Thacker Coal & Coke Co. v. Norfolk & W. Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 03 May 1910 |
| Citation | 68 S.E. 107,67 W.Va. 448 |
| Parties | THACKER COAL & COKE CO. v. NORFOLK & W. RY. CO. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
A court of equity of this state has no jurisdiction to enjoin a railroad company engaged in interstate transportation from filing with the Interstate Commerce Commission a schedule of its rates for transportation of coal from a point in this state to a point in another state, on the ground that such rates are unreasonable, unfair, and discriminatory.
It is the exclusive power of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in the first instance, to pass on the fairness and reasonableness of rates contained in the schedule of rates fixed by an interstate carrier on articles transported in interstate commerce.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Mingo County.
Bill by the Thacker Coal & Coke Company against the Norfolk & Western Railway Company. Decree for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Vinson & Thompson, for appellant.
Holt & Duncan, Joseph I. Doran, and Theodore W. Reath, for appellee.
The Thacker Coal & Coke Company brought a suit in equity in the circuit court of Mingo county against the Norfolk & Western Railway Company to enjoin the railroad company from filing with the Interstate Commerce Commission a schedule of rate charges for transportation of coal from the mines of the coal company, in the state of West Virginia, to points on the lakes in the state of Ohio and other states, which schedule increased the rates over those existing; the railroad company alleging that lower rates were accorded to other railroad carriers carrying coal from Pennsylvania and Ohio in competition with West Virginia coal, and that the rates proposed by such schedule were discriminatory, unjust, and unreasonable, and would entail irreparable injury and probable ruin upon the Thacker Coal Company. Upon its bill a temporary injunction was granted, and, this injunction having been dissolved, the Thacker Coal Company appeals.
The case is one purely of interstate commerce. Its solution rests upon that act of Congress known as the "interstate commerce act." U.S. Comp. St. 1901, vol. 3, p. 3153. We must follow federal decision upon this act. We know that the great subject of interstate commerce has been committed to the power, the vast power, of Congress by that provision of the national Constitution declaring that "the Congress shall have power *** to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states." Under this grant of power was passed the interstate commerce act, touching controlling, and regulating, to large extent, and in material respects, commerce passing state lines. A leading feature of that act, one controlling this case, is that it establishes a commission of weighty jurisdiction over interstate commerce, a jurisdiction to supervise, regulate we may say dictate, interstate commerce, called in the act the "Interstate Commerce Commission," and it gives carriers engaged in such commerce right to fix rates in the first instance, and requires them to do so, and to print schedules of such rates, and file the schedules with the Interstate Commerce Commission, and requires the carrier to conform to the rates fixed in such schedule under severe penalties for over or discriminative charge. The act, in section 13, gives any one complaining of anything done or omitted by a carrier to his injury in contravention of the act, right to file a complaint with the commission stating the wrong, and provides for notice to the carrier and a full hearing of the complaint, and section 15 provides that if upon such hearing the commission shall be of opinion that the rates demanded or collected, or any act, regulation, or practice by the carrier touching such rates, are unjust unreasonable, or unjustly discriminatory, or unduly preferential or prejudicial, or otherwise in violation of the act, the commission shall determine what will be the just or reasonable rates to be thereafter observed, and what regulation or practice in respect to transportation is just, fair, and reasonable, to be thereafter followed, and to make an order that the carrier shall cease and desist from such violation. U.S. Comp. St. Supp. 1907, § 15, amended page 900, Supp. 1909, p. 1158. As stated, section 13 of the original interstate commerce act gives a party injured right to complain to the commission, and section 14 gives power to investigate and make order in the premises, and section 16 as amended in 1887 gives power to the commission to render judgment that the carrier pay the party injured damages, and in case of nonpayment the party may file a bill in the United States Circuit Court to enforce the order or judgment of the commission. U S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3165, Supp. 1907, p. 902. Section 12 gives the commission latitudinous authority to inquire into the business of carriers, and keep itself informed of their conduct, and demand information of the carriers, and commands it to enforce all the provisions of the act, and it is given authority itself to institute legal proceedings and call upon district attorneys to prosecute proceedings, under the direction of the Attorney General, for the enforcement of the act and for punishment for its violation.
In this statement of some of the provisions of this voluminous act, we see that Congress has assumed jurisdiction over interstate commerce; that it has made regulations as to it, particularly as to the matter in hand, rates of transportation; that it has created a tribunal for testing the character and fairness of such rates, with wide powers to judge them, and with power to modify them so as to conform to right and reasonableness. We see that there is nothing more distinctly committed to the jurisdiction of this tribunal than the matter of rates--the schedule of rates. This schedule must go at once to this commission, the only authority to deal with it, at least in the first instance, if the act is obeyed; a tribunal created by Congress under its exclusive power over interstate commerce, and given a subject-matter for its action. Yet a state court is asked to grant a perpetual injunction to debar a great interstate railroad from fixing rates and filing them with the commission. A state court is asked to say that this schedule shall never reach that commission. It does seem to me that the very statement of the proposition is its own refutation. But we are not without authority to support this position. I consider that a decision of the United States Supreme Court, in principle, does so. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Abilene Co., 204 U.S. 426, 27 S.Ct. 350, 51 L.Ed. 553. The Abilene Company sued the railroad company for charges claimed to be unreasonable and unjust rates, though they did not exceed the rates specified in a schedule filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission. It was held that such schedule was final until changed by the commission. This was so because it rested with the commission to say, and the schedule was the rule until its action deprived the schedule of force. The court held that: "The interstate commerce act was intended to afford an effective and comprehensive means of redressing wrongs resulting from unjust discriminations and undue preference, and to that end placed upon carriers the duty of publishing schedules of reasonable and uniform rates; and, consistently with the provisions of that law, a shipper cannot maintain an action at common law in a state court for excessive and unreasonable freight rates exacted on interstate shipments where the rates charged were those which had been duly fixed by the carrier according to the act and had not been found to be unreasonable by the Interstate Commerce Commission." This court followed the Abilene Case in Robinson v. B. & O. R. Co., 64 W.Va. 406, 63 S.E. 323. Its principle decides this case.
As will be suggested to the mind at once, and as pointed out in those cases, if such action could be maintained, then a jury and state court would hold one rate to be proper, and the commission another. Which shall prevail? If the state court's rate, then of what force the act of Congress and the judgment of the commission under it? The federal power in a matter which nobody will deny to be within its constitutional jurisdiction, would be nullified. One state one rate, another another, the federal tribunal another, and confusion worse confounded! Just the same may be said in our case. If we stop that schedule on its way, and thus prevent any action on it by the commission, do we not nullify the act of Congress and render the jurisdiction of the commission abortive? In Central Stock Yard Co. v. L. & N. R. Co. (C. C.) 112 F. 823, it is held that a complaining shipper must go to the commission for relief, as the remedy given by the act through it is exclusive. So in American Union Coal Co. v. Pa. R. Co. (C. C.) 159 F. 278, and Great Northern Co. v. Kalispell, 165 F. 25, 91 C.C.A. 63. Counsel refer to Kalispell L. Co. v. Great Northern (C. C.) 157 F. 845. That was not a suit to enjoin the filing of a schedule, but against enforcement of one filed pending a decision by the commission. The cases Kiser v. Central R. Co. (C. C.) 158 F. 193, and Macon v. Atlantic R. R. (C. C.) 163 F. 738, cannot be regarded, as they were Circuit Court decisions, and contrary to the decision in the same circuit in the Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlantic Coast Line v. Macon Co., 166 F. 206, 92 C.C.A. 114, above. In Jewett v....
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