Chicago, B. & Q. Ry. Co. v. United States

157 F. 830, 85 C.C.A. 194, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 3944
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedNovember 8, 1907
DocketNo. 2,484
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 157 F. 830 (Chicago, B. & Q. Ry. Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chicago, B. & Q. Ry. Co. v. United States, 157 F. 830, 85 C.C.A. 194, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 3944 (8th Cir. 1907).

Opinion

HOOK, Circuit Judge.

The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Company was indicted, convicted, and fined for violations of the amendment to the interstate commerce law, commonly known as the “Elkins Act” (Act Feb. 19, 1903, c. 708, 33 Stat. 847 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1907, p. 880]), in giving to certain packing companies concessions from established rates of transportation between Kansas City, Kan., and New York City and Hoboken, N. J., on packing-house products destined for export. In Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 82 C. C. A. 135, 153 Fed. 1, we affirmed judgments against the packing companies for receiving the concessions which the Burlington Company is charged with giving. Most of the contentions of the Burlington Company in the case at bar may be disposed of by reference to the opinion in the Armour Case. We there held (1) that the act of Congress applied to transportation within the United States of property in foreign commerce, though being carried under a through bill of lading from the point of origin within the United States through the port of transshipment to the foreign destination. (3) Though property is destined for export to a nonadjacent foreign country the rate or rates of transportation from the point of origin within the United States to the port of transshipment, if separable from the through rate, are within the act of Congress, and must be published and filed with the commission, and that a concession in respect thereof is a violation of the law. That this is so although the rate specified in the bill of lading is one through rate to the foreign destination made up by the initial carrier by combining the rate or rates from the place of origin to the port of transshipment with the cost of ocean carriage. (3) That as so construed the act of Congress is not in contravention of paragraphs 5 and 6 of section 9 of article 1 of the national Constitution, providing that “no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state,” and that “no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another.” (4) That the giving or receiving of a concession in violation of the Elkins act whereby transportation is thereafter obtained is a continuing offense, and a prosecution therefor may be maintained in any jurisdiction through which the transportation is conducted. Therefore, though the shipments in question originated in Kansas, the prosecution was maintainable in the Western district of Missouri, through which the property was transported at the unlawful rate. (5) That it is nevertheless an offense though the concession was from a component part of a single through rate. (6) That a contract between a carrier and a shipper that a rate then lawful should be maintained for a fixed period must yield to a subsequent increase of the rate by the carrier and the publication and filing thereof with the' commission in accordance with the act of Congress, otherwise the equality [832]*832sought by the law would be frustrated, and advantage would rest with those who were secretly favored or were diligent to make private contracts with carriers. (7) That no device in the sense of a pretext or artifice, such as false billing, classification, weighing, or the like, is essential to the giving or receiving of a concession contrary to the Elkins act. The phrase “by any device whatever” found in section 1 of the act means “directly or indirectly, in any way whatever.” (8) That an intent to commit an offense of this character is shown by a conscious, intentional doing of that which the law prohibits.

There remain to be considered some questions which were not involved in the Armour Case. It is contended by the Burlington Company that the indictment did not charge a public offense, in that it failed to allege any joint tariff or any published schedule of joint tariffs from Kansas City to New York or elsewhere, and failed to allege what, if any, the rate was between those points. The first count of the indictment may be taken as fairly illustrating the point of this attack. It sets forth that the Burlington Company was a railroad corporation engaged in the transportation of property from Kansas City, Kan., to New York City, under contracts, agreements, and arrangements with connecting railroads, including the Toledo, St. Louis & Western, the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, the Lehigh Valley, and the Grand Trunk Western, and was therefore a corporation common carrier subject to the interstate commerce act and the acts amendatory thereof; that on August 17, 1905, the Armour Packing Company delivered 50 tierces of lard, weighing 21,567 pounds, to the Burlington Company at Kansas City, Kan., for transportation by it and its connecting railroads through and beyond the Western district of Missouri to New York City, for export, and that the same were so transported ; that there had theretofore been filed by the Burlington Company and its connecting railroads with the Interstate Commerce Commission as required by law “certain tariffs and rates and certain joint schedules, tariffs and rates 'showing the legal rates and charges established by the said common carrier and its said connecting railroads and in force at the time upon their said routes”; “that said tariffs and rates and joint tariffs and rates for that part of said routes from the Mississippi river, that is to say, from East St. Louis in the state of Illinois, to New York City,” were made, published, and filed by the said connecting railroads, and that the Burlington Company in respect of such shipments “was a party to and bound by the rates and schedules and joint tariffs and schedules published and filed by said connecting railroads”; that said rates and schedules and joint rates and schedules “showed that the legal rates and charges established for the transportation of said property over said connecting lines of railroad for that part of the route lying east of the Mississippi river to New: York City” was 35 cents per hundred pounds but that the Burlington Company unlawfully gave to the Packing Company a concession of 12 cents of said rate for that part of the route east of the Mississippi river upon every hundred pounds of the property so transported, whereby the transportation from Kansas City to New York City was at a rate of 12 cents per hundred pounds less “than the rate named in [833]*833the tariffs and schedules and joint tariffs and schedules published and filed” with the commission.

It is true that there is no averment in the indictment of a through joint rate from Kansas City to New York. Indeed, the inference from the language used is that there was no such rate, and that what was claimed by the government to be the lawful through rate was a combination of the rates that had been established over the component sections of the entire route. It is not essential to the commission of the offense of giving a concession from a through rate over connecting lines of railroad thát the rate be a joint one established by all of the carriers and published and filed with the commission. If an initial carrier accepts traffic for transportation and issues its bill of lading over a route made up of connecting roads for which no joint through rate has been published and filed with the commission, the lawful rate to be charged is the sum of the established local rates published and filed by the individual roads; or if, as was the case hare, there is a local rate over one road and a joint rate over the others for the remainder of the route, all published and filed with the commission, the lawful through rate to be charged'is the sum of the local and joint rates.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
157 F. 830, 85 C.C.A. 194, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 3944, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chicago-b-q-ry-co-v-united-states-ca8-1907.