SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILWAY
v.
FLORIDA EX REL ELLIS, ATTORNEY GENERAL

U.S. | 1906-12-03
Nos. 10, 11
203 U.S. 261 Supreme Court of the United States (1906) Positive Treatment
Also reported at: 51 L. Ed. 175 · 27 S. Ct. 109 · SCDB 1906-025 · 1906 U.S. LEXIS 1588
Cited by 9 cases

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Synopsis

The Supreme Court upheld Florida's railroad commission orders regulating freight rates charged by the Seaboard Air Line Railway, rejecting the railroad's challenges to both a localized rate reduction for the Florida West Shore Railway and a maximum rate ceiling for phosphate shipments. The Court held that the commission acted within its authority in requiring equal rates across different parts of the state where conditions were similar and in setting a reasonable maximum rate per ton per mile that the railroad could adjust downward based on distance considerations.

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Opinion of the Court
Mr. Justice Brewer,

Mr. Justice Brewer,

after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

There are no special findings of facts in these cases, and only from an examination of the opinions filed by thé Supreme Court can we ascertain what its conclusions were or upon what its judgments were based. It may well be doubted whether a railroad company can rely, as evidence in its own behalf, upon a report made and filed by it, and while a report of the railroad commission to the Governor may undoubtedly be used against it in an application made at its instance to secure compliance with one of its orders, yet there is little in its report which throws light upon the questions in these cases.

Referring to the first case, in which is presented the reasonableness of an order made by the commission respecting local rates for business on, to or from the Florida West Shore Railway, we find it stated in the brief of the plaintiff in error that the railroad commission on December 22, 1903, made an order, to go into, effect July 1, 1904, reducing local freight rates generally; that from this order no appeal was taken; that in November, 1903, an order was made reducing by ten per cent rates on certain freights going over two or more roads, and that from .such order no appeal was taken. These are the orders referred to in the report of the commission to the Governor. But the order in controversy was made on June 25, 1903, to go into effect July 1, 1903, and is applicable solely to the Florida West Shore road. Now, whether this order of June 25, 1903, was simply operative to make the rates on the Florida West Shore road the same as those then obtaining generally in the State, or whether it mn.rlp them higher or lower than such rates, does not appear. For some reason not disclosed the order touched only the local freight rates to and from the Florida West Shore Railway and over the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Even if the total receipts by the latter company from local freight rates were insufficient to meet what could properly be cast as a burden upon that business, such insufficiency would not justify it in an inequality of rates between different parts of the State, in one part too high and in the other too low. The State might properly insist that there should be equality in the rates — the conditions being the same — and -if nothing more was accomplished by the order of the commission than to establish such equality we cannot hold that the judgment of the Supreme Court was erroneous.

With reference to the second of these cases, the order made by the railroad commission is said by -the plaintiff in error to be an “irregular, unjust and unreliable method of rate fixing,” and this upon the theory that the order makes the rate per mile the same for any distance, whether one mile or a hundred miles. It appears that 16.43 per cent of all the local freight business of the company in Florida comes from the carrying of phosphates, and reference is made to several cases in which the courts have noticed the fact that the cost of moving local freight is greater than that of moving through freight, and the reasons for the difference. But evidently counsel misinterpret the order of the railroad commission. It does not fix the rate at one cent per ton per mile. It simply provides that it shall not exceed one cent per ton per mile, prescribes a maximum which may be reduced by the railway company, and if distance demands a reduction the company may and doubtless will make it. In addition it must be borne in mind that it is to be presumed that the railroad commission acted with full knowledge of the situation; that phosphates were in Florida possibly carried a long distance, the place of mining being far from the place of actual use or preparation for use. Further, when we turn to the report of the railroad company (which of course, is evidence against it) we find that the company’s average freight receipt per ton per mile in the State of Florida was 8 Jgt-mills; so that the rate authorized for phosphates was nearly two mills-per ton larger than such average. Under these circumstances it is impossible to say that there was error in the conclusions of the Supreme Court of the State, and its judgments are

Affirmed.

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Citator

Cited By

  • The State of Fla. ex rel. v. The Fla. E. Coast Ry. Co., 65 Fla. 424 (Fla. 1913)
    …entire business, or a reasonable compensation for the service it renders as an entirety. Minneapolis & St. L. R. Co. v. Minnesota, 186 U. S. 257, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 900; see also Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Florida ex [*428] rel. Ellis, Attorney General, 203 U. S. 261, —Sup. Ct. Rep —; Northern P. R. Co. v. North Dakota, 216 U. S. 579. This regulation does not seek to prevent unjust discriminations or other abuses by the carrier, or to require the performance by the carrier of a primal duty that may be enforced…
  • State v. Fla. E. Coast Ry. Co., 69 Fla. 480 (Fla. 1915)
    …its local rate, so that the entire charge will be approximately the same for the same distance in the State, whether the point of origin and the point of destination are on the same line of railroad, or not. See S. A. L. Ry. v. State ex rel. Ellis, 203 U. S. 261, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 109. It may be that the difference between the cost of a mere transfer to or from connecting carrier and the cost of one terminal service is not so great as the reduction from local rates required by the rule; but in order to atta…
  • N. Pac. Ry. Co. v. State of N.D. on Relation of McCue, 236 U.S. 585 (U.S. 1915)
    …ary power over the carrier’s rates and may not select a particular commodity or class of traffic for carriage without reasonable reward. [*602] In Atlantic Coast Line R. R. v. Florida, 203 U. S. 256, 260, and in Seaboard Air Line Railway v. Florida, 203 U. S. 261, 270, there was an attack upon a rate on a single article, to wit, on phosphates, but the proof as to the effect of the rate and the cost of the transportation was found to be insufficient. The case of Atlantic Coast Line R. R. v. North Carolina Cor…

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