319 U.S. 551 | SCOTUS | 1943
Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This ease is here on direct appeal from a decree of a specially constituted District Court of three judges
The appellee operates 168 miles of railway extending east and west within the State of Mississippi. Cottonseed and its products, to which the tariff in question relates, are important items of traffic in the region, and there are cottonseed mills at a number of points on appellee's line. Appellee originates about 15 or 20 per cent of the cottonseed milled there; trucks originate about 50 per cent; and the balance comes to the mills on other lines with which the appellee connects at these points, including the Illinois Central Railroad Company, the Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad Company, and the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railway Company.
Since 1931, these railroads and appellee have maintained a system of cut-backs originally designed, and successively revised, for the purpose of meeting the competition of truck lines. Speaking generally, the system permitted one who shipped cottonseed into the mill point and paid the full local rate for that inbound haul to receive back part of the amount so paid if he later shipped the product outbound by the same carrier. If the outbound haul was not by the carrier that had made the inbound haul, he was not entitled to the cut-back.
In its report,
The Commission then of its own motion entered upon an investigation of the lawfulness of appellee’s I. C. C. Tariff No. 81, which had remained in effect as the result of the suspension of No. 83.
Disregard of the statutory requirements for the establishment of joint tariffs may have important substantive consequences. The Interstate Commerce Act contemplates that joint railroad rates shall be established only by concurrence of the participating carriers or by the Commission in proceedings under § 15.
Although it appears that by far the greatest part of the outbound traffic over the appellee’s line moves beyond on the lines of connecting carriers at jointly established rates, it appears that some traffic does reach its ultimate destination at points along appellee’s line. It was apparently with reference to this traffic that the Commission stated that “the form and manner in which respondent’s tariff is published clearly does not conform to the requirements of section 6 (l),”
Whether cut-backs even as applied to previous transportation over the carrier’s own lines are ever permissible under the Act, we do not decide; and, like the Commission,
Reversed.
Urgent Deficiencies Act of October 22, 1913, 38 Stat. 208, 220, 28 U. S. C. §§ 47, 47a; § 238 of the Judicial Code as amended, 28 U. S. C. § 345.
2481. C. C. 441; 46 F. Supp. 204.
§ 15 (7) Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U. S. C. § 15 (7).
2381. C. C. 309.
“The names of the several carriers which are parties to any joint tariff shall be specified therein, and each of the parties thereto, other than the one filing the same, shall file with the commission such evidence of concurrence therein or acceptance thereof as may be required or approved by the commission, and where such evidence of concurrence or acceptance is filed it shall not be necessary for the carriers filing the same to also file copies of the tariffs in which they are named as parties.” 49 U. S. C. § 6 (4).
2381. C. C. at 315.
“No carrier, unless otherwise provided by this chapter, shall engage or participate in the transportation of passengers or property, as defined in this chapter, unless the rates, fares, and charges upon which the
“It is made the duty of all common carriers subject to the provisions of this chapter to establish, observe, and enforce ... just and reasonable regulations and practices affecting classifications, rates, or tariffs, . . . and every unjust and unreasonable classification, regulation, and practice is prohibited and declared to be unlawful.” 49 U.S. C.§ 1 (6).
2381. C. C. at 317-318.
2481. C. C. at 446. For the texts of §§ 1 (6), 6 (4) and (7), see footnotes 8, 5 and 7, supra.
For the text, see footnote 5, supra.
For the texts, see footnotes 8 and 7, supra.
§ 15 (3), 49 U. S. C.§ 15 (3).
“In establishing any such through route the Commission shall not (except as prcmded in section 3 of this title, and except where one of the
See, e. g., Abandonment of Line By Mississippi Valley Co. and Illinois Central R. Co., 145 I. C. C. 289; Abandonment of Branch Line By Y. & M. V. R. Co., 1451. C. C. 393; Helm and Northwestern Railroad Co. Abandonment, 170 I. C. C. 33; Gulf & Ship Island R. Co. Abandonment, 193 I. C. C. 749; Y. & M. V. R. Co. Abandonment, 249 I. C. C. 561; Y. & M. V. R. Co. Abandonment, 249 I. C. C. 613.
238 I. C. C. at 314.
2381. C. C. at 313; 2481. C. C. at 445.
2481. C.C. at 445.
49 U. S. C. § 6 (1).
Concurrence Opinion
concurring:
Commissioner Splawn dissented from the report of the Commission in this case. 248 I. C. C. 441, 446-447. He noted that respondent’s tariff “in no wise affects the amount of the rates paid for the inbound service to the mill point,” its only effect being to “reduce the outbound rate and thus make applicable the same rate as applies when the outbound haul is performed entirely by the trunk lines.” In his view, the outbound traffic is “free” traffic, as that term was used in Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. United States, 279 U. S. 768. That is to say, “it is traffic which has previously moved in on local or joint rates to the milling point and has there come to rest.” Hence the fact that respondent is not a party to the inbound rates is “without legal significance.” Commissioner Splawn concluded that the decision of the Commission violated “all principles of justness and fairness as it precludes respondent from participating in the outbound movement or in the through movement of the traffic from common origins on an equality of rates with the trunk lines.” The fact that no other carrier is a party to respondent’s tariff containing the cut-back provision and that respondent absorbs the allowances out of its proportion of the joint outbound rate was unimportant in his view. As he stated, “The identical facts are true of the tariffs and practice of at least one of the intervening trunk lines” — tariffs which concededly constituted
But I am voting for a reversal of the judgment of the court below in the view that the case should be returned to the Commission for adequate findings.
Although there are two reports on this problem — one by the full Commission and one by a division of the Commission — they have an obscurity and vagueness which two full arguments before this Court have not dispelled. Commissioner Splawn complained without success of the lack of findings under § 1 (6), § 6 (1), and § 6 (4). But if we pass by those deficiencies and cut and sew the meager materials at hand into the pattern which we guess the Commission had in mind, there are still important questions left unanswered. (1) The tariffs containing the joint outbound rates specifically authorize “privileges, charges and rules” to be covered by separate tariffs even though the joint or through rate is affected, provided the carrier granting the privilege does so upon its own responsibility and at its own cost. We are not informed why that provision does not authorize appellee’s proposed tariff at least to the extent that it applies to outbound traffic to points on appellee’s line. (2) If concurrence of the other carriers to appellee’s tariff is necessary, we are not told why the foregoing provision of the joint tariff is not
Mr. Justice Cardozo speaking for the Court stated in that case, “We must know what a decision means before the duty becomes ours to say whether it is right or wrong.” 294 U. S. p. 511. That was said about another obscure and vague report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. We should say the same thing about the present report. The questions left unanswered by this report may be simple ones to experts. But we should have those answers before we put the imprimatur of this Court on the Commission’s order.