Texas Pacific Railway Company v. Cisco Oil Mill

• Decision Date: 25 February 1907
• Docket Number: No. 79,79
• Citation: 51 L.Ed. 562,27 S.Ct. 358,204 U.S. 449
• Parties: TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Piff. in Err., v. CISCO OIL MILL
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

204 U.S. 449

27 S.Ct. 358

51 L.Ed. 562

TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Piff. in Err.,

v CISCO OIL MILL.

No. 79.

Submitted November 2, 1906.

Decided February 25, 1907.

Messrs. John F. Dillon, Winslow S. Pierce, David D. Duncan, and Thomas J. Freeman for plaintiff in error.

Mr. J. J. Butts for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

This writ of error is prosecuted to obtain the reversal of a judgment for $641.69, with interest, entered in favor of the Cisco Oil Mill by the court of civil appeals of Texas upon the reversal of a judgment of a district state court in favor of the Texas & Pacific Railway Company. The action was brought by the oil company to recover of the railway company the principal sum just stated, because of alleged overcharges by the railway company, paid by the oil company under protest at the time of the delivery of four cars of cotton seed, shipped in the month of September, 1901, from towns in Louisiana east of Alexandria, in that state, to Cisco, Texas. The appellate court, after excluding as surplusage averments in the petition 'evidently designed to bring the case within the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act.' was of opinion and decided the case upon the hypothesis that the petition stated a valid cause of action at common law for the recovery of the sums coercively collected upon the delivery of the merchandise, in excess of a reasonable rate, and adopted the finding of the trial court as to the amount of the unreasonable exaction.

In its opinion the court of civil appeals expressly declared that the trial court had rendered judgment in favor of the railway company because the rate demanded and collected of the oil company 'was in accord with appellee's rate sheets and freight schedule which had been filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission and promulgated as provided by the act of Congress.' Deciding, however, that the case before it presented 'substantially the same questions, upon substantially the same state of facts,' which had been passed on in the case of Abilene Cotton Oil Co. v. Texas & P. R. Co. [(Tex. Civ. App.) 85 S. W. 1052], the court, for the reason given by it in that case, reversed the trial court and rendered judgment in favor of the Cisco Oil Mill.

The considerations which made necessary our decision, just announced, reversing the judgment of the court of civil appeals in the Abilene Case, equally apply in the instant case and compel like action. And this result follows despite the contention that a right of action existed because it is assumed no schedule rate was in existence when the shipments were made. This was based on the claim that it was not affirmatively found below that the schedule of rates applicable to the shipments in question had been posted as required by § 6 of the act to regulate commerce, noted in margin.

The...