United States v. Louisiana Pacific Railway Company Atchison, Topeka Santa Fe Railway Company v. Louisiana Pacific Railway Company United States v. Woodworth Louisiana Central Railway Company Atchison, Topeka Santa Fe Railway Company v. Woodworth Louisiana Central Railway Company United States v. Mansfield Railway Transportation Company Atghison, Topeka Santa Fe Railway Company v. Mansfield Railway Transportation Company United States v. Victoria, Fisher Western Railroad Company Atchison, Topeka Santa Fe Railway Company v. Victoria, Fisher Western Railroad Company
| Decision Date | 25 May 1914 |
| Docket Number | 833,835,832,834,836,831,830,Nos. 829,s. 829 |
| Citation | 34 S.Ct. 741,234 U.S. 1,58 L.Ed. 1185 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES and Interstate Commerce Commission, Appts., v. LOUISIANA & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY et al. ATCHISON, TOPEKA, & SANTA FE RAILWAY COMPANY et al., Appts., v. LOUISIANA & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY et al. UNITED STATES and Interstate Commerce Commission, Appts., v. WOODWORTH & LOUISIANA CENTRAL RAILWAY COMPANY et al. ATCHISON, TOPEKA, & SANTA FE RAILWAY COMPANY et al., Appts., v. WOODWORTH & LOUISIANA CENTRAL RAILWAY COMPANY et al. UNITED STATES and Interstate Commerce Commission, Appts., v. MANSFIELD RAILWAY & TRANSPORTATION COMPANY et al. ATGHISON, TOPEKA, & SANTA FE RAILWAY COMPANY et al., Appts., v. MANSFIELD RAILWAY & TRANSPORTATION COMPANY et al. UNITED STATES and Interstate Commerce Commission, Appts., v. VICTORIA, FISHER, & WESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY et al. ATCHISON, TOPEKA, & SANTA FE RAILWAY COMPANY et al., Appts., v. VICTORIA, FISHER, & WESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Statement by Mr. Justice Day:
[Syllabus from pages 1-3 intentionally omitted] These are all appeals from decrees of the United States commerce court (209 Fed. 244), annulling orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission, refusing in whole or in part to compel certain common carriers which had filed schedules canceling former schedules covering through routes and joint rates with the Louisiana & Pacific Railway Company, the Woodworth & Louisiana Central Railway Company, the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company, and the Victoria, Fisher, & Western Railroad Company, appellees, hereinafter referred to as the tap lines, to establish or re-establish through routes and joint rates and to grant allowances and divisions to the tap lines.
The Commission, after an extensive investigation of the tap lines in the lumber regions, particularly in the states of Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, and Texas, on April 23 and May 14, 1912, filed its report and supplementary report (23 Inters. Com. Rep. 277, 549). The report deals at some length with the manner in which logs and lumber are moved in that territory, and the practices attending such traffic. The Commission found the identification of the road with the industry, the necessity of incorporation to secure divisions and allowances, the great amount in the aggregate paid by the trunk lines to the tap lines, and the resulting discrimination, the fact that allowances were dependent upon the bargain the tap lines might exact from the trunk lines for a proportion of their traffic, and not upon the amount of service rendered, and the fact that most of the lumber mills were near public carriers, and that the tap lines would not be kept in operation if the mills were removed. General principles for determining the character of carriers were set forth, and the conclusion stated that the real relation of a tap line was a question to be decided upon the facts in each case.
The Commission entered upon a particular examination of the various lines under investigation, among others, the appellees in these appeals. It found:
The Louisiana & Pacific Railway Company, controlled by the R. A. Long interests, owning a controlling interest in the Hudson River Lumber Company, the King-Ryder Lumber Company, Longville Lumber Company, and the Calcasieu Long Leaf Lumber Company, consists of the following tracks, all of which were originally constructed as private logging roads: (1) A track from De Ridder Junction, Louisiana (all of the lines involved in these cases are within that state), to Bundicks, a distance of 8 miles. The mill of the Hudson River Lumber Company, in whose interest this track is operated, is located at De Ridder, within a few hundred feet of the trunk lines; Bundicks is apparently a logging camp with a company store. (2) A track from Lilly Junction to Walla, about 7 1/2 miles, the latter being a point in the woods where the King-Ryder Lumber Company has a commissary, and where is located a small independent yellow-pine mill, owned by the Bundick Creek Lumber Company. The mill of the King-Ryder Company is at Bon Ami, a town of 2,000, located on the Lake Charles & Northern Railroad Company, a short distance from and connected by it with Lilly Junction. (3) A track of 2 miles at Longville, a town of 2,000 people, where the Longville Lumber Company has its mill and a store, and where also are several independent stores. (4) A track of 9 miles from Fayette to Camp Curtis, a place of 200 population, where the Calcasieu Long Leaf Lumber Company has a store, its mill being at Lake Charles. (5) A track of 1 mile from Bridge Junction to Lake Charles station. The towns De Ridder, Bon Ami, Lilly Junction, Longville, Fayette, and Lake Charles are connected by the Lake Charles & Northern Railroad, a Southern Pacific Railway Company line, originally built by the Long interests as a part of the Louisiana & Pacific, and sold to the Lake Charles & Northern with the reservation of trackage rights advantageous to the Louisiana & Pacific, By means of this arrangement the Louisiana & Pacific connects with the Kansas City Southern and the Sante Fe at De Ridder, with the Frisco at Fulton (a station south of Fayette), and with the Southern Pacific, Iron Mountain, & Kansas City Southern at Lake Charles. Its equipment consists of 22 locomotives, 6 cabooses, 41 freight cars, and 270 logging cars, and a private car used by its officers, who are connected with the lumber companies, in traveling around the country. The lumber companies have many miles of unincorporated logging tracks connecting with the Louisiana & Pacific at various points. There are a number of other stations on the line, among them Bannister, where the Brown Lumber Company owns a small, independent mill.
The operation is this: The lumber companies load the logs and switch them over the logging spurs to connection with the tap line which hauls them to the mill, an average distance of 30 miles, for which no charge is made. The tap line switches the carloads of lumber from the mill at Lake Charles, a distance of three quarters of a mile, to the Southern Pacific; at De Ridder, only a few hundred feet to the trunk lines; from the Lake Charles mill to the Frisco, a distance of 18 miles; from the Bon Ami mill to the Southern Pacific at Lake Charles, a distance of 40 miles; and from the Longville mill to the Southern Pacific at Lake Charles, a distance of 24 miles,—the average haul for the controlling companies being nearly 20 miles. By written agreement 50 per cent of the lumber must be routed over the Frisco and 40 per cent over the Southern Pacific, but this is not always done. 243,122 tons of lumber, as against 8,819 tons of merchandise, were shipped in 1910, 98 per cent of the whole ton- nage being supplied by the controlling interests. The passenger receipts for 1910 were $473.77. A logging train runs daily on each branch, and there is one 'mixed' train, loaded chiefly with logs and lumber, between Lake Charles and De Ridder. The allowances paid by the trunk lines range from 1 1/2 to 5 1/2c. per 100 pounds out of their earnings under the group-lumber rate. The operating revenue for the year ending June 30, 1910, was $220,985.94, with operating expenses of $145,433.69, and there was an accumulated surplus of $73,581.07 on that date.
The Commission found that no charge was made for hauling the logs to the mills by the tap line, and that for the short switching service allowances were made as above stated, and concluded that it regarded the whole arrangement as indefensible and unlawful, and saw no ground upon which any allowance might lawfully be made.
The Woodworth & Louisiana Central Railway Company and the Rapides Lumber Company, situated at Woodworth, are identical in interest. The mill is near the Iron Mountain, which has a spur track to the mill, and the tap line has a standard gauge track from the mill to La Moria, about 6 miles, where it connects with the Southern Pacific Railway, texas & Pacific Railway, and Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific Railway, and a narrow-gauge track in the other direction for 18 miles, whence spur tracks go into the timber. The equipment consists of 1 standard-gauge locomotive, 5 narrow-gauge locomotives, and 2 standard and 9 narrow-gauge cars. The steel in the logging spurs and 4 of the narrow-gauge locomotives used by the lumber company on the spurs are owned by the tap line and leased to the lumber company; while the right of way for the narrow-gauge track is leased from the lumber company.
The tap line hauls the logs from its terminus to the mill without charge, where they are dumped by the trainmen into the mill pond. The carloads of lumber are switched by the tap line from the planing mill to the place where they are taken by the Iron Mountain, about 25 feet. About 95 per cent of the lumber goes through La Moria, being switched there by the tap line; the allowances from the Iron Mountain out of through rates being from 1 1/2 to 5 1/2c. per 100 pounds, while from the trunk lines at La Moria from 2 to 5 1/2c. There are no joint rates except on lumber. For the year ending June 30, 1910, there were 40,707 tons of freight handled for the lumber company and 2,100 tons of outside traffic. It has no passenger business. Its operations for that year showed a deficit, but there was a surplus from previous years of nearly $10,000. It files annual reports with the Commission.
The Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company and the Frost-Johnson Lumber Company are identical in interest. The tap line extends from Mansfield to a logging camp in the woods, known as Hunter, a distance of about 16 miles, and the line which was originally incorporated by the citizens of Mansfield in 1881, consisting of 2 miles of track from the town to a connection with the Texas & Pacific at Mansfield Junction. Later the Mansfield Company acquired the 2 mile track and equipment, and the interests...
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