Edward Douglass White

“ Shortly before the argument in this court of the Minnesota case just referred to, the firm of Cahill & Redman petitioned the Board of Railroad Commissioners of South Dakota for an order requiring the Great Northern Railway Company to install and maintain a cattle scale adjacent to its cattle yards at Albee station. It was alleged in the petition that no means otherwise of weighing cattle existed at Albee, that the public necessities of the cattle trade required the scale, and that the number of cattle shipped from the place justified the outlay by the railway. ”

“ After referring to the relation in certain aspects which cattle scales, when installed, bore to carload and less than carload shipments, and that a law of the state provided for the inspection of cattle scales when installed by railways at their cattle yards, it was pointed out that, in accordance with many adjudged cases establishing that it was a part of the duty of a carrier to install stockyards in which to hold cattle intended for shipment and to receive inbound cattle when unloaded, it had by further legislation been made the duty of carriers to establish stockyards at their stations. ”

“ Holding that as the duty of the railway was confined to furnishing appliances for its business of transportation and that cattle scales were not of such a character it followed that the railway could not be compelled to supply them as a means for building up the business of trading in cattle however much the public might be benefited thereby, the defense of the railway was maintained and the order of the Commission was held to be wanting in due process and void. ”