Virginia-Carolina Peanut Co. v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co.

• Decision Date: 01 June 1914
• Docket Number: 57.
• Citation: 82 S.E. 1,166 N.C. 62
• Parties: VIRGINIA-CAROLINA PEANUT CO. v. ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

82 S.E. 1

166 N.C. 62

VIRGINIA-CAROLINA PEANUT CO. v. ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO.

No. 57.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

June 1, 1914

Appeal from Superior Court, Martin County; Lyon, Judge.

Action by the Virginia-Carolina Peanut Company against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

Where a carrier refused to deliver shipments to the consignees until the shipper paid a greater freight rate than that filed published, and in effect, the shipper could recover the excess paid as an illegal overcharge paid under duress.

This action was brought to recover the difference between the amount charged by defendant and that collected on shipments of peanuts during the period beginning with January 1, 1908 and ending with April 11, 1909, and heard on a case agreed. The shipments moved in interstate commerce from Williamston N. C., to Philadelphia, Pa., and New York City. Defendant's agent at Williamston, on January 1, 1908 quoted a class rate of 26 cents per 100 pounds, and afterwards refused to deliver certain of the goods to the consignees unless a commodity rate of 36 cents per 100 was paid. This was done and the goods released. The amount of the difference, estimated upon the basis of the number of pounds shipped by plaintiff, is $925.74. The following provisions are made in the Interstate Commerce Act:

"Section 6. Every common carrier subject to the provisions of this act shall file with the Commission created by this act and print and keep open to public inspection schedules showing all the rates, fares and charges for transportation between different points on its own route and between points on its own route and points on the route of any other carrier by railroad, by pipe line, or by water when a through route and joint rate have been established. * * * Such schedules shall be plainly printed in large type, and copies for the use of the public shall be kept posted in two public and conspicuous places in every depot, station, or office of such carrier where passengers or freight, respectively, are received for transportation, in such form that they shall be accessible to the public and can be conveniently inspected. The provisions of this section shall apply to all traffic, transportation and facilities defined in this act. * * * No change shall be made in the rates, fares and charges or joint rates, fares and charges which have been filed and published by any common carrier in compliance with the requirements of this section, except after thirty days' notice to the Commission and to the public published as aforesaid, which shall plainly state the changes proposed to be made in the schedule then in force and the time when the changed rates, fares and charges will go into effect; and the proposed changes shall be shown by printing new schedules, or shall be plainly indicated upon the schedules in force at the time and kept open to public inspection: Provided, that the Commission may, in its discretion and for good cause shown, allow changes upon less than the notice herein specified, or modify the requirement of this section in respect to publishing, posting and filing of tariffs, either in particular instances or by a general order applicable to special or peculiar circumstances or conditions."

The Interstate Commerce Commission modified section 6 as to time of notice, publication and posting of rates, as follows:

"Every carrier subject to the provisions of the act to regulate commerce (excepting those to which special and specific modifications have heretofore been granted) shall place in the hands and custody of its agent or other representatives at every station, warehouse, or office at which passengers or freight are received for transportation, and at which a station agent or a freight agent or a ticket agent is employed, all of the rate and fare schedules which contain rates and fares applying from that station or terminal, or other charges applicable at that station, including the schedules issued by that carrier or by its authorized agent and those in which it has concurred. Such agent or representative shall also be provided with all changes in, cancellations of, additions to, and reissues of such publications in ample time to thus give to the public, in every case, the thirty days' notice required by the act. * * * Each of such carriers shall also provide and cause to be posted and kept posted in two conspicuous places in every station waiting room, warehouse or office at which schedules are so placed in custody of agent or other representative, notices (of schedules or tariffs) printed in large type, according to form given in order."

The defendant had established a class rate of 26 cents on peanuts prior to February 1, 1908, and on the latter day, it filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission a new tariff, changing the former class rate to commodity rates of 36 cents on peanuts, but it did not file these schedules with its agents or in its offices at the different stations on its line of railway for the purpose of being kept open for the inspection and information of the public, nor did it post the same at said stations, and the agent at Williamston had no such schedule, nor had he been notified of the same when the shipments were made.

The court gave judgment on the case agreed in favor of defendant, and plaintiff appealed.

A. R. Dunning, of Williamston, for appellant.

F. S. Spruill, of Rocky Mount, and W. A. Townes, of Wilmington, for appellee.

WALKER, J. (after stating the facts as above).

This case involves the construction of section 6 of the Interstate Commerce Act. We have set out in the above statement so much of this act as relates to the matters in controversy. It is admitted in the case agreed that the rate of 26 cents per 100 pounds to Philadelphia, Pa., which was known as a class rate, was the lawful rate at the time the first shipment was made in January, 1908, and as we will show the tariff, from which this quotation of the rate was taken, remained in force throughout the period of the entire shipment of peanuts by interstate traffic moving from Williamston, N. C., and was in no way affected or changed, nor was it suspended by the supposed tariff of February 1, 1908, so as to authorize the defendant to charge a greater rate for the shipment of the peanuts than was allowable under the tariff, or schedule of rates, which had been filed and published, and was in force on and prior to January 1, 1908, and this grows out of the fact that there is nothing in the case agreed to show that the tariff or schedule of "February 1, 1908, effective March 2, 1908," was ever filed and published, as required by the act. On the contrary, it is admitted:

"That said tariff was designated as No. 555, I. C. C. 6114, and that at no time prior to said date (March 25, 1909) had said tariff been filed with the agent of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company at Williamston, N. C., nor had he any notice thereof, nor had the Virginia-Carolina Peanut Company or its officers had any notice thereof until advised by the agent of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company at Williamston, N. C., on April 11, 1909."

If the later tariff was in force, the defendant had not only the right, but it was its duty, to charge according to its rates and it would have been illegal to have charged less. It had this right, and this duty was imposed notwithstanding it had quoted a different and lower rate to the plaintiff and he had actually made all the shipments of his peanuts believing the lower rate to be the true and lawful rate. And this is so, because to charge a rate, even a lower rate, than the one fixed by its published schedule would be in direct violation of the provision of section 6 of the act prohibiting a carrier "to charge, demand, or collect or receive a greater or less or different compensation for transportation of passengers or property, or for any service in connection therewith between the points named in its tariffs, than the rates, fares and charges which are specified in the tariff filed and in effect at the time, nor shall any carrier refund or remit in any manner or by any device any portion of the rates, fares and charges so specified. nor extend to any shipper or person any privileges or facilities in the transportation of passengers or property, except such as are specified in such tariffs," and the carrier is forbidden to engage or participate in the transportation of passengers or property unless the rates, fares, and charges for the same have been filed and published in accordance with the provisions of the act. Hamlin on Interstate Commerce Acts, pp. 11, 12. It has been held under this section that a carrier must require payment of the lawful or published rate even though its agent had misrepresented the rate and it has agreed to take the goods for shipment at a lower rate; the published rate being the only lawful one. Railway Company v. Hefley, 158 U.S. 98, 15 S.Ct. 802, 39 L.Ed. 910; Railway Company v. Mugg, 202 U.S. 242, 26 S.Ct. 628, 50 L.Ed. 1011; Railway Company v. Abilene Cotton Oil Company, 204 U.S. 426, 27 S.Ct. 350, 51 L.Ed. 553, 9 Ann. Cas. 1075; Railway Company v. Elevator Company, 226 U.S. 441, 33 S.Ct. 176, 57 L.Ed. 290. In the last case cited it was held that the rate fixed in the schedule filed pursuant to the act to regulate commerce is controlling, and it is beyond the power of the carrier to depart from such rates in favor of any shipper, and that the erroneous quotation of rates made by the agent of the railroad did not justify recovery, since to do so would be in effect enabling the shipper, whose duty it was to ascertain the published rate, to secure a preference over other shippers contrary to the act to...