San Juan Coal & Coke Co. v. F?

• Decision Date: 14 August 1931
• Docket Number: No. 3666.,3666.
• Citation: 35 N.M. 512,2 P.2d 305
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court
• Parties: SAN JUAN COAL & COKE CO.v.SANTA FÉ, S. J. & N. RY. CO. et al.

35 N.M. 512

2 P.2d 305

SAN JUAN COAL & COKE CO.

v.SANTA FÉ, S. J. & N. RY. CO. et al.

No. 3666.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Aug. 14, 1931.

Syllabus by the Court.

State corporation commission has power to fix joint through rates and apportion them between participating carriers (Const. art. 11, § 7).

The state corporation commission has power to fix joint through rates and to apportion them between participating carriers.

Statute granting railroads power to regulate tolls and compensation yields to constitutional rate-making power of corporation commission (Comp. St. 1929, § 116-202, subd. 11; Const. art. 11, § 7).

1929 Comp. § 116-202, eleventh, granting railroads power to regulate tolls and compensation, yields to constitutional rate-making power of state corporation commission.

Statute exempting certain railroads from obligations of common carriers does not apply to road operating under certificate of convenience and necessity from Interstate Commerce Commission (Comp. St. 1929, § 116-409; Const. art. 11, § 7).

1929 Comp. § 116-409, exempting certain railroads from obligations and duties of common carriers, does not apply to a road operating under certificate of convenience and necessity from Interstate Commerce Commission.

Order of corporation commission establishing railroad rates, if supported by substantial and satisfactory evidence, will be enforced (Const. art. 11, § 7).

Order of corporation commission establishing railroad rates will be enforced by Supreme Court if supported by substantial and satisfactory evidence.

Comparison with other rates fixed on same commodity for comparable distances may make prima facie case of unreasonableness of rates attacked.

Prima facie case of unreasonableness of rates attacked and of reasonableness of rates fixed by corporation commission may be made by comparison with other rates on same commodity for comparable distances.

Carrier's evidence to rebut prima facie case on reasonableness or unreasonableness of rates made by comparison with other rates, should furnish measure of difference and means of arriving at weight to be given difference.

To rebut prima facie case on reasonableness or unreasonableness of rates made by comparison with other rates, by showing of different conditions, carrier's evidence should furnish a measure of the difference and means of arriving at weight to be given it.

On Removal from State Corporation Commission.

Proceedings by the San Juan Coal & Coke Company against the Santa Fé, San Juan & Northern Railway Company and others. The State Corporation Commission established a schedule of joint rates. On removal from corporation commission.

Order affirmed.

Order of corporation commission establishing railroad rates will be enforced by Supreme Court if supported by substantial and satisfactory evidence.

See, also, 291 P. 920.

Reed Holloman, of Santa Fé, for plaintiff. W. C. Reid, of Albuquerque, for defendants.

WATSON, J.

San Juan Coal & Coke Company, the petitioner, operates coal mines at La Ventana. Santa Fé, San Juan & Northern Railway Company, hereinafter referred to as the San Juan Road, is a common carrier, owning and operating a 31-mile line from Tilden, two miles north of La Ventana, to San Ysidro. Santa Fé Northwestern Railway Company, hereinafter referred to as the Northwestern Road, is not, as we understand, a common carrier. It was built and is operated as a timber road. It extends from Bernalillo, its junction with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Company, hereinafter referred to as the Santa Fé, through San Ysidro, to points beyond. The San Juan Road was built with the assistance of the Santa Fé; the latter still being the creditor of the former, for rails, ties, etc., furnished to the extent of $221,000. It was originally operated as a mining facility, so called. It had financial troubles and was sold in a receivership proceeding. Reorganized, and having acquired trackage rights from the Northwestern, from San Ysidro to Bernalillo, it applied for and obtained from the Interstate Commerce Commission, in 1929, a certificate of convenience and necessity to operate as a common carrier from Bernalillo to Tilden.

In a recent case wherein the present petitioner demanded better facilities from the San Juan (San Juan Coal & Coke Co. v. Santa Fé, San Juan & Northern Railway Co., 35 N. M. -, 298 P. 663), we commented on the conditions and the problems in general, arising out of the allied, and still conflicting, interests of these two parties in the present case. The same situation is reflected in this record.

When the San Juan Road commenced business as a common carrier, these defendants published a joint tariff. It was immediately attacked by the petition now before us as unreasonable and discriminatory. It was particularly challenged on the grounds that, though La Ventana, and the Waldo group of mines are approximately the same distance from points on the Santa Fé, the Waldo group enjoyed an advantage of 65 cents to Albuquerque, of 47 cents to the Pecos Valley, and substantial advantages to other points; and that, though the haul from Gallup is 70 miles longer, the latter enjoyed the same rates as those given to La Ventana to points south and east of Albuquerque. The prayer was that the rates from Waldo be established as the rates from La Ventana.

As matters stood when the petition was filed, rates to Albuquerque, the natural and most important market for La Ventana coal, were: From Raton-Dawson, 229 miles, $3.25; from Gallup, 160 miles, $2.85; from the Waldo group, 48 miles, $1.85; from La Ventana, 69 miles, $2.50. Since then, by order of the commission, enforced by this court in John Becker Co. v. A. T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 35 N. M. -, 291 P. 919, these competing rates have been reduced. They are now: Raton-Dawson, $2.70; Gallup, $2.15; and Waldo, $1.12. The order now under review fixes the rate from La Ventana to Albuquerque at $1.35. The rates mentioned are for lump coal. In all cases lower rates are fixed for nut, and still lower for slack and pea.

We refused to enforce the first order made on this petition; the majority finding it unreasonable as to the rates to Bernalillo, and not being satisfied of its reasonableness as a whole. San Juan Coal & Coke Co. v. Santa Fé, San Juan & Northern Ry. Co. et al., 35 N. M. -, 291 P. 920. The proceeding was remanded to the commission. Further hearing was there had. The new order is now here, on removal by the carriers.

The unreasonableness and discriminatory character of the existing rates was well shown in the first record. It was the reasonableness of the rates by which the commission had replaced them, that this court doubted. It appeared that the existing rates imposed hardship not alone on the La Ventana shippers, but on the San Juan Road as well. The latter was in the position of having admitted that, if it was to continue to exist, it must have joint rates enabling its patrons to compete with the Waldo group of mines. But the hardship upon the San Juan Road was not limited to the high joint rates. It appeared that, in the division of those rates with the Santa Fé, by contract between the two roads, but 90 cents per ton was allowed the San Juan Road on lump and nut, and but 75 cents per ton on slack. A great part of that record resulted from an airing of that grievance. It was in that connection that the testimony was given, considered by the majority as fatal to the then order, that the actual costs of this service to the San Juan Road were $1.15 and 90 cents, respectively.

It had been the position of all parties, at the hearing before the commission, and originally before this court, that this grievance of the San Juan against the Santa Fé was irremediable by any state authority, because of a lack of power in the commission to prescribe a division of rates. On hearing on that record, this court became unanimously convinced of the existence of the power. The writer believed that the then record justified an enforcement of the order, leaving it to the aggrieved road to institute a proper proceeding for redress. But the majority was of the opinion that “*** the present controversy cannot be fairly and justly determined without giving to the question of division its proper consideration. ***” So, the proceeding was remanded.

At the second hearing the commission called attention to the matter of division of rates, and plainly announced the view that it was bound to inquire into and to effect it. All of the carriers again denied the power of the commission to fix joint rates or to make divisions. They declined to go into the matter, declined to offer evidence which would furnish the basis for a division, and insisted that the complainant, interested solely in the reasonableness of the rates as a whole, could not do so.

The first two points now urged, in resisting enforcement of the present order, are that it fails to comply with the mandate of this court and that the commission has exceeded its powers and jurisdiction. We shall consider these questions in inverse order.

[1] Has the commission the power to prescribe division of joint rates? In the former opinion we indicated a reliance upon the holding and reasoning in Backus-Brooks Co. v. Northern Pacific Railway Co. (C. C. A.) 21 F.(2d) 4. The carriers urge that the case is distinguishable, because the result is based upon a statute of Minnesota which expressly confers upon its commission the power to make joint rates; a power which, they contend, our commission does not possess. The proposition laid down in the case cited, and which had our approval, is that, given the power to establish joint rates, the power to specify the division of them follows as a necessary incident to it. Counsel, in oral argument, admit the force of this.

So, the contention really is that our commission has no power to establish joint through rates. The argument amounts merely to this: That the Constitution, which created the...