Tozer v. United States, 73.
| Citation | 52 F. 917 |
| Decision Date | 15 November 1892 |
| Docket Number | 73. |
| Parties | TOZER v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Thomas J. Portis, (Aldace F. Walker, of counsel,) for plaintiff in error.
George D. Reynolds, U.S. Atty., for the United States.
Charles Claflin Allen, special counsel, for the United States.
Before BREWER, Circuit Justice, and CALDWELL, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff in error was indicted in the district court for an alleged violation of the interstate commerce act. There were five counts in the indictment. The court sustained a demurrer to the fourth, and the defendant was found not guilty under the first and fifth, but guilty under the second and third counts. The judgment of conviction rendered thereon was brought to this court for review by writ of error.
The facts in the case are these: Tozer was agent of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company at Hannibal, Mo. That company operated a line of road extending from Hannibal to Hepler Kan. At Hannibal it connected with the road of the Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. The two companies, by agreement, established a joint tariff. By that joint tariff sugar was shipped from Chicago to Hepler at 51 cents a hundred pounds. The local tariff of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company from Hannibal to Hepler was 46 cents per hundred. The joint tariff was divided between the two companies by giving to the Missouri Pacific Company 34 and to the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Company 17 cents. The Hayward Grocer Company, a firm doing business at Hannibal shipped sugars from that place to Hepler, upon which shipment the regular local rate of 46 cents was charged and collected. They also ordered a Chicago firm to ship sugar from Chicago to the same point. This shipment was made over the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and upon it the joint rate, 51 cents, was charged and paid. It was argued in the trial court that the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company made a contract to carry the sugars from Chicago to Hepler, and that, after carrying them over its own line from Chicago to Hannibal, it employed the Missouri Pacific Company to carry for it the balance of the way, and paid it 34 cents; or, to state it in another way, the Missouri Pacific Company charged the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Company only 34 cents for carrying the sugars from Hannibal to Hepler, while it charged the Hayward Grocer Company, and others living in Hannibal, 46 cents for doing a like work; and it was held that this constituted a giving to one person an undue and unreasonable advantage, and subjected one to unjust and unreasonable disadvantage, within the denunciation of section 3 of the interstate commerce act. In other words, a comparison was drawn between the local rate of the one company and the share which it received by agreement of the joint through rate of the two companies, and, the two being unequal, the agent was found guilty of violating the act.
The decision of the court of appeals of this circuit, just announced in the case of Railroad Co. v. Osborne, 52 F. 912, precludes the necessity of any extended discussion. It was there held that each company established its own tariff, and that the reasonableness of the tariff of one is not determined by that of any other. It was also held that two connecting companies, forming by agreement a joint through tariff, create thereby, as it were, a line new and independent of that of either of the connecting companies and hence that such joint tariff, or the share which either takes of such tariff, is not the basis by which the reasonableness of its local tariff is to be determined. It is true that in that case the question arose under section 4, with reference to long and short hauls, while in this it arises under ...
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