Union Pac. R. Co. v. Public Service Commission

211 P.2d 851, 116 Utah 526, 1949 Utah LEXIS 247
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 22, 1949
DocketNo. 7219.
StatusPublished

This text of 211 P.2d 851 (Union Pac. R. Co. v. Public Service Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Union Pac. R. Co. v. Public Service Commission, 211 P.2d 851, 116 Utah 526, 1949 Utah LEXIS 247 (Utah 1949).

Opinions

WADE, Justice.

This is a proceeding in certiorari brought by the Union Pacific Railroad Company to review an order of the Public Service Commission that it build further stock loading facilities at Wahsatch, Utah.

The Union Pacific Railroad Company, to which we shall hereafter refer as the railroad, is a common carrier of freight and passengers engaged in interstate commerce and maintains double main track lines between eastern and western points. In the vicinity of Wahsatch these lines run approximately east and west with the southerly of these tracks handling east bound trains and the northerly track west-bound trains. The stock loading facilities are located on the south side of these double tracks and have been there for about forty years. At the time these facilities were built the railroad had only one track there and highway 30, which *528 was then a dirt road, followed a course along the north side of the railroad’s right-of-way and crossed its tracks about three-quarters of a mile west of its present station house and stock pens. At that time the shippers of stock bringing their stock from the north to the shipping point would cross the tracks and the highway over flat, even terrain of about a mile or more, and thus reach the shipping point easily. In the early 1930’s the State Highway Commission changed the location of highway 30 from the north to the south side of the railroad right-of-way. The traffic on this highway and on the railroad itself has greatly increased since the present loading facilities were built. Shippers from the north were not greatly discommoded because of these changes until 1942 when a tunnel through which the eastbound track of the railroad ran was replaced with an open cut with banks dropping steeply to the railroad bed where it went through the old location of the tunnel. This forced the shippers from the north to use some other crossing point to the yards. The railroad built fences along its north right-of-way with a gate at its present crossing to its station. This crossing is a 16 foot dirt road and requires the shipper to bunch his livestock tightly against the fence and gates at the north line of the crossing, and, when allowed, to hurriedly try to drive his stock southward along this road across the railroad’s double tracks a distance of about 150 feet, then west between the station house and other buildings along a narrow road for about a few hundred feet, and then between the railroad right-of-way and highway 30 for about a quarter of a mile west to the loading station.

Shipping of livestock at Wahsatch occurs mostly in the spring and fall when the livestock is moved from winter to summer and from summer to winter ranges and the facilities the railroad has for stock loading are usually adequate to hold all the stock in the absence of an emergency, such as an early snow storm when all shippers try to get loaded at the same time. However, most of the stock, both cattle and sheep, which is shipped here, being range *529 stock, is wild and easily frightened by signs of civilization such as houses, cars, hanging laundry, and especially trains and the noises emanating from a busy railroad station. Because of the nature of this stock it is difficult to confine them to a small area for any length of time and yet because of the heavy traffic on the railroad it is necessary to do this so that train schedules will not be interrupted while the stock is making a crossing. The necessity to herd the stock close to the fence and gate to await an opportunity to cross has resulted, on occasion, in stampedes when the cattle became frightened by the whistle of a train or the action of a flagman with resultant loss of weight to cattle and danger to the men in charge of the stock, as well as to traffic on the highway. The sheep were also affected and tended to run away and get onto the highway. It is to avoid this crossing and the dangers and damage to the stock involved therein that the shippers from the north want the railroad to build stock loading facilities on the north side. At the time of the hearing before the commission there were only two shippers from the north, the Deseret Livestock Company and the Francis interests, the former being by far the largest shipper of any in the community, comprising over 50% of all the railroad’s business at that point. This company owns land extending for miles along the railroad right-of-way north of Wahsatch and it would be necessary for it to give an easement on some of this land sufficient for the construction of the loading facilities it desires, as well as a 600 foot right-of-way running east from the railroad’s property so that the general public would not have to trespass on its lands in order to be able to use the loading platform. This the Deseret Livestock Company has consented to do. To build the type of facilities requested by the shippers from the north it would cost the railroad over $20,000. The Deseret Livestock Company’s business give it over $70,000 per year and the Wahsatch station itself is one of the largest shipping centers of stock on the railroad’s entire system.

*530 It is the railroad’s contention that the commission acted arbitrarily and unlawfully in finding that the present loading facilities are inadequate and unreasonable.

It is the railroad’s contention that the order is arbitrary and unreasonable because the only objection to the present facilities for loading and unloading is to its location. It concedes that it has a duty to furnish reasonably adequate loading and unloading facilities with a reasonable means of ingress and egress to them, but that since its business is that of transportation, its duties to furnish facilities extend only so far as transportation is concerned. In support of this view they cite Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company et al. v. United States et al., 295 U. S. 193, 55 S. Ct. 748, 79 L. Ed. 1382; Great Northern Railway Company v. State of Minnesota ex rel. State Railroad & Warehouse Commission, 238 U. S. 340, 35 S. Ct. 753, 59 L. Ed. 1337; Covington Stockyards Co. v. Keith, 139 U. S. 128, 11 S. Ct. 461, 35 L. Ed. 73; and State ex rel. Railroad Com’rs v. Florida East Coast R. Co., 69 Fla. 491, 68 So. 761, L. R. A. 1918A, 158. We have carefully read these cases but cannot see where they help the railroad under the facts involved here. None of these cases hold that it is not part of the transportation business to furnish facilities to which shippers may have safe ingress and egress, and that is the question that is really involved in this case. The commission found that as to shippers from the north the ingress and egress to and from the present stock loading facilities at Wahsatch are dangerous and unsafe for the public, the shippers and the livestock.

Section 76-4-7 U. C. A. 1943, provides that:

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Bluebook (online)
211 P.2d 851, 116 Utah 526, 1949 Utah LEXIS 247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/union-pac-r-co-v-public-service-commission-utah-1949.