Horace Harmon Lurton

“ The rule is adapted to secure the rights of the shipper by securing unity of transportation with unity of responsibility. The regulation is one which also facilitates the remedy of one who sustains a loss, by localizing the responsible carrier. Neither does the regulation impose an unreasonable burden upon the receiving carrier. The methods in vogue, as the court may judicially know, embrace not only the voluntary arrangement of through routes and rates, but the collection of the single charge made by the carrier at one or the other end of the route. ”

“ If it is to be assumed that the ultimate power exerted by Congress is that of compelling co-operation by connecting lines of independent carriers for purposes of interstate transportation, the power is still not beyond the regulating power of Congress, since, without merging identity of separate lines or operation, it stops with the requirement of oneness of charge, continuity of transportation, and primary liability of the receiving carrier to the shipper, with the right of reimbursement from the guilty agency in the route. ”

“ Having the express power to make rules for the conduct of commerce among the states, the range of congressional discretion as to the regulation best adapted to remedy a practice found inefficient or hurtful is a wide one. If the regulating act be one directly applicable to such commerce, not obnoxious to any other provision of the Constitution, and reasonably adapted to the purpose by reason of legitimate relation between such commerce and the rule provided, the question of power is foreclosed. ”

“ The requirement that carriers who undertook to engage in interstate transportation, and as a part of that business held themselves out as receiving packages destined to places beyond their own terminal, should be required, as a condition of continuing in that traffic, to obligate themselves to carry to the point of destination, using the lines of connecting carriers as their own agencies, was not beyond the scope of the power of regulation. ”

“ It is therefore obvious that at the common law an initial carrier under such a state of facts would not be liable for a loss through the fault of a connecting carrier to whom it had, in due course, safely delivered the goods for further transportation. ”

“ Through this well known and necessary practice of connecting cariers there has come about, without unity of ownership or physical operation, a singleness of charge and a continuity of transportation greatly to the advantage of the carrier, and beneficial to the great and growing commerce of the country. ”

“ The receiving carrier makes the rate and the route, and as the agent of every such connecting carrier executes a contract which is to bind each of them, 'severally, but not jointly,' one of the terms of the agreement being that each carrier shall be liable only for loss or damage occurring on its own line. ”

“ If the power existed and the regulation is adapted to the purpose in view, the public advantage justifies the discretion exercised, and upholds the legislation as within the limit of the grant conferred upon Congress. ”

“ The result was that he had to settle his damages at what he could get. What have we done? We have made the initial carrier, the carrier that takes and receives the shipment, responsible for the loss of the article in the way of damages. ”

“ And in Interstate Commerce Commission v. Illinois C. R. Co. 215 U.S. 452, 54 L. ed. 280, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 155, it was held that the equipment of an interstate railway, including cars used for the transportation of its own fuel, was subject to the regulation of Congress. In Interstate Commerce Commission v. Chicago & A. R. Co. 215 U.S. 479, 54 L. ed. 291, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 163, it was held to extend to the distribution of coal cars to the shipper, so as to prevent discrimination. In the Employers' Liability Cases (Howard v. Illinois C. R. Co.) ”

“ But that section applies to cases where the cause of action is the doing of something made unlawful by some provision of the act, or the omission to do something required by the act, and there is a recovery 'of damages sustained in consequence of any such violation of this act,' etc. ”