Pacific Coast Ry. Co. v. United States

173 F. 448, 98 C.C.A. 31, 1909 U.S. App. LEXIS 5082
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedOctober 4, 1909
DocketNo. 1,658
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 173 F. 448 (Pacific Coast Ry. Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pacific Coast Ry. Co. v. United States, 173 F. 448, 98 C.C.A. 31, 1909 U.S. App. LEXIS 5082 (9th Cir. 1909).

Opinion

GILBERT, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). The principal question which the writ of error brings to our attention is whether or not the plaintiff in error has been engaged in interstate commerce by railroad, within the safety appliance act of Congress of March 2, 1893 (27 Stat. 531, c. 196 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3174]), and the amendment thereto of March 2, 1903 (32 Stat. 943, c. 976 [ Ü. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1907, p. 885]). It is not denied that its trains and cars were not equipped as required by that act. The question is one in answer to which the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and that for the Eighth Circuit have in similar cases reached contrary conclusions. United States v. Geddes, 65 C. C. A. 320, 131 Fed. 452; United States v. Colorado & N. W. R. Co., 157 Fed. 321, 85 C. C. A. 27, 15 L. R. A. (N. S.) 167.

7In the Ceddes Case a receiver was operating a narrow-gauge railroad which lay wholly within the state of Ohio, connecting at Bellaire with the Baltimore & Ohio Road, in that it received from that road [450]*450freight frqm other states marked for points on its line and delivered to that rd&d freight from points on its line marked for other states. There wasUio interchange or common use of cars; the gauges of the two roa^k being different. A transfer track ran from the main line of the'Baltimore & Ohio to the terminal station of the defendant road, so that the freight cars of the two roads could be placed alongside adjoining platforms for the transfer of freight. No through bills of lading for the freight were issued, by either road, and no through rate was fixed by mutual agreement, nor was there any conventional provision for a through freight charge. The Circuit Court of Appeals held that the narrow-gauge cars in question were not subject to the safety appliance act, and that a 'common carrier was not “engaged in interstate commerce by railroad,” within the meaning of the act, unless it was “engaged in the transportation of passengers or property wholly by railroad or partly by railroad and partly by water when both are used under a common control, management or arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment,” from one state to another. In other words, the court, in construing the safety appliance act, referred back to and was controlled by the definition of interstate commerce found in section 1 of the act of February 4, 1887 (24 Stat. 379, c. 104 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3154]), known as the “Interstate Commerce Act,” and held that that act defined the interstate commerce which Congress intended to regulate in the safety appliance act, and that the acts were, in a certain sense, in pari materia.

In United States v. Colorado & N. W. R. Co., on the other hand, it was held that while the interstate commerce act was intended, as shown by its express terms, to regulate the conduct of those who conduct transportation with another or other carriers under a common control, management, or arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment, the safety appliance act, containing no such words of limitation, but expressly applying “to any common carrier engaged in interstate commerce,” was intended' to be more broad and inclusive, and to extend to all classes of interstate commerce by railroads, and hence to include those who conducted such transportation alone or- with other carriers, without any common control, management, or arrangement for such carriage or shipment. Upon the contention that the two acts were in pari materia the court said:

"The subject of the first act was the contracts, the rates of transportation of articles of interstate commerce; the subject of the safety appliance acts was the construction of the vehicles, the ears, and engines which carry that commerce. The evils the formen was passed to remedy were discrimination and favoritism in contracts and rates of carriage; the evils the latter was enacted to diminish were injuries to the employes of carriers by the use of dangerous cars and engines. The remedy for the mischiefs which induced the passage of the former act was equality of contracts and rates of transportation; the remedy for the evils at which the-latter act was leveled was the equipment of cars and engines with automatic couplers. Neither in their subjects, in tbe mischiefs they were enacted to remove, in the remedies required, nor in the remedies provided, do these acts relate to similar matters, and the rule that the words or terms of acts in pari materia should have similar interpretations ought not to govern their construction.”

After a careful review of the authorities and the principles involved, we are inclined to the views expressed in Judge Sanborn’s opinion in [451]*451the Colorado Case, which, in its exhaustive consideration of the question, leaves little, if anything, to be added to the discussion. There can be no question that the plaintiff in error was “a common carrier engaged in interstate commerce by railroad,” as such commerce has been defined by the decisions of the Supreme Court. Said the court in the Daniel Ball Case, 10 Wall. 566, 19 L. Ed. 999:

“Wo are unable to draw any clear and distinct line between the authority oí Congress to regulate an agency employed in commerce between the states, when that agency extends through two or more states, and when it is confined in its action entirely within the limits of a single state. If its authority does not. extend to an agency in such commerce, when that agency is confined within the limits of a state, its entire authority over interstate commerce may be defeated.”

It is true that the interstate commerce act is expressly limited in its application to certain defined classes of interstate commerce. But we are unable to discover in that fact any reason for saying that the safety appliance act was intended to be similarly limited. If such was the intention of Congress, the reasonable inquiry is: Why was it not so expressed in terms ? Instead of such an express limitation, we find in the act the broad declaration that it shall apply to all railroads engaged in interstate commerce. What warrant have we for holding that the act does not mean what it says ? The omission to limit its application as the interstate commerce act was limited is persuasive evidence of the intention of Congress to make it more comprehensive than that act. In the nature of the legislation itself, there was no reason to make it less comprehensive than it was made. The evil intended to be remedied by the act existed in the operation of all railroads. The power of Congress to remedy it extended to all railroads engaged in interstate commerce, and it would he unreasonable to suppose that Congress intended to withhold the benefit of the remedy from the operatives of any road concerning which it had the power to legislate.

In United States v. Freight Ass’n, 166 U. S. 290, 17 Sup. Ct. 540, 41 L. Ed. 1007, the court, answering the objection that the Sherman anti-trust act (Act July 2, 1890, c. 617, 26 Stat. 209 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3200]) should not be held lo apply to combinations between railroads, for the reason that, if Congress had intended to inhibit such combinations, it would have done so by amending the interstate commerce act, said:

"The statute filie interstale commerce act] does not cover all cases concerning transportation by railroad, and all contracts relating thereto. It does not purport to cover such an extensive field.”

In Johnson v.

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Bluebook (online)
173 F. 448, 98 C.C.A. 31, 1909 U.S. App. LEXIS 5082, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pacific-coast-ry-co-v-united-states-ca9-1909.