Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Leatherwood

250 U.S. 478, 39 S. Ct. 517, 63 L. Ed. 1096, 1919 U.S. LEXIS 1767

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: June 9, 1919
• Docket: 249
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Brandéis

announced the judgment of the court, and delivered the following opinion:

Leatherwood made, in 1913, a shipment of horses from Watrous, New Mexico, to'Waco, Texas, over four connecting railroads. The"initial'carrier gave him a through bill of lading which contained a provision barring any action for damages unless suit was brought within six months after the loss occurred. When the horses reached the lines of. the Texas & Pacific Railway and of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway, each of these companies insisted, as a condition of carrying them further, that Leatherwood accept and sign a new bill of lading covering the shipment over its line, and he did.so.

In 1915 he brought suit in a state court of Texas for injury to the horses while in transit on the lines of those two companies. The bills of lading issued by them did not contain the provision requiring suit td be brought •within six months; but the carriers set up ás a defense the provisions, to that effect contained in the original bill of lading, contending that under the Carmack Amendment (Act of June 29, 1906,-c. 3591, 34 Stat. 584, 595) all connecting'carriers were bound by its terms and that thé later ones issued by themselves were of no legal effect.¹ The trial court denied this contention, and ruled as matter of law that the carriers could not rely upon the provision in the initial bill of lading. Judgment was entered for the plaintiff and affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals. On June 2, 19.17, that court denied a rehearing and declined to certify to the Supreme Court of Texas the questions involved. The case comes here on writ of certiorari (245 U. S. 649) under. § 237 of the Judicial Code,' as amended by Act of September 6, 1916, c. 448, 39 Stat. 726. ■ -

The final decision below was. rendered two days before the decision of this court in Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. Ward, 244 U. S. 383. There one of the same railroads had, as connecting carrier, issued a second bill of lading to shippers of live stock who had received from the initial carriers a through bill of lading on an interstate shipment. But there the carriers relied for defense upon a clause in the second bill df lading, which was not contained in the first. We held that the second bill of lading was void, since under the Carmack Amendment the several carriers must be treated, not as independent contracting parties, but as one system; and that the connecting lines become in effect mere agents whose duty it is to forward the goodai under', the terms of the contract made by their principal, the initial carrier,, and that they are prevented by law from varying the terms of that contract. Leather-wood contends that the principle upon which the case was decided is not applicable here, because there the carriers sought to avail themselves of the second bill of lading, while here they seek to ignore it; and he insists that the carriers are, by their conduct, estopped from asserting its invalidity. As stated in Georgia, Florida & Alabama Ry. Co. v. Blish Milling Co., 241 U. S. 190, 197, the parties to a bill of lading cannot waive its terms, nor can the earner by its conduct give the shipper a right to ignore them. “A different view would antagonize the plain policy of the Act and open the door to the very abuses, at which the Act was aimed.” The bill of 'lading given by the initial carrier embodies the contract for transportation from point of origin to destination; and its terms in respect to conditions of liability are binding upon the shipper and upon all connecting carriers, just as. a fate properly filed by the initial carrier is binding upon them. Each has in effect the force of a statute, of which all affected must take notice. That a carrier cannot be prevented by estoppel'or otherwise from taking advantage of the lawful rate properly filed under' the Interstate Commerce Act is well settled. A carrier has, for instance, been permitted to collect the legal rate, although it had quoted a lower rate and the shipper was ignorant of the fact that it was not the legal rate. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Mugg, 202 U. S. 242; Illinois Central R. R. Co. v. Henderson Elevator Co., 226 U. S. 441; Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co. v. Maxwell, 237 U. S. 94; Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. of Texas v. Schnoutz, 245 U. S. 641 (Per curiam).

The provision in the original bill of lading limiting to six months the time within which suit may be brought, not being unreasonable (Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. Harriman, 227 U. S. 657, 672-673), was valid; and as the original bill of lading remained binding, the lower .courts erred in denying it effect. The judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals must therefore be reversed.

The record occupies 213 printed pages. Most of the matter which was included in it at the instance of petitioners was clearly not required for a proper presentation of the.questions submitted here. Much useless expense has been-incurred; and both court and counsel have been subjected to the burden of examining much that is irrelevant. Section 1 of Rule 8 of this court specifically provides that if portions of the record unnecessary to a proper presentation of the case are found to have been incorporated into the transcript by either party, the court may order that the whole or any part of the clerk’s fees for supervising the printing and the cost of printing the record be paid by the offending party. Under the circumstances of this case it seems appropriate that the whole of this expense be borne by the petitioners; and it is so ordered.

Judgment reversed.

I am authorized to say that The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Holmes, and Mr. Justice Day concur in the above opinion.

Mr. Justice McKenna, Mr. Justice Pitney, and Mr. Justice Clarke dissent.

1 The rights of the parties are not affected by the Act of March 4, 1915, c. 176, 38 Stat. 1196, which prohibits a common carrier from providing by contract or otherwise for a shorter period than two years for thé institution of suits.