J. D. Pittman Tractor Co. v. United States

121 F. Supp. 162, 1954 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3391, 1954 WL 75765
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Alabama
DecidedMay 4, 1954
DocketNo. 7179
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 121 F. Supp. 162 (J. D. Pittman Tractor Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
J. D. Pittman Tractor Co. v. United States, 121 F. Supp. 162, 1954 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3391, 1954 WL 75765 (N.D. Ala. 1954).

Opinion

GROOMS, District Judge.

This action is instituted against the United States and the Interstate Commerce Commission. The averments are that it is “a motion seeking to set aside and annul a final order of the Interstate Commerce Commission — the motion seeking also an order to remand the cause to the Commission.” The Alabama Great Southern Railroad Company intervened. Intervenor, the Commission and the plaintiff have each moved for a summary judgment.

On June 18, 1951, plaintiff filed a complaint with the Commission, alleging that the railroads named as defendants therein had, in violation of Title 49 U.S.C.A. § 6(7), exacted from it charges covering the transportation of numerous shipments of “internal-combustion-engined tractors or parts thereof, or appurtenances thereto * * * and other goods, wares, and merchandise,” from Peoria, Illinois, to Birmingham, Alabama, in excess of the proper rates provided by the rating in Items Numbers 27145, 28685, 28695, and 28710 of Consolidated Freight Classification No. Í8, Agent A. H. Greely’s I.C.C.-O.C. No. 62, or Supplements thereto, or successive reissues thereof. On September 10, 1951, the original complaint was amended to claim overcharges on one additional “lot or shipment or carload of iron or steel parts and other parts or appurtenances for tractors.”

The defendants in that case contended that the applicable charges were correctly determined upon the basis of a carload exception rating provided in Item 740 of Exceptions to Southern Classifications No. 90-B, Agent R. G. Raasch’s I.C.C. No. 614.

In short, the question there presented was whether the tractors and parts came under the lower general classification rates or under the higher exception rates. The Commission, after stating that this was the sole issue for determination, held that the shipments were embraced within descriptions 2 and 4 of Item 740 of the exception rates, and denied plaintiff’s claim for reparations.

The Commission and intervenor interpose Section 9 of Title 49, U.S.C.A., as a bar to the jurisdiction of this court. This section, in material part, provides that:

“Any person or persons claiming to be damaged by any common carrier subject to the provisions of this [164]*164chapter may either make complaint to the commission as hereinafter provided for, or may bring suit in his or their own behalf for the recovery of the damages for which such common carrier may be liable under the provisions of this chapter, in any district court of the United States of competent jurisdiction; but such person or persons shall not have the right to pursue both of said remedies, and must in each case elect which one of the two methods of procedure herein provided for he or they will adopt. * * *”

In United States v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 337 U.S. 426, 69 S.Ct. 1410, 1416, 93 L.Ed. 1451, the Supreme Court held that a claim for damages under Section 9 was subject to challenge under 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(28) (now 1336). During the war period, the tariffs of many railroads embodied wharf-age charges. When the Government took over certain piers at Norfolk, Virginia, it began to perform the wharfage services for itself and requested the railroads to make an allowance for the expenses incurred. This the railroads refused to do. Following which the Government requested the railroads to perform the services themselves. The railroads refused to perform such services. The Court, in its differentiation of Standard Oil Co. (Indiana) v. United States, 283 U.S. 235, 51 S.Ct. 429, 75 L.Ed. 999, said:

“Another reason for the Court’s construction of § 9 in the Standard Oil case was that Standard’s damage claim could have been adjudicated by a district court since it involved no question as to reasonableness of rates that called for exercise of the Commission’s primary jurisdiction. The importance of this factor was emphasized by this Court in applying the Standard Oil construction of § 9 in Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Brady, 288 U.S. 448, 458-459, 53 S.Ct. 441, 443, 77 L.Ed. 888. * * *
"* * * a crucial support for the Court’s holding; in the Standard Oil and Brady cases was that the shippers in those cases could have commenced original § 9 actions in the district court. But it has been established doctrine since this Court’s holding in Texas & P. R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U.S. 426, 27 S.Ct. 350, 51 L.Ed. 553, that a shipper cannot file a § 9 proceeding in a district court where his claim for damages necessarily involves a question of ‘reasonableness’’ calling for exercise of the Commission’s primary jurisdiction. The Government’s claim here does involve such a question of ‘reasonableness.’ For the allowances exacted! from the Government were authorized in the railroads’ published tariffs and were therefore not unlawful unless ‘unreasonable.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.)

Further in the course of its opinion, the Court, referring to Ashland Coal & Ice Co. v. U. S., D.C., 61 F.Supp. 708, and again adverting to the Standard Oil case, employed the following language:

“We cannot accept the Ashland Coal Co. per curiam holding nor the Standard Oil case on which it rested as requiring the interpretation of § 9 which the railroads and Commission here urge. Our acceptance of that interpretation would mean that a shipper who submitted to the Commission only a question of the reasonableness of rates could have an adverse order reviewed by a court, Skinner & Eddy Corp. v. United States, 249 U.S. 557, 562-563, 39 S.Ct. 375, 377, 63 L.Ed. 772, while a shipper who asked for that administrative determination plus reparations could get no judicial review at all.
“* * * Accordingly we hold that § 9 does not impair the right of. shippers to obtain judicial review of adverse Commission orders under § 41(28) merely because the order is sought as a basis for reparations.”

[165]*165That United States v. I. C. C. sanctions the disposition of damage claims under Section 9, where there is involved no issue as to the reasonableness of rates, by considering a Commission order denying the claim as final and not subject to court review, is the understanding of the minority, as expressed in their opinions, 337 U.S. at page 463, 69 S.Ct. at page 1430:

"* * * The Court concedes that § 9 is a bar when a shipper could have gone in the first instance to the courts. This was so ruled in Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Brady, 288 U.S. 448 * * * Moreover, the result of the Court’s decision is to make the Commission’s decision final in those instances where the Commission is acting purely judicially — merely a matter of applying the law to the facts — but not final when the Commission, acting in the realm of its administrative expertness, found a practice legal, and therefore denied damages.”

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Bluebook (online)
121 F. Supp. 162, 1954 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3391, 1954 WL 75765, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/j-d-pittman-tractor-co-v-united-states-alnd-1954.