Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Red Star Milling Co.

251 P. 417, 122 Kan. 122, 1926 Kan. LEXIS 144
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedDecember 11, 1926
DocketNo. 26,914
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 251 P. 417 (Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Red Star Milling Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Red Star Milling Co., 251 P. 417, 122 Kan. 122, 1926 Kan. LEXIS 144 (kan 1926).

Opinion

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Dawson, J.:

This was an agreed case formulated under R. S. 60-2938 (Civ. Code, § 549), in which The Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, plaintiff, sought to recover from The Red Star Milling Company, defendant, a claimed balance of $431.33 and $12.94 war [123]*123tax due as undercharges on 31' carloads of wheat transported by plaintiff in 1921 from southwestern Kansas to certain points in southeastern Kansas exclusively in intrastate commerce.

The facts set forth in the agreed case include references to quotations from tariff schedules governing interstate rates, intrastate rates, and orders of the interstate commerce commission and of the Kansas public utilities commission, and all on file with those official bodies.

The controlling features of the agreed case may be abridged thus:

The 31 carloads of wheat originated at local points north and west of Pratt on the Anthony & Northern Railway. They were delivered to plaintiff and by it carried to destination, Fort Scott, Pittsburg, Cherokee, and points thereabout. The shipments were accorded milling-in-transit privileges in Wichita, and freight charges from points of origin to Wichita were paid when the grain was received in Wichita, and when the flour and grain products produced by such milling were forwarded from Wichita to southeastern Kansas destinations the freight charges were assessed and paid on the basis of what was supposed to be the balance of the correct freight rate from point of origin to final destination.

The regular and authorized intrastate schedules of freight rates on file with the public utilities commission in 1921 were tariff No. 146 of the Western freight tariff bureau and tariff No. 146-A of the Western trunk lines; and these rates would ordinarily govern this traffic but for the announcement of a rule appearing on their title pages, which read thus:

“Rates named herein will be applied only when they make a lower charge than is provided for in other tariffs lawfully on file with the public utilities commission of the state of Kansas.”

At the same time there was on file with the state commission a schedule of rates pertaining to both local and interstate traffic entitled, “Missouri Pacific Railway Freight Tariff of Local and Joint Rates, No. 4746-C (I. C. C. No. A-4389),” one item, No. 770, on page 165 of which prescribed a rule for determining the correct rate for wheat, flour and flour products moving under its terms. That rule was to this effect:

“(1) Ascertain the rate from point of origin to Kansas City, Mo.; (2) ascertain the rate from point of destination to Kansas City, Mo.; (3) the higher one of these two rates is to be the rate to apply upon a shipment from a' point on the Wichita & Northwestern Railway [Anthony & Northern] to a point [124]*124in the state of Kansas on the Missouri Pacific railway. This rate was known in railroad parlance as the ‘higher Missouri river rate.’ ”

Prior to December 15, 1920, this so-called higher Missouri river rate was a lower freight rate than that prescribed in tariffs No. 146 and 146-A under sanction of the public utilities commission, and in consequence the higher Missouri river rate was the one on which such shipments as we have here to consider had been accustomed to move. But on December 15, 1920; by authority of the interstate commerce commission all interstate freight rates on wheat, flour and milling products in this territory were increased by thirty-five per cent. The new rates carrying this authorized advance were filed with the interstate commerce commission (and with the public utilities commission) in a schedule known as Supplement No. 14 to Freight Tariff of Local and Joint Rates 4746-C. The result of this thirty-five per cent advance was that the higher Missouri river rate became a higher rate than those prescribed in tariffs 146 and 146-A, governing the Kansas intrastate traffic.

Reduced to its simplest terms the claim of the railway was that the lawful charges on these 31 carloads should have been the rates specified in the Kansas local-distance tariffs 146 and 146-A because they were lower than the new higher Missouri river rate.

The defendant milling company’s contention was that inasmuch as the higher Missouri river rate, which prior to December 15, 1920, had governed such traffic, was on file with the public utilities commission and had received its approval, and the Kansas commission had not given its approval to a raise in that rate, it was still the proper rate in 1921 when these shipments moved, notwithstanding it had been superseded by a new and advanced rate under sanction of the interstate commerce commission.

At the hearing before the trial court, the only witness called was defendant’s traffic manager, whose testimony simplified the rather technical character of the matters incorporated in the agreed case. There was also introduced certain local and interstate tariffs and tariff supplements and other data showing progressive changes in pertinent rate schedules, as well as some quasi-judicial controversy between the public utilities commission and the interstate commerce commission over the propriety of the 35 per cent advances. An elaborate tabulation of the 31 shipments was also in evidence, showing points of origin, dates of shipment, rates paid, Kansas local-distance [125]*125rates, higher Missouri river rates, points of destination, claimed balances due, and other instructive data. Photostatic copies of this tabulation were submitted for our inspection.

The trial court gave judgment for plaintiff as prayed for. Defendant’s assignment of errors reduces to one proposition — that the judgment should have been in its favor.

The rates which the plaintiff seeks to collect are those which, in 1921 during the movement of this traffic, were specified in tariffs 146 and 146-A, and which had the sanction of the public utilities commission (then known as the court of industrial relations). The rates specified in those schedules were applicable unless there was' in existence at the time of those shipments a lower charge provided in other tariffs lawfully on file. The only other rate comparable with the Kansas local-distance tariff rates, was the higher Missouri river rate, which was an interstate rate applicable to similar traffic as shown by Missouri Pacific tariff No. 4746-C, but which had been lawfully raised by the interstate commerce commission to a’ figure in excess of the Kansas intrastate rates. The argument that the Kansas commission had never given its sanction to the raising of the higher Missouri river rate does not control this controversy. The Kansas commission’s approval or disapproval of that rate — an interstate rate — would have been wholly ineffective. The Kansas commission had approved tariffs 146 and 146-A which specified precise rates for this particular traffic, and had merely given its sanction to any lower rates not under its jurisdiction which might be available to the shipper. In the agreed case it was stipulated that—

“As to any shipment, the shipper or consignee may elect as between the Kansas distance rate and the so-called ‘higher Missouri river rate’ as in effect at the. date of such shipment, and may avail himself of whichever of these rates provides the lower transportation cost.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
251 P. 417, 122 Kan. 122, 1926 Kan. LEXIS 144, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/missouri-pacific-railroad-v-red-star-milling-co-kan-1926.