Reliance Elevator Co. v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co.
| Decision Date | 21 December 1917 |
| Docket Number | 20,569 |
| Citation | 165 N.W. 867,139 Minn. 69 |
| Parties | RELIANCE ELEVATOR COMPANY v. CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL RAILWAY COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Hennepin county to recover $493.51 overcharge on 69 carloads of wheat, shipped from Strasburg North Dakota, to Minneapolis. The answer was a general denial. The case was tried before Steele, J., who at the close of the evidence granted defendant's motion to dismiss the case on the ground that the court was without jurisdiction of the subject matter. From an order denying its motion for a new trial, plaintiff appealed. Affirmed.
Carrier -- construction of tariff.
1. Defendant has a line of railway which extends from Linton, North Dakota, through Strasburg, North Dakota, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Its published tariff filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission names 17 cents per hundred pounds as the rate for carrying wheat from Strasburg to Minneapolis, and 16 cents per hundred pounds as the rate for carrying wheat from Linton, the next more distant station, to Minneapolis. The tariff also povides: "Between stations on the C.M. & St. P. Ry. rates to and from intermediate stations will be the same as shown to or from the next more distant station to or from which rates are named." Held that this provision applies only to shipping points to or from which a specific rate is not named and which are intermediate between stations to or from which a specific rate is named, and does not apply to Strasburg; and that the legal rate for shipments from Strasburg is the specific rate named therefor.
Carrier -- change in tariff rates.
2. The rates for interstate shipments named in a tariff published and filed as provided by the interstate commerce law are valid and binding until changed in the manner provided in that law.
Commerce -- unreasonable or illegal freight rates -- jurisdiction.
3. Original jurisdiction to determine whether such rates are unreasonable, or discriminatory, or infringe the law in some other respect, has been withdrawn from the courts and vested in the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Commerce -- action to recover overcharges -- jurisdiction.
4. If the validity of the published rate is not questioned, the state court has jurisdiction of an action to recover the amount of an alleged overcharge.
Dismissal of action -- wrong reason for right action.
5. Plaintiff, without questioning the validity of the published rate, sought to recover an alleged overcharge, but, as the stipulated facts show that it paid the legal rate and no more, the action was properly dismissed, although the court erroneously based the dismissal upon the ground that it had no jurisdiction.
Thomas Kneeland, for appellant.
F. W. Root, N. J. Wilcox, J. N. Davis and Burton Hanson, for respondent.
Plaintiff shipped 69 carloads of wheat over defendant's railway from Strasburg, North Dakota, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and defendant exacted and collected 17 cents per hundred pounds for transporting it. Plaintiff contends that the lawful rate for such transportation fixed and prescribed by the tariff or schedule of rates published by defendant and filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission is 16 cents per hundred pounds, and brought this suit to recover the alleged overcharge. At the trial a small amount of testimony was taken, and then the parties made a written stipulation of facts and submitted the case thereon. The stipulation states that the questions to be determined by the court are:
The stipulation further provides that, if the court shall decide that it has jurisdiction of the subject matter and that defendant has charged in excess of the lawful rate, judgment shall be rendered in favor of plaintiff for the amount demanded in the complaint; but, if either of these questions be decided adversely to plaintiff, an appropriate judgment shall be rendered for defendant. At the close of the evidence, the trial court dismissed the action on the ground that it had no jurisdiction of the subject matter. Plaintiff made a motion for a new trial and appealed from an order denying the motion.
The conclusion at which we have arrived can perhaps be stated more briefly by taking up the second question first. Defendant has a line of railway which extends from Minneapolis in the state of Minnesota to Roscoe in the state of South Dakota and thence westward to the Pacific coast, and has a branch line which extends from Roscoe in the state of South Dakota to Linton in the state of North Dakota. The stations upon this branch line to and from which rates are named in defendant's published tariff, stated in their order from Roscoe are: Hosmer, Hillsview, Eureka, Greenway, Zeeland, Hague, Strasburg and Linton. The published tariff states that the rate for carrying wheat from Linton, the terminus of the branch line, to Minneapolis is 16 cents per hundred pounds, and that the rate for carrying wheat from Strasburg, and from each of the other stations above named, to Minneapolis is 17 cents per hundred pounds. At the argument defendant explained that Linton was given the lower rate to meet the competition of another railway at that point. The ground for this discrimination is not important in the present case, for plaintiff expressly disclaims any attack upon the validity of the rates named in the tariff, and rests its case upon the proposition that the tariff as published and filed entitled it to the rate of 16 cents per hundred pounds for the shipments in question. It bases this contention upon the following provision of the published tariff:
"Between stations on the C.M. & St. P. Ry. rates to and from intermediate stations will be the same as shown to or from the next more distant station to or from which rates are named."
Linton is the next more distant station beyond Strasburg from which a rate to Minneapolis is named; and plaintiff insists that Strasburg is an intermediate station within the meaning of the above provision, and that under that provision the rate from Linton is also the rate from Strasburg.
It is true that Strasburg is located between Minneapolis and Linton and in that sense is an intermediate station, and it may be conceded that, if the tariff names two different rates for hauling wheat from...
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