State v. The Kansas City Stock Yards Company of Missouri

• Decision Date: 09 January 1915
• Docket Number: 19,419
• Citation: 94 Kan. 96,145 P. 831
• Parties: THE STATE OF KANSAS, ex rel. JOHN S. DAWSON, as Attorney-general, etc., Plaintiff, v. THE KANSAS CITY STOCK YARDS COMPANY OF MISSOURI, Defendant
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

145 P. 831

94 Kan. 96

THE STATE OF KANSAS, ex rel. JOHN S. DAWSON, as Attorney-general, etc., Plaintiff, v. THE KANSAS CITY STOCK YARDS COMPANY OF MISSOURI, Defendant

No. 19,419

Supreme Court of Kansas

January 9, 1915

Decided. January, 1915.

Original proceeding in quo warranto.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

1. STOCK-YARDS COMPANY--Engaged in Intrastate Business as Common Carrier Without Legal Authority. A corporation engaged in operating stock yards, owning a track between such yards and the railroads over which stock is transported thereto, and making a charge to the railroad companies for each car moved over such track, in accordance with a tariff which it has filed with the interstate commerce commission, is to be regarded as engaging in business as a common carrier.

2. SAME. The grant to a foreign corporation of the right to operate a stock yards does not carry with it the privilege of engaging in business as a common carrier in the manner stated.

3. SAME--Intrastate Business Unauthorized. To the extent of any intrastate business done in that manner such a corporation exercises a function which is unauthorized, and from which it will be ousted by the courts upon application of the proper executive officer of the state.

4. SAME. The fact that most of the business done in such manner is interstate, and that intrastate business is done only in virtue of the presence of a few cars of that character in an entire train, which is handled together, does not effect such a merger of the two classes of business as to place it all beyond the control of the state.

John S Dawson, attorney-general, for the plaintiff; W. P. Montgomery, of Topeka, of counsel.

M. W. Borders, of Chicago, Ill., L. W. Keplinger, and C. W. Trickett, both of Kansas City, for the defendant.

William R. Smith, of Topeka, for The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company.

Mason J. West, J. dissenting.

OPINION

MASON, J.

The Kansas City Stock Yards Company, a corporation organized under the laws of Missouri, operates stock yards situated in part in Kansas, having been authorized to do so by the charter board of this state. The company owns, or controls as lessee, tracks leading to the stock yards, which are used by various railroads in delivering live stock thereto. For the use of these tracks the stock yards company exacts a charge which it requires the railroad companies to pay. The state contends that in virtue of these transactions the stock yards company is engaging in the business of transportation as a common carrier, without having the legal right to do so, and this action is brought on the relation of the attorney-general to oust the company from the exercise of that function. The plaintiff asks for judgment upon the pleadings, and in case that is not granted, for an order restraining the acts complained of during the pendency of the action.

For many years the switching tracks were owned by the stock yards company and were operated substantially as at present, without a charge being made to the railroad companies for their use. In May, 1913, persons interested in the stock yards company procured a charter for a Kansas corporation under the name of The Kansas City Connecting Railway Company, to which the title to the tracks in question was transferred, but the state utilities commission denied its application for authority to commence business. The tracks were then leased to the stock yards company, which filed a tariff with the interstate commerce commission, providing a charge of seventy-five cents per car for their use.

The stock yards company seems clearly to be engaged in the business of transportation, so far as to make it subject to regulations applicable to common carriers. (United States v. Union Stock Yard, 226 U.S. 286; Tap Line Cases, 234 U.S. 1, 58 L.Ed. 1185, 34 S.Ct. 741.) In the cases cited some effect was given to the circumstance that the corporations in question had been granted specific authority to operate as common carriers, but that was not the controlling consideration. Here the filing of the tariff with the interstate commerce commission goes far to characterize the business undertaken. If a right to do business as a carrier resulted by implication from the express grant of authority to engage in another business to which it was incidental, doubtless such implied right would have to be exercised in conformity to traffic regulations the same as though it were specifically mentioned in the charter. Here, however, we think the powers incidental to those expressly granted to the defendant company did not include the character of business now under consideration. In its Missouri charter its purposes are thus described:

"The purchase, construction, maintenance and operation of a general Union Stock Yards, with the necessary inclosures, buildings, hotels, exchanges, structures, railroad tracks, switches, bridges and viaducts for the reception, inspection, safe-keeping, feeding, watering, weighing, delivering, transferring and caring for live-stock."

In the application of the company for leave...