United States of America v. Adams Express Company
| Decision Date | 09 June 1913 |
| Docket Number | No. 652,652 |
| Citation | 33 S.Ct. 878,57 L.Ed. 1237,229 U.S. 381 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plff. in Err., v. ADAMS EXPRESS COMPANY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Assistant Attorney General Denison and Mr. Loring C. Christie for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 381-384 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Joseph S. Graydon and Lawrence Maxwell for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 384-387 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:
This is an indictment, under the act to regulate commerce, of the Adams Express Company, by that name, alleging it to be 'a joint stock association, organized and existing under and by virtue of the common law of the state of New York.' A summons to the Adams Express Company was issued and returned served on Charles F. Barrett, general agent for said company. Thereupon Barrett moved to quash the service and return 'on the ground that the same are not authorized by law.' The entry with regard to the action upon this motion is that the court, 'treating said motion as a demurrer to the indictment, finds that the indictment cannot be maintained against the Adams Express Company for the reason that it appears on the face of said indictment that the said Adams Express Company is not a corporation, but is a joint stock association . . . and for this reason the motion to quash service, treated as a demurrer to the indictment, is sustained and the defendant discharged, and the cause dismissed; to all of which the United States of America, by its counsel, excepts.'
It is objected that this court has no jurisdiction of the present writ of error under the act of March 2, 1907, chap. 2564, 34 Stat. at L. 1246, and that the court below had no authority to treat the motion of Barrett as equivalent to a demurrer. Without following the defendant into the niceties by which it seeks to escape the jurisdiction of this court after having eluded that of the court below, it is enough to say that in our opinion, if we are to go behind the entry, the decision entered was one setting aside the indictment, and was based upon the construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded, within the meaning of the act of March 2, 1907.
We turn to the merits. The indictment alleges that the Adams Express Company had filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission its schedules of rates and charges, specifies what those charges were in certain cases, and sets forth in different counts instances in which the company demanded and received sums in excess of its scheduled rates for the parcels carried; in short, disobeyed the act of February 4, 1887, chap. 104, § 6, 24 Stat. at L. 379, 380. U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, pp. 1284, 1289. By § 10 () any common carrier subject to the provisions of the act, wilfully doing this, is guilty of a misdemeanor and liable to a fine.
The objection to applying § 10 to the defendant has been indicated. It is confirmed in argument by the citation of many cases in which such companies are treated as simple partnerships, including those in which this court has declined to extend the legal fiction applied in determining jurisdiction over corporations so as to cover them. Chapman v. Barney, 129 U. S. 677, 32 L. ed. 800, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 426; Great Southern Fire Proof Hotel Co. v. Jones, 177 U. S. 449, 454, 456, 44 L. ed. 842, 844, 845, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 690; Thomas v. Ohio State University, 195 U. S. 207, 49 L. ed. 160, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 24. But the argument is met by the plain words of the statute as it now stands. For by § 1 of the original act of 1887, as amended by the act of June 29, 1906, chap. 3591, 34 Stat. at L. 584, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, p. 1288, 'the term 'common carrier,' as used in this act, shall include express companies and sleeping car companies.' And thus the liability of common carriers, created by § 10, stands as if it read that express companies violating § 6 should be guilty of a misdemeanor and liable to fine.
It has been notorious for many years that some of the great express companies are organized as joint stock associations, and the reason for the amendment hardly could be seen unless it was intended to bring those associations under the act. As suggested in the argument for the government, no one, certainly not the defendant, seems to have doubted that the statute now imposes upon them the duty to file schedules of rates. American Exp. Co. v. United States, 212 U. S. 522, 531, 53 L. ed. 635, 639, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 315. (The American Express Company is a joint...
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