Texas Pacific Railway Company v. American Tie Timber Company

Decision Date08 June 1914
Docket NumberNo. 180,180
Citation58 L.Ed. 1255,234 U.S. 138,34 S.Ct. 885
PartiesTEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. AMERICAN TIE & TIMBER COMPANY, Ltd
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Messrs. Hiram Glass and W. L. Hall for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Rollin W. Rodgers and R. P. Dorough for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 139 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

Basing its cause of action on the act to regulate commerce, the American Tie & Timber Company, defendant in error, hereafter called the tie company, commenced suits in the circuit court of the United States for the northern district of Texas against the Texas & Pacific Railway Company, plaintiff in error, and the Kansas City Southern Railway Company, to recover damages alleged to have resulted from the refusal of the railway companies to furnish, in September, October, and November, 1907, cars for the loading of oak railway cross-ties at various points on the line of the railways in Arkansas and Louisiana for shipment to Linwood, Kansas, beyond the lines of the companies. The cases were consolidated for trial, subject to a plea to the jurisdiction filed by the Kansas City Southern Railway Company, which plea was afterward sustained and the suit as to that company dismissed. There was a trial, however, as to the Texas & Pacific Railway Company, resulting in a verdict and judgment thereon for $17,112.33, and the writ of error now before us is prosecuted by the railway company to a judgment of the court below affirming the trial court. 111 C. C. A. 673, 190 Fed. 1022.

At the close of the evidence a motion was made to dismiss 'because, under the facts and circumstances now disclosed by the record, and compatibly with the act of Congress of the United States to regulate interstate commerce, this court has no power to consider and decide the subject-matters which are complained of, or to award the relief prayed for by plaintiff.' The denial of this motion is assigned as error, and we come at once to consider it, and state only so much of the pleadings and evidence as is necessary to adequately present the issue to be decided.

The amended petition, after averring that the tie company was a Louisiana corporation and that the railway company was a corporation organized under the laws of the United States, alleged in substance that in 1901 the railway company issued and filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission 'its joint through lumber tariff, T. & P. No. 8500-H, applying on lumber, all kinds (except walnut and cherry), laths and shingles and articles taking same rates from points on the Texas & Pacific Railway Company to points in Kansas,' by which a joint through rate of 24 cents per 100 pounds was put into effect from points on the railway company's line in Arkansas and Louisiana to Linwood, Kansas, 'on, amongst other things, oak lumber,' which rate, it was averred, had been continuously in effect from the date of the filing of the said tariff up to the happening of the events complained of.

It was averred that on July 23, 1907, the tie company entered into a contract with the Union Pacific Railway Company to deliver to said company f. o. b. cars Linwood, Kansas, 150,000 oak railway cross-ties of specified dimensions at the rate of 15,000 per month, beginning on or before October 1, 1907, at the price of 86 cents per tie, which contract was by its terms based on the rate of 24 cents per hundred-weight fixed in the tariff filed as above stated in 1901. That, for the purpose of performing said contract, the tie company accumulated at stations on the railway company's line in Arkansas and Louisiana 44,541 oak cross-ties for shipment to Linwood, Kansas, and on October 10, 1907, requested the railway to furnish cars for the loading of the cross-ties at such points. It was alleged that after furnishing three cars, which were loaded by the railway company and shipped at the rate of 24 cents per 100 pounds, the railway company refused to provide further cars, or to receive the cross-ties for shipment, upon the ground, as stated by it, that it had no through rate applicable to oak railway cross-ties from the several points on its line to Linwood, Kansas. The petition charged, however, that the joint through lumber tariff above referred to and the rate of 24 cents thereby established included oak ties, and that the railway's refusal to provide cars and to carry the ties at its published rate was an unjust and unreasonable discrimination against the tie company, against the several places on the railway company's line where the ties had been accumulated, and against the ties as an article of commerce, which discrimination, it was averred, was practised by the railway company with the object of preventing the movement of the cross-ties to points beyond its line, and of thus compelling the tie company to sell the ties which it had accumulated to the railway company. It was alleged that the refusal to transport the ties had resulted in unreasonable prejudice and disadvantage to the tie company and to the traffic in ties, and in benefit to the railway company as a purchaser and consumer of cross-ties, all of which constituted a violation of the act to regulate commerce. It was averred that, in consequence of the refusal of the railway to furnish the cars, and the resulting inability of the tie company to deliver the ties to the Union Pacific Railway under the contract, that company had canceled the contract to buy the ties. And the amount sought to be recovered was alleged to be the loss resulting to the tie company consequent on such cancelation, together with punitive damages based on the 'wilful, wanton, and malicious' conduct on the part of the railway company, and a reasonable attorney's fee.

The railway company, besides denying generally the allegations of the amended petition, alleged that its joint through lumber tariff did not include a rate on oak railway cross-ties, but that cross-ties were a separate and distinct and well-recognized freight commodity, and that at the time mentioned in the petition it had not filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission any tariff under which it could lawfully accept for interstate shipment, at a through rate, the cross-ties offered by the tie company. The answer further denied that its failure to have in effect such a rate was a discrimination against cross-ties or the tie company or any locality, and alleged that oak cross-ties had never before been offered to it in Arkansas and Louisiana for shipment to interstate points on its lines or connections so as to render it advisable to establish such a rate. It was averred that when the railway company first learned, in September, 1907, of the purpose of...

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