McGrew Coal Co. v. Mellon

287 S.W. 450, 315 Mo. 798, 1926 Mo. LEXIS 887
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedOctober 8, 1926
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 287 S.W. 450 (McGrew Coal Co. v. Mellon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McGrew Coal Co. v. Mellon, 287 S.W. 450, 315 Mo. 798, 1926 Mo. LEXIS 887 (Mo. 1926).

Opinion

*802 BLAIR, C. J.

This is an action to recover alleged excessive freight charges for the tfansportation of coal between January 1, 1918, and March 4, 1920, from the mines of respondent at Myriek, Missouri, to various stations in this State on the railroad lines of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. Respondent had judgment below for $18,730.99, and an appeal was granted to this court.

The action was originally brought against Walker D. Hines, Director General of Railroads. James C. Davis, acting as Federal Agent, appointed under the Transportation Act of 1920, was substituted as appellant before the case was argued and submitted in this court. On May 12, 1926, Andrew W. Mellon, the successor of James C. Davis, upon a stipulation filed in this court, was substituted as appellant in the same official capacity.

The petition contained 168 counts, each count being based upon a separate shipment. Counts 41 and 95 were dismissed, and judgment was entered upon the remaining counts. The petition alleged the incorporation in Missouri of the McGrew Coal Company and that said corporation is and was engaged in the coal mining business in Lafayette County, Missouri, and further alleged the official position of Walker D. Hines as Director General of Railroads and that he was in charge of and operating the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. The numerous counts or causes of action are alike except as to dates of shipments, amounts of coal shipped, rates charged, destinations of shipments and comparative rates charged between other points on said railroad.

In the first count it was alleged that, on December 28, 1917, plaintiff shipped 354,600 pounds of bituminous coal over the lines of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company from Myriek to Archie, both in Missouri, and that the Director General charged and collected from the consignee ninety cents per ton by the carload, when said Director General at the time collected for the same class of coal and over the same railroad the rate of sixty cents per ton by the carload from Liberal, Missouri, to Granby, Missouri, a greater distance than from Myriek to Archie.

It was further alleged that plaintiff sold the coal so shipped at an agreed price, delivered free on board cars at destination, and that consignee paid the freight charges thereon at plaintiff’s request and was reimbursed therefor by plaintiff. The judgment prayed for in *803 said count was $53.19, together with interest and costs. The freight charges involved in this case were all collected from respondent within the period of Federal control during and following the "World War.

Without going further into the pleadings, it suffices to say that appellant has made a number of defenses, some of which, due to questions arising out of Federal control and operation of railroads, were not made and could not have been made in prior cases between respondent and appellant or appellant’s predecessor, the Missouri Pacific Railway Company.

Among the defenses now made is the defense made in prior cases that Section 12, Article XII, of the Constitution of 1875, is not self-enforcing and that the General Assembly has not passed suitable laws to enforce said-constitutional provision. In spite of the former adverse decisions on the question by this court, appellant now earnestly asks us again to consider such defense.

The contention is that our former decisions, and particularly McGrew v. Railroad, 230 Mo. 496, were not soundly ruled. The particular decision referred to was written by Hon. Willard P. Hall, who was called to sit with the Court en Banc as special judge. That case will be referred to as the Hall decision, in order to distinguish it from cases appearing in other volumes of our reports bearing practically the same title.

The statute construed in the Hall decision will be referred to as the 1872 Act. That statute was enacted by the 26th General Assembly and was approved April 1, 1872, and may be found at pages 69 and 70 of the 1871-72 Session Acts. Section 1 of that Act was carried into subsequent revisions and successively became Section 820, Revised Statutes 1879, Section 2629, Revised Statutes 1889, Section 1126, Revised Statutes 1899, Section 3173, Revised Statutes 1909, and appears in the 1919 revision as Section 9974. The words “at the same,” indicated by parentheses below, do not appear in the 1879 and subsequent revisions. With this explanation we quote said act as it now appears as Section 9974, Revised Statutes 1919 :

“No railroad corporation organized or doing business in this State, under any act of incorporation or general law of this State, now in force or which may be hereafter enacted, shall directly or indirectly charge or collect, for the transportation of goods, merchandise or property on its said road for any distance, any larger or greater amount, as toll or compensation, than is (at the same) charged or collected for the transportation of similar quantities of the same class of goods, merchandise or property over a greater distance upon the same road, nor shall such corporation charge different rates for receiving, handling or delivering freight at different points on its road or roads connected therewith, which it has a right to use, nor shall any such railroad corporation charge or collect, for the trans *804 portation of goods, merchandise or property over any portion of its road, a greater amount as toll or compensation than shall be charged or collected by it for the transportation of similar quantities of the same class of goods, merchandise or property over any other portion of its road of equal distance; and all such rules, regulations or bylaws of any railroad corporation as fix, prescribe or establish any greater toll or compensation than is hereinbefore prescribed are hereby declared to be void.’’

The constitutional provision upon which the Hall decision was bottomed is Section 12, Article XII, of our present Constitution, and reads as follows:

“It shall not be lawful in this State for any railway company to charge for freight or passengers a greater amount, for the transportation of the same, for a less distance than the amount charged for any greater distance; and suitable laws shall be passed by the General Assembly to enforce' this provision; but excursion and commutation tickets may be issued at special rates.”

Judge Hall held that the Act of 1872 (Sec. 9974, R. S. 1919) is valid against the assault that the body of the act is broader than its title, as prohibited by Section 32, Article IV, of the Constitution of 1865, which was in force when said act was passed and provided that “no law enacted by the General Assembly shall relate to more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.”

He held that the 1872 Act was still in force, notwithstanding the prior decision of this court in Sloan v. Pacific Railroad Co., 61 Mo. 24, declaring said act invalid as against the Pacific Railroad, because of a provision in its charter granted by the General Assembly authorizing it to fix its own rates for the transportation of freight, and notwithstanding what was said in that case concerning invasion by the Legislature of the province of the courts to determine whether- or not a given rate or alleged discrimination was in fact unjust and unreasonable. ‡

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Bluebook (online)
287 S.W. 450, 315 Mo. 798, 1926 Mo. LEXIS 887, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcgrew-coal-co-v-mellon-mo-1926.