Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. B. I. Holser & Co.

466 F. Supp. 885, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13950
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Indiana
DecidedMarch 7, 1979
DocketS 77-7, S 77-8, S 77-23 to S 77-25, S 77-32 and S 77-110 to S 77-114
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 466 F. Supp. 885 (Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. B. I. Holser & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. B. I. Holser & Co., 466 F. Supp. 885, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13950 (N.D. Ind. 1979).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

ALLEN SHARP, District Judge.

This will state the legal basis for separately entered findings of fact and conclusions of law.

These cases were consolidated for trial by agreement of the parties. Trial was had only on the issues raised by plaintiff’s complaints. The issues raised by defendants’ affirmative defenses, and cross-claim were postponed. The cases involve shipments of grain from three elevators adjacent to plaintiff’s railroad; B. I. Holser & Company, at Walkerton, Indiana, Argos Elevator, Inc., at Argos, Indiana, and Wyatt Grain Co., Inc., at Wyatt, Indiana. Each of the suits are brought to recover additional freight charges allegedly owing for grain shipped from the three local elevators from 1972 to 1976, to the East coast, the other defendants being the named consignees of the various shipments. It is claimed that the elevators in question cannot take advantage of the lower “10 car rate”, but rather must use the higher “5 car rate.”

The limited portion of these cases now before the Court depends upon the interpretation placed upon the switching restrictions in the applicable tariff (Item 7020.6) which was added and made effective in May, 1971. Before 1971, there was in effect a 15-car rate from the points in question (Walkerton, Argos and Wyatt) which contained no switching restrictions. It can be assumed that the only reasonable basis for adding a switching restriction to the tariff would be to reduce operating costs to the railroads. The railroads, in theory at least, would deliver one group of ten cars to the elevator and remove one group of ten cars from the elevator, thus saving the expense of providing an engine and switch crew for more than one movement of hopper cars to the shipper’s facility.

A practical effect of the switching restriction is to prevent the use of the rate in question by any country elevator that cannot receive at least 10 hopper cars on its siding. The freight cost is an integral part of the price that can be paid to the producer. Therefore, those small elevators that could not take advantage of the 10-car rate could not pay the farmers as much for their grain as could 10-car shippers; and thus smaller elevators were put at a competitive disadvantage. They seem to favor trainload units that can be put together by larger shippers. There may be more than one reason for this. As Rodman Kober testified, in the case of his company, it owns or leases its own tracks at all points from which trainload units are shipped. This arrangement not only allows railroads certain economies of scale, but also shifts the burden of side or loading track maintenance and construction to the shipper.

*888 In the case of the smaller country elevators such as B. I. Holser & Co., Argos Elevator and Wyatt Grain, the sidetracks available to them were, in the most part, built many years ago, and used by the elevators by common consent with the railroad owner without the imposition of a lease or of a track maintenance or operating agreement. The only apparent exceptions were track leases covering 50-foot strips, executed to allow elevators to hold or store a private fertilizer car on the leased track portion for an extended period without demurrage. When Wyatt Grain more recently wanted to expand its operation, the additional trackage was constructed at the expense of Wyatt Grain. Other than the Wyatt extension, the evidence is clear that the sidetracks serving these elevators had been used by the adjacent elevators for many years; the railroad has never demanded a lease agreement; and presumably the line-haul rate itself included the cost of sidetrack maintenance and operation.

After publication of the 10-car rate, each of the three elevators shipped 10-car units, beginning in 1972 and ending in 1976 when the railroad refused further 10-car shipments. The only evidence in the record concerning cases of this refusal is defendant’s, Central Soya, Exhibit U which is a letter from L. E. Caldwell of the N & W to a Mr. G. W. Fisher which relates the visit of an I.C.C. inspector, a Mr. Hoover. There is no evidence in the record as to what prompted Mr. Hoover’s investigation. According to this letter, Mr. E. H. Steward (plaintiff’s expert witness) concurred with the I.C.C. inspector, and N & W stopped accepting 10-car shipments from Walker-ton, Argos and Wyatt.

Mr. Kober’s uncontradicted expert testimony was that N & W was and is not required to accept the opinion of this I.C.C. inspector and could have litigated the matter in court or before the I.C.C. There is evidence from Mr. Kober that the matter never apparently went beyond the lowest level at the I.C.C. The N & W filed a special docket application with the I.C.C. on or about January 7, 1977, which was designated S.D. No. 241760, for the purpose of securing a waiver of any undercharges including those now before this Court. The railroad did not pursue the special docket application (which of necessity would have been based on some confession or error by N & W), did not file any justification, and withdrew the special docket application pri- or to its filing the present cases.

Walkerton. The plaintiff introduced in evidence a plat showing the location of the main track and sidetracks at the B. I. Holser & Company elevator at Walkerton. The track marked in red was at first referred to as the “passing track” by plaintiff’s witness, although on cross examination he conceded that only the area between points “C” and “D” could properly be referred to as a “passing track” and the area between points “A” and “C” could more properly be called the sidetrack. The evidence showed that the length of a covered hopper car is 60 feet. The distance between point “A” and point “C” is 958 feet. There is another sidetrack beginning at point “B” which appears from the plat to be approximately 250 feet long. Virginia Street, which is 20 feet wide, and Georgia Street, which is 24 feet wide, cross these sidetracks. Even assuming that the railroad could and did comply with its own operating rules and not place a car within 50 feet of either side of a street, it is obvious from the evidence that more than 10 railroad hopper cars can be placed on the sidetrack between points “A” and “C”.

The distance between point “A” (the end of the sidetrack) and point “B” (the loading spout of B. I. Holser & Company) is 279.5 feet. Ten cars cannot be loaded from the spout without some shifting or moving of cars.

The evidence from Holser’s witness, Richard Soper, is that during the entire time he was manager of Holser, the company used the entire sidetrack shown between points “A” and “C” without objection from the railroad, and at no time did the railroad demand that Holser execute a lease on this sidetrack as a condition of Holser’s use. There is no evidence from the railroad that any such demand had ever been made.

*889 Argos. The plaintiff’s plat of the Argos track shows that the distance between point “B” (the derailer) and point “E” (the end of the sidetrack) is 1714 feet. This entire distance is shown on plaintiff’s exhibit as being the elevator’s sidetrack. There is testimony that one or two other businesses made very occasional use of this sidetrack.

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Bluebook (online)
466 F. Supp. 885, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13950, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/norfolk-western-railway-co-v-b-i-holser-co-innd-1979.