Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Lawton Refining Co.

253 F. 705, 165 C.C.A. 299, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1592
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedOctober 28, 1918
DocketNo. 5080
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 253 F. 705 (Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Lawton Refining Co.) 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, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Lawton Refining Co., 253 F. 705, 165 C.C.A. 299, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1592 (8th Cir. 1918).

Opinion

HUNGER, District Judge.

This is an appeal from an order granting a temporary injunction. The plaintiff below was a corporation doing business at Lawton, Old., as a refiner of crude petroleum oils. The defendant was a railway company doing business in Oklahoma, and having connection with plaintiff’s refinery by means of a switch track. The parties will be referred to as the refining company and the railway company. The order of the court enjoined the railway company from failing to furnish to the refining company five designated tank cars for the transportation in Oklahoma of its products of gasoline, kerosene, and fuel oil. The facts are undisputed.

The refining company has been engaged in business since 1916. It [706]*706receives crude oil from stations in Oklahoma, and ships its refined products extensively to Oklahoma consumers. It has 25 tank cars of its own. The railway company owns no .tank cars, but has leased some from private owners; but it has not supplied tank cars to patrons, except that the five cars in controversy had. been furnished to the refining company for three months before this suit was begun. This was in pursuance of some arrangement between the companies; but counsel for the refining company denied that the injunction was asked in enforcement of any agreement.

The railway company is a member of the American Railway Association, and by its rules, as well as by common usage, cars are interchanged between railroads in tl^e United States, and cars are distributed ratably to patrons needing them. The railway company would need a large number of tank cars in order to supply the demand of its patrons, if it undertook to furnish such cars, as very few railway companies furnish tank cars to shippers, and, under the usage of interchange of cars, many of the cars would be absent for long periods. The railway company publishes a tariff for the transportation of oil in tank cars. The five cars in controversy had been leased by the railway company from private owners, and for several years had been used by the railway company in carrying its fuel and water supply, and in transporting creosote oil for treatment of its ties and structural timbers.

At the time of this suit a prolonged drought in a portion of Oklahoma adjacent to the railway company’s lines had caused a failure of its water supply at many stations, and it had become necessary to haul water over the railroad for use by its engines, its roundhouses, and other instrumentalities. It had no other tank cars available, except these cars, and no other means of securing water, and it intended to prepare them for that use, and had begun the alteration of one of the cars to fit it for such purpose, when the injunction was granted.

The questions involved in this appeal relate to the jurisdiction of the court over the subject-matter, and the sufficiency of the evidence to support the order.

It is to be observed that the injunction is limited to use of the cars in intrastate traffic, and that there was no evidence of the effect upon interstate commerce that would result from enforcement of the order. There was no evidence to' show that any other shippers desired that the-railway company should furnish them with such cars. Questions of dissemination are therefore not presented by this record, nor are there any questions arising under the acts of Congress regulating interstate commerce; but the case is to be determined by the laws in force in Oklahoma relating to intrastate shipments.

[1] A contention is made that the courts have no jurisdiction over questions relating to the duty of a carrier to furnish cars to a shipper, and that such an order' should be made by an administrative body; but counsel do not advise us of any special tribunal having such powers. A similar contention was made in the case of U. S. et al. v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 242 U. S. 208, 37 Sup. Ct. 95, 61 L. Ed. 251, as to tank cars demanded for interstate shipments, and it was then held that, if any duty to furnish such cars exists, it is enforceable in the courts, not by the commission. For a carrier’s refusal to accept prop[707]*707er shipments, or to supply reasonably adequate facilities of carriage, the shipper has a remedy by action. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. F. W. Cook Brewing Co., 223 U. S. 70, 32 Sup. Ct. 189, 56 L. Ed. 355; Danciger et al. v. Wells Fargo & Co. (C. C.) 154 Fed. 379; Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Puritan Coal Mining Co., 237 U. S. 121, 35 Sup. Ct. 484, 59 L. Ed. 867; Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Mulberry Hill Coal Co., 238 U. S. 275, 35 Sup. Ct. 760, 59 L. Ed. 1306; Missouri Pacific Railway Co. v. Larabee Flour Mills Co., 211 U. S. 612, 29 Sup. Ct. 214, 53 L. Ed. 352; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Company v. Burlington, C. R. & N. Railway Co. et al. (C. C.) 34 Fed. 481 ; Butchers’ & Drovers’ Stock Yards Co. v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 67 Fed. 35, 14 C. C. A. 290; Moore on Carriers, p. 3.

[2] The remaining question is the right of the refining company to tiie use of lliese specific tank cars. There is a general duty of common carriers to receive and carry, by suitable means, goods which they assume to transport or which are usually carried. Covington Stockyards Co. v. Keith, 139 U. S. 128, 11 Sup. Ct. 461, 35 L. Ed. 73; Atlantic, Coast Line Co. v. Geraty, 166 Fed. 10, 91 C. C. A. 602, 20 L. R. A. (N. S.) 310; Citizens’ Bank v. Nantucket Steamboat Co., 2 Story 16, Fed. Cas. No. 2730; McManus v. Lancashire R. R. Co., 4 H. & N. 327; Elliott on Railroads, §§ 1465, 1466, 1474.

[3] The obligation to carry goods safely often requires that special kinds of cars be supplied for the transportation of goods which the carrier lias accepted, or which it holds itself out to carry, such as refrigerator cars for perishable products, stock cars for cattle, and the like. Atlantic Coast Line Co. v. Geraty, supra; Johnson v. Toledo S. & M. Ry. Co., 133 Mich. 596, 95 N. W. 724, 103 Am. St. Rep. 464; New York, P. & N. R. Co. v. Cromwell, 98 Va. 227, 35 S. E. 444, 49 L. R. A. 462, 81 Am. St. Rep. 722; St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Renfroe, 82 Ark. 143, 100 S. W. 889, 10 L. R. A. (N. S.) 317, 118 Am. St. Rep. 58; Di Giorgio I. & S. Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 104 Md. 693, 65 Atl. 425, 8 L- R. A. (N. S.) 108; Baker v. Boston & M. R. Co., 74 N. H. 100, 65 Atl. 386, 124 Am. St. Rep. 937, 12 Ann. Cas. 1072; People v. St. Louis, A. & T. H. R. Co., 176 Ill. 512, 52 N. E. 292, 35 L. R. A. 656; Forrester & Co. v. Southern Ry. Co., 147 N. C. 553, 61 S. E. 524, 18 L. R. A. (N. S.) 508, 15 Ann. Cas. 143; Loomis v. Lehigh Valley R. R. Co., 208 N. Y. 312, 101 N. E. 907; Hannibal R. R. Co. v. Swift, 12 Wall. 262, 20 L. Ed. 423; Hutchinson on Carriers (3d Ed.) §§ 505, 508; Elliott on Railroads, §§ 1474, 1475.

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Bluebook (online)
253 F. 705, 165 C.C.A. 299, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1592, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chicago-r-i-p-ry-co-v-lawton-refining-co-ca8-1918.