Louisville & N. R. v. United States

216 F. 672, 1914 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1627
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Tennessee
DecidedSeptember 1, 1914
DocketNo. 21
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 216 F. 672 (Louisville & N. R. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Louisville & N. R. v. United States, 216 F. 672, 1914 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1627 (M.D. Tenn. 1914).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

The Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway, hereinafter called the Louisville & Nashville Railroad and Nashville & Chattanooga Railway, respectively, having filed herein ■ a petition against the United States of America to set aside certain orders made by the Interstate Commerce Commission in reference to rates for the interstate transportation of coal to Nashville, Tennessee, and the switching of interstate shipments of coal at Nashville, moved for an interlocutory injunction restraining the enforcement of these orders pendente lite; which motion was heard by three judges, as provided by the Urgency Deficiency Act of October 22, 1913, c. 32, 38 Stat. 220. The hearing was had upon the petition, the answers of the United States, and of the Commission, the City of Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee,, and the Traffic Bureau of Nashville, who intervened as defendants, under section 212 of the Judicial Code (Act March 3, 1911, c. 231, 36 Stat. 1150 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1911, p. 219]), and affidavits filed by the petitioners.

The orders sought to be enjoined were made by the Commission in proceedings instituted on the complaint of the Traffic Bureau of Nashville against the petitioners and the Illinois Central Railroad Co. and the Tennessee Central Railroad Co., hereinafter called the Illinois Central Railroad and the Tennessee Central Railroad, respectively, alleging, among other things, that the rate of $1.00 per ton then charged by the petitioners for the interstate transportation of coal to Nashville from certain points in Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama were unjust and unreasonable, and that certain switching practices of the petitioners at Nashville subjected the interstate traffic in coal to undue and unreasonable prejudice and disadvantage. Answers having been filed and evidence taken, the Commission made its written report, containing its findings of fact and conclusions thereon (Traffic Bureau of Nashville v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad, 28 Interst. Com. Com’n R. 533), and issued an order making such find[675]*675ings and conclusions a part thereof, and, in accordance therewith, requiring that the Louisville & Nashville Railroad should, for not less than two years, cease from charging its then rates for the transportation of coal to Nashville from mines in Western Kentucky on its Owensboro and Henderson Divisions, and should establish and maintain rates thereon not exceeding 80 cents per ton; that the Nashville & Chattanooga Railway should, for a like period, cease from charging its then rates for the transportation of coal to Nashville from mines on its road in Alabama and Tennessee, through Alabama, and should establish and maintain rates thereon not exceeding 90 cents per ton; and that each of said companies should, for a like period, abstain from their then practice with respect to inters witching interstate carload shipments of coal at Nashville and from maintaining any different practice with respect to switching such shipments from and to the tracks of the Tennessee Central Railroad from that maintained with respect to similar shipments from and to tlieir respective tracks, and should establish and maintain a practice permitting the interswdtdiing of such shipments from and to the lines of each and every defendant.

The petitioners did not file the transcript of the record before the Commission, and do not insist, for the purposes of the motion, that the facts found by the Commission were either without substantial evidence to support them or contrary to the indisputable character of the evidence. The sole grounds of the motion for the interlocutory injunction are: (1) That the facts found by the Commission do not as a matter of law support the orders made by it; (2) that the Commission was without jurisdiction to make the orders; and (3) that the enforcement of the orders made by the Commission will result in the taking of petitioners’ property without due process of law and in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

The petitioners furthermore state explicitly in their brief that in determining these issues the findings of fact made by the Commission in its report will be assumed to be “undisputed,” but that they “contend that these findings of fact do not as a matter of law support the conclusions (and) the orders of the Commission complained of, and that the Commission was without jurisdiction to make the orders.”

Order Fixing Rates. The report of the Commission set forth the geographical location of the various points involved under the rates in question, with the distances and routes of transportation between them, showing that the average distance to Nashville from Western Kentucky mines on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad was 108.5 miles, and from the Eastern Tennessee and Alabama mines on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railway, 140 miles (28 Interst. Com. Com’n R. at page 534). It then stated that the complainant had offered “innumerable exhibits” comparing the Nashville rate, on ton, car and train mile bases, with the rates on coal obtaining north of the Ohio river, the rates to East St. Louis, Louisville and other points on the Ohio and Mississippi river from mines in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, the rates on coal prescribed by the Commission in a number [676]*676of cases, the rates on coal to Chattanooga and certain Southeastern destinations, the rates on coal from other mines to Nashville, and the rates on other commodities to Nashville and other destinations, and with the average per ton and per car mile rate received by the defendants and other carriers on all traffic; that “in all of these instances the Nashville rate yields the greatest earnings”; and that the defendants had sought “in elaborate detail” to analyze these comparisons and show that none was^ of any value in determining the reasonableness of the rates in issue. The report, however, as explicitly stated, did not attempt to set forth the detail into which the parties went in support of their contentions as to the conclusions that might be properly drawn from these exhibits, but stated, generally, that ton-mile statistics are far from infallible guides in fixing freight rates, that per-car earnings, with distance considered, are much more reliable, and that when the commodity moves in trainloads the earnings per train mile furnish the best criterion; that comparison of any kind, however, to be effective must be analogous, or nearly so, the rate charged or gross earnings derived for the transportation of a given commodity between two points furnishing a guide in arriving at the rate to be charged upon the same or nearly the same commodity between two other points similarly situated; that the comparisons made with coal moving to the lakes for transhipment, to tidewater and between points in central freight association territory were of little value because of the manifest difference in transportation conditions; and that as Chattanooga, Knoxville and East St. Louis had coal mines in their immediate vicinities, such juxtaposition of supply and market necessarily exercised a material influence over the rates from more distant mines, thereby lessening the strength of the comparison (28 Interst. Com. Com’n R. at page 535).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Denver & Salt Lake Railroad v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad
64 Colo. 229 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 1918)
McLean Lumber Co. v. United States
237 F. 460 (E.D. Tennessee, 1916)
Lillie v. Dennert
232 F. 104 (Sixth Circuit, 1916)
Louisville & N. R. v. United States
227 F. 258 (M.D. Tennessee, 1915)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
216 F. 672, 1914 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1627, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/louisville-n-r-v-united-states-tnmd-1914.