Joseph Rucker Lamar

“ When the Commission is called upon, on the complaint of an individual, to consider the reasonableness of an established rate, its power is invoked not merely to authorize a departure from such rate in favor of the complainant alone, but to exert the authority conferred upon it by the act, if the complaint is found to be just, to compel the establishment of a new schedule of rates, applicable to all. ”

“ To pay shippers for doing their own work would have been a mere gratuity, and if here the carrier was not bound to haul from the mine, it had no more right to pay these companies for bringing their coal over the spur track to the junction than it would have had to pay a merchant for hauling his goods in a wagon to the railroad depot. The plaintiff insists that such is the case here, and that, as the tariff named the rate from the station, it could not lawfully include the haul from the mine, and consequently paying the shippers for doing their own hauling was a mere rebate. ”

“ The Commission is not primarily, or in any proper sense, a judicial tribunal. It can render no judgment binding upon the parties, can hold no trial by jury, cannot enforce its awards by process against the person or against property; its awards are merely prima facie evidence, without any conclusive effect, and must be enforced through the aid of the courts of law. It is an administrative body, a branch of the executive department, charged with the duty of aiding in the enforcement of the duties imposed upon the carrier by the act ”

“ So far as the manufactured lumber is concerned, it may therefore be said that where a mill has a physical connection with a trunk line, and is not more than 3 miles distant, the transportation offered by the trunk line commences at the mill. If, therefore, a lumber company, having a mill within that distance of a trunk line, undertakes, by arrangement with the trunk line, to use its own power to set the empty car at the mill, and to deliver it when loaded to the trunk line, it is doing for itself what the trunk line, under its tariffs, offers to do under the rate. ”

“ In both classes of cases there is a call for the exercise of the rate-regulating discretion, and the same necessity for having the matter settled by a single tribunal. For if, at the suit of one shipper, a court could hold a past rate or allowance to have been unreasonable and award damages accordingly, it is manifest that such shipper would secure a belated but undue preference over others who had not sued and could not avail themselves of the verdict. ”

“ It would seem more probable that Congress considered precise uniformity with respect to administering justice for past offenses to be an unattainable dream. I repeat,-administration, management, regulation, concern themselves with the present and the future. The awarding of relief for past offenses is properly a judicial function. And, as I read the act, Congress conferred jurisdiction over such offenses upon the courts; giving at the same time an option to the shipper to resort, if he would, to the Commission in the first instance ”

“ It is the old question whether, during periods of car shortage, when the carrier is unable to furnish all the cars necessary to meet the demands for transportation, shippers having cars privately owned by themselves, or railroads having cars of their own, used to transport their fuel, shall, by reason of these 'private cars' or 'fuel cars,' have a greater share in the distribution of the gross facilities for transportation than would be the case if the carrier undertook to supply cars of its own for all shippers. ”

“ It becomes necessary, therefore, to make a statement of the facts material to that issue:-The plaintiff, the Mitchell Coal & Mine Coke Company, owned six coal mines in the Clearfield district, and between 1897 and May 1, 1901, shipped its products over the Pennsylvania Railroad in state and interstate commerce. During that time the provisions of the commerce act were constantly violated, and there were many instances in which the carrier gave secret rates to shippers from whom it collected the full tariff and subsequently refunded the difference between the legal and the illegal rate. ”

“ They are the general rules; but the method of enforcing them in the practical operations of the carrier is by the rate sheets prescribed by § 6 and the function committed to the Commission to revise them. Where the rate sheet has been filed, etc., it, of course, becomes binding as the particular expression of the general principle. Again, in § 4, there is the general prohibition known as the 'long and short haul clause;' but for a particular expression of it, as applicable to the management of a given railroad system, the Commission may act as the proviso to that section declares. ”

“ The courts have not been given jurisdiction to fix rates or practices in direct proceedings, nor can they do so collaterally during the progress of a lawsuit when the action is based on the claim that unreasonable allowances have been paid. If the decision of such questions was committed to different courts, with different juries, the results would not only vary in degree, but might often be opposite in character,-to the destruction of the uniformity in rate and practice which was the cardinal object of the statute. ”

“ To declare, as was declared in the Abilene Case, that a carrier shall not be held actionable as for extortion in the past where it has merely charged the rates that were fixed in the schedule established in accordance with the act is, to my mind, as far as possible from declaring that past practices of the carrier that are not sanctioned by any finding or schedule, or otherwise protected from attack by the provisions of the act, are exempt from court inquiry ”

“ In case any question arose as to the reasonableness of the practice, the limits within which the station rates should apply, or the reasonableness of the allowance paid those shippers who supplied motive power, the Commission alone could act. For the courts are no more authorized to determine the reasonableness of an allowance for a haul over a spur track, between mine and station, than they are to pass upon the reasonableness of a rate for a haul, over a trunk line, between station and station. ”

“ It is unfortunately true that, since courts and juries are human, the result in one case does not always seem to accord with the result in another. This is theoretically true of all suits at law; practically, the successful administration of justice in the courts belies the theory. ”

“ On the other hand, the defendant insisted that, though bound to haul the cars to and from the mines, it could not economically do the work on account of the physical conditions at the Altoona, Millwood, and Glen White mines, and that it therefore employed those companies to perform that transportation service, paying them therefor an allowance which is prima facie reasonable, and must be so treated by the courts until the Commission has determined that it was excessive or constituted an unjust discrimination. ”

“ Sec. 13 provides for complaints or charges to be made by any person, association, municipal organization, etc., respecting anything done or omitted to be done, by a common carrier, in contravention of the provisions of the act; that a statement of the charges 'shall be forwarded by the Commission to such common carrier, who shall be called upon to satisfy the complaint or to answer the same in writing within a reasonable time, to be specified by the commission. ”

“ Nothing in this act contained shall in any way abridge or alter the remedies now existing at common law or by statute, but the provisions of this act are in addition to such remedies.' This clause, however, cannot in reason be construed as continuing in shippers a common-law right, the continued existence of which would be absolutely inconsistent with the provisions of the act. In other words, the act cannot be held to destroy itself. ”

“ And this becomes particularly cogent when it is observed that the power of the courts to award damages to those claiming to have been injured, as provided in the section, contemplates only a decree in favor of the individual complainant, redressing the particular wrong asserted to have been done, and does not embrace the power to direct the carrier to abstain in the future from similar violations of the act; in other words, to command a correction of the established schedules, which power, as we have shown, is conferred by the act upon the Commission in express terms. ”

“ And when any such common carrier shall have established and published its rates, fares, and charges in compliance with the provisions of this section, it shall be unlawful for such common carrier to charge, demand, collect, or receive from any person or persons a greater or less compensation for the transportation of passengers or property, or for any services in connection therewith, than is specified in such published schedule of rates, fares, and charges as may at the time be in force. ”

“ Nor is there force in the suggestion that a like dilemma arises from the recognition of power in the Commission to award reparation in favor of an individual because of a finding by that body that a rate in an established schedule was unreasonable. ”

“ That case exempted from action the carrier who had consistently observed the published schedules; the present (Mitchell) case shields the carrier who systematically departs from the published schedules; and, by a parity of reasoning, the decision in the Morrisdale Case exempts from primary liability at law the carrier who systematically violates the rule of equality with respect to car distribution. ”

“ Courts and juries and referees, time out of mind, have been called upon to investigate the reasonableness of the past practices of common carriers. They did it long before commissions and other administrative boards were devised, and when legislation for the future rested wholly in Parliament and Congress and state legislatures. ”

“ Inasmuch as this rate included the haul, the railroad was bound to transport the coal from the mouth of the mines, and could use its own engines for that purpose, or it could employ the coal companies to render that service, paying them proper compensation therefor. ”

“ On November 20, 1905, the Mitchell Coal & Coke Company brought suit in the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Pennsylvania against the Pennsylvania Railroad for damages alleged to have been occasioned by the payment of rebates to the Altoona, Glen White, Millwood, Latrobe, and Bolivar Companies. ”

“ Administration has to do with the carrying of those laws into effect,-their practical application to current affairs by way of management and oversight, including investigation, regulation, and control, in accordance with, and in execution of, the principles prescribed by the lawmaker. ”

“ In this case the referee found that it was a rebate, while the trial judge, in passing on exceptions to the report, held that it was a question of fact about which the evidence was conflicting, and thereupon approved the referee's report. ”

“ The present case is the very opposite of these, and the like reasoning should, I think, lead to the opposite result. For in the Mitchell Company Case the carrier, instead of observing the published schedules, itself departed from them. And the alleged 'trackage and lateral allowances' had no sanction of filing or publishing, nor of any order made by the Interstate Commerce Commission. And in the Morrisdale Company Case, the car distribution scheme pursued by the defendant had not been sanctioned by the Commission. ”

“ The opinion discusses at length the effect of the 1906 amendment of § 15 upon the remedy by mandamus conferred by the previous act, with the result of holding that there was an implied repeal so far as the adjustment of the car-shortage regulations in the case under consideration was concerned. ”

“ That the act to regulate commerce was intended to afford an effective means for redressing the wrongs resulting from unjust discrimination and undue preference is undoubted. Indeed, it is not open to controversy that to provide for these subjects was among the principal purposes of the act. Interstate Commerce Commission v. ”