee's road was 5 cents, so he caused the carload of lime to be consigned to himself at Brinkley. It was shipped over the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, which extends from Erin to Memphis, Tenn., and the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad, which extends westward from Memphis, and crosses appellee's road at Brinkley. Upon arrival of the car of lime at Brinkley, appellant, without unloading or opening the car, paid the freight from Erin to that point, and reshipped it over appellee's road to himself at Stuttgart. When the car arrived at Stuttgart, appellant tendered to the agent of appellee 5 cents per hundred-weight upon the consignment, which the latter refused to accept and demanded payment of 12½ cents per hundredweight, which would have been its pro rata of a through rate. The question presented to us now is whether appellant had the right, under the circumstances detailed above, to take advantage of the local freight rate from Brinkley to Stuttgart fixed by the Arkansas railroad commission, or whether the consignment must be deemed continuous from Erin to Stuttgart, and therefore an interstate commerce transaction. The lower court held that it was interstate commerce, and rendered judgment against appellant at the rate of 8 cents per hundredweight, which, with the rate of 14 cents paid from Erin to Brinkley, made up the through rate of 22 cents from Erin to Stuttgart. We are not concerned about the correctness of the judgment, inasmuch as appellee does not question it, further than to inquire whether or not it imposed upon appellant a more burdensome freight rate than he was entitled to. There is no dispute about the facts or that appellant intended to procure continuous transportation of the lime from Erin to Stuttgart; the only question being whether he had the right to take advantage of the situation presented, viz., the interstate rate from Erin to Brinkley and the railroad commission rate from Brinkley to Stuttgart, in order to secure a rate through to the latter place at less than the interstate rate fixed between the two points. In other words, as Erin, Tenn., was the initial point of consignment and Stuttgart, Ark., was intended as the final destination, did the character of the consignment as an interstate transaction continue until the latter point was reached? The question is by no means free from doubt, and there are few decisions of the courts bearing upon it, but those to which our attention has been directed sustain the ruling of the circuit judge. In Augusta, S. & R. Co. v. W. & T. R. Co. (C. C.) 74 Fed. 522, it was held (quoting from the syllabus) that "the fact that a railroad lies wholly within one state does not exempt it from obligations imposed by the Interstate Commerce Act, if the transportation over it is part of a shipment from one state to another, or to or from a foreign country."

In Interstate Com. v. Bellaire, Z. & C. Ry. Co. (C. C.) 77 Fed. 942, and United States v. Chicago, K. & S. R. Co. (C. C.) 81 Fed. 783, it was held that railroads operating wholly within a state and not participants in a common arrangement for interstate shipments were not within the terms of the Interstate Commerce Act. There are decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission to the same effect. Mo. & Ill. R. T. & L. Co. v. Cape Girardeau & S. W. Ry. Co., 1 Interst. Com. R. 30; New Jersey Fruit Exc. v....