Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission

188 F. 229, 1911 U.S. Commerce Ct. LEXIS 14
CourtCommerce Court
DecidedJuly 20, 1911
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 188 F. 229 (Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commerce Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 188 F. 229, 1911 U.S. Commerce Ct. LEXIS 14 (Colo. 1911).

Opinion

GARLAND, Judge.

This case has been submitted upon a motion for a temporary injunction made by the petitioners, and upon a motion to dismiss made by the United States and the Interstate Commerce Commission. The motion to dismiss is made by virtue of the provisions of section 1 of the act to create a Commerce Court (Act June 18, 1910, c. 309, 36 Stat. 539), which allows such a motion to be made where it is claimed the petition does not set forth a cause of action. As determinative of these motions, our view is necessarily limited to the facts which are well pleaded in the petition. These facts, as they appear in the petition, are substantially as follows:

“The petitioners are railroad corporations, organized under the laws of the states of Kansas, Kentucky, and Utah, respectively. At all times each of said petitioners, and their respective predecessors in interest have maintained and do now maintain public freight depot buildings theretofore, respectively, established by them in said city of Los Angeles upon or adjacent to their respective tracks connecting with their respective main tracks in said city, where freight in less than car 1< d lots is and has been received for transportation for shippers in said city, destined to various points upon their respective lines of railroad or points upon connecting lines of railroad in the United States, and where such freight transported from various points to Los Angeles is delivered to the owners or consignees thereof.

Each of said petitioners and their respective predecessors in interest have also located and established and have maintained and do now maintain what are known as “team tracks” and freight sheds connected with their respective main tracks in said city of Los Angeles where cars are set for the accommodation of the public in general for the loading therein of car load freight for transportation to various points upon their respective lines of railroad in the United States, and where, also, is set and placed for the unloading thereof by consignees or owners in said city, who have not been favored with the private or special side-track facilities hereinafter mentioned, car load freight consigned and transported from various points on their respective lines of railroad or points on other lines of railroad in the United States or elsewhere to such owners or consignees in said city of Los Angeles; and said team tracks and freight sheds are so connected with the respective main line tracks of the petitioners in said city that cars loaded with car load freight may be readily transferred from said main line tracks to said team tracks and sheds, and where empty cars intended to be loaded with car load freight for transportation may be set and readily transferred when loaded from said places to the tracks upon which trains are made up; and the said team tracks and freight sheds constitute and have constituted the places where the respective petitioners receive and have heretofore received and have delivered and do now make deliveries of car load freight from and to the public in general in the said city of Los Angeles; and the same are and have been [232]*232in all respects sufficient and adequate for and fully accommodate those desiring such service.

Said main tracks, team tracks, sheds, and' buildings above shown constitute the places established as depots or stations by each of the petitioners in said city of Ros Angeles for the receipt, handling, and delivery of car load and less.than car load freight intrastate and interstate. Said facilities so established and maintained for the receipt, handling, and delivery of less than car load freight are sufficient for the handling of double the amount of such freight that has been tendered, is tendered, or at any day can be tendered. The freight sheds and team tracks, established and maintained for the receipt, handling, and delivery of car load freight, are sufficient to handle all the car load freight coming into or shipped from said city, either for delivery on said team tracks or for delivery on any of the industrial tracks. Said sheds and team tracks so maintained and established are sufficient to handle more than double the number of car loads of freight coming into or going out of Los Angeles, whether originating on or destined to said team tracks, or originating at or destined to the industrial tracks hereinafter referred to; and on said team tracks and at said sheds without inconvenience to them more than double the amount of all car load freight can be received, handled, and delivered. In addition to this, each of petitioners has in connection with'its said depots or stations a considerable amount of vacant land upon which it can and will as the requirements of the public may demand 'place other sheds and team tracks; so that there is no necessity in the proper conduct of petitioners’ business or in the rendering of proper service to shippers in said city to have or maintain the industrial tracks hereinafter referred to. But for the accommodation of certain shippers and for their benefit in loading and unloading, shipping and receiving freight, and to save them the expense of cartage which they otherwise would have to pay, and which is paid by the public not favored with industrial tracks, industrial tracks have been built as hereinafter more fully set forth.

Each of the petitioners, as well as their respective predecessors in interest, have heretofore severally or individually entered into contracts or agreements with certain individual shippers in Los Angeles or with parties who had constructed or were contemplating the construction and operation of plants or industries in said city, for the construction of spur tracks from the respective plant or industry in said city to and connecting with the yard tracks of the respective petitioners in said city where trains of cars are made up or distributed, a part of the cost of such spur track being generally borne by the railway company and a part of such shipper. But such tracks were constructed especially to accommodate the plant or industry in question and to relieve the owner or operator thereof from the necessity of receiving at or delivering to the team tracks of the respective petitioners car load freight consigned to or shipped by the owner or operator of .said plant, and therefrom and thereby the owner or operator of such plant or industry located upon such spur or side track was re[233]*233lieved from the necessity of transferring car load freight to and from said team tracks and from or to such plant or industry by dray or wagon at a higher cost and greater risk; and that the shipper at such industry or plant by reason of such side-track facilities is given or accorded a decided advantage over other shippers in Los Angeles who were not favored with such spur tracks.

Tn such contracts it was generally stated that at the request of the shipper or owner of the proposed plant the railway company would construct and maintain for a limited number of years, usually less than live, a spur track to connect such plant or industry with the railroad of the railway company. But in such contracts it was generally provided that while the railway company might make use of the proposed track for its incidental purposes such use should not interfere with the movement or use thereon of cars switched to or from such plant or industry, but that the traffic to and from such plant or industry should be given a preferential right in the use of such tracks.

In the contracts made by the Southern Pacific Company covering the construction and maintenance of such industrial or spur tracks it was generally provided, among other things, as follows:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
188 F. 229, 1911 U.S. Commerce Ct. LEXIS 14, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/atchison-t-s-f-ry-co-v-interstate-commerce-commission-com-1911.