United States v. Munson Steamship Line

37 F.2d 681, 1930 U.S. App. LEXIS 2620, 1930 A.M.C. 177
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 14, 1930
DocketNo. 2908
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 37 F.2d 681 (United States v. Munson Steamship Line) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Munson Steamship Line, 37 F.2d 681, 1930 U.S. App. LEXIS 2620, 1930 A.M.C. 177 (4th Cir. 1930).

Opinion

PARKER, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). Every common carrier subject to the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Aet (49 USCA § 1 et seq.) is required, under penalty, to file with the Interstate Commerce Commission, and print and keep open for public inspection, schedules of its rates, fares, and charges, and conform thereto. 49 USCA § 6. The question in the case is whether the defendant, being admittedly a carrier by water, is subject to the provisions of the act. It is well settled, of course, that water transportation unconnected with transportation by rail is not subject to its provisions. Wilmington Transportation Co. v. Cal. R. R. Com., 236 U. S. 151, 153, 35 S. Ct. 276, 59 L. Ed. 508; Ex Parte Koehler (C. C.) 30 F. 867, 869; In the Matter of Jurisdiction over Water Carriers, 15 I. C. C. 205, 207; Corona Coal Co. v. Secretary of War, 69 I. C. C. 389. Water carriers are subject, not to the Interstate Commerce Commission, but to the United States Shipping Board, and are required to file schedules of maximum rates with that Board, which is given supervisory power over their rates and practices. 39 Stat. 735, 46 USCA § 817. It is true that, under the Panama Canal Act of Aug. 24, 1912; 37 Stat. 560, 568, 49 USCA § 6 (13), the Commission is given jurisdiction to establish through routes and maximum joint rates over nail and water lines. U. S. v. N. Y. Cent. R. R., 272 U. S. 457, 47 S. Ct. 130; 71 L. Ed. 350; Chicago R. I. & P. Ry. v. U. S., 274 U. S. 29, 47 S. Ct. 486, 71 L. Ed. 911. But it has not here attempted to' exercise the power conferred by that aet, and we may ae-i cordingly dismiss it from consideration. j

All of the foregoing is conceded by the government, but it contends that defendant’s transportation from Baltimore to the Florida ports is part of a continuous carriage or shipment begun by rail, and that the rail and water transportation are thus used under a common arrangement within the meaning of section 1(a) of the Interstate Commerce Aet, as amended, which provides that the aet shall apply to common carriers 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.” 49 USCA § 1(a). It is admitted that defendant is not under a common control or management with any railroad line, and so the question is further narrowed to whether it handles the traffic in question under a “common arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment” within the meaning of the aet. We agree with the court below that it does not.

The meaning of “common arrangement,” as thus used, is to be sought, not in abstract definitions, but in the purpose for which it was incorporated in the Interstate Commerce Aet. The purpose of Congress in enacting that statute was not to regulate carriers by water but carriers by rail; and water carriers were made subject to its provisions only in so far as was necessary to prevent evasion of the act on the part of rail carriers. As said by Chairman Knapp of the Interstate Commerce Commission (later a Judge of this court) in the ease entitled In the Matter of Jurisdiction over Water Carriers, supra, 15 I. C. C. at page 207: '

“Looking to the history of the enactment, and without attempting to quote the pertinent portions of the congressional debates and committee reports preceding the enactment of the law in 1887, there can be no doubt that the main purpose of the aet was to regulate transportation by railroad; that the regulation of water lines was merely in-" eidental and collateral, and was included in [684]*684order that "the regulation of railroads might be effective and not virtually nullified by arrangements between railroads and water lines.”

•It is dear that, but for the control given over transportation partly by rail and partly by water, such provisions of the act as the long and short haul clause and those prohibiting preferences, ¡rebates, and special rates, could have been evaded without difficulty by manipulation of the water rates in eases where both rail and water carriage were used and both carriers were under a common control or management. This danger was to be anticipated also where, although common control and management were absent, there was an arrangement between the carriers for transportation as a single joint enterprise, as in case of through billing or conventional division of rates; and it was evidently to cover cases of this sort that provision was made for jurisdiction in eases of “common arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment,” as well as in cases of common control or management. In other words, Congress was guarding against the possibility of evasion arising from the fact that water carriage was a part of the transportation furnished; and it was intended to subject the water carrier to the jurisdiction of the Commission where it was within the power of the rail carrier to evade the act by his control over water rates, whether by control or management of the water carrier or other arrangement.

It follows from this, we think, that the “common arrangement” contemplated by the act must be one between the carriers themselves, giving to one or the other, or both, such an interest in or control over the entire undertaking as to constitute the continuous transportation in some sense a common enterprise; for under no other sort of arrangement would there exist the possibility of manipulating water rates so as to evade the act designed for the regulation of rail carriers. Such an arrangement as one to deliver freight at the end of a rail line to a water carrier to whom it is consigned and who transports it under a separate contract with the shipper, is clearly not a common arrangement within the spirit of the provision which we are considering; for, while such an arrangement might result in continuous transportation, it would furnish to the rail carrier no opportunity to evade the act, against which the provision was directed.

■ We must bear in mind, also, in interpreting the provision, that “common arrangement” is a general term used in connection with the more specific terms, “common con-' trol” and “common management,” and, under the ejusdem generis rule, it must be interpreted as an arrangement analogous to common control or management; i. e., an arrangement attended with similar advantages and opportunities to the rail carrier and similar dangers to the public, having in view the reason and purpose of the provision. An arrangement which is nothing more than a provision for the delivery of freight to the agent of the shipper at the end of rail transportation- is manifestly not such an arrangement.

In one of the earliest cases arising under this provision, Ex Parte Koehler (C. C.) supra, 30 F. 867 at page 869, Judge Deady said:

“But the interstate commerce act does not include or apply to all the instrumentalities or agencies used or engaged in interstate commerce.

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Bluebook (online)
37 F.2d 681, 1930 U.S. App. LEXIS 2620, 1930 A.M.C. 177, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-munson-steamship-line-ca4-1930.