Neither the Act of Congress of February 4, 1887, c.104, 24 Stat.
379, nor section 213 or other provisions in the Constitution of the
State of Kentucky imposes an obligation upon a railroad having its
own stockyards in Louisville under a lease from a stockyard
company, to accept livestock from other states for delivery at the
stockyards of another railroad in the same city and neighborhood,
although there is a physical connection between the two roads.
The facts are stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court of appeals
affirming a decree of the circuit court which dismissed the
plaintiff's bill. 118 F. 113. The bill was brought by the
appellant, a Delaware corporation, against a Kentucky corporation
to compel it to receive livestock tendered to it outside the State
of Kentucky for the Central Stockyards
Page 192 U. S. 569
station, and to deliver the same at a point of physical
connection between its road and the Southern Railway for ultimate
delivery to or at the Central Stockyards. The Central Stockyards
station is at the Central Stockyards, just outside the boundary
line of Louisville, Kentucky on the Southern Railway Company's
line, and, by agreement between the two companies, the Central
Stockyards are the "livestock depot for the purpose of handling
livestock to and from Louisville" on the Southern Railway. The
defendant, by a similar arrangement, has made the Bourbon
Stockyards its livestock depot for Louisville, and declines to
receive livestock billed to the Central Stockyards, or to deliver
livestock destined to Louisville elsewhere than at the Bourbon
yards. There are physical connections between the Louisville &
Nashville and the Southern tracks at a point between the two
stockyards, which is passed by the greater portion of the livestock
carried by the Louisville & Nashville Company, and at another
point which would be more convenient for delivery a little further
to the northward. The details are unimportant, except that, in
order to deliver as prayed, the defendant would be compelled either
to build chutes or to hand over its cars to the Southern Railroad,
after having made some contract for their return. The right is
claimed by the plaintiff, under the Interstate Commerce Act of
February 4, 1887, c. 104 § 3, 24 Stat. 379, making it unlawful for
common carriers subject to the act to give unreasonable
preferences, and requiring them to afford all reasonable, proper,
and equal facilities for the interchange of traffic between their
respective lines, and for the receiving, forwarding, and delivering
of property to and from their several lines and those connecting
therewith. The right is claimed also under the Constitution of
Kentucky, especially § 213, requiring Kentucky railroad companies
to receive, deliver, transfer, and transport freight from and to
any point where there is a physical connection between the tracks,
as we understand it, of the railroad concerned and any other.
For the purposes of decision, we assume, without expressing an
opinion, that if the act of Congress and the Kentucky Constitution
apply to the case, they both confer rights upon
Page 192 U. S. 570
the plaintiff. As to the former, compare §§ 8, 9, and the Act of
February 19, 1903, c. 708, § 2, 32 Stat. 847, 848;
Covington
Stock-Yards Co. v. Keith, 139 U. S. 128;
Kentucky & Indiana Bridge Co. v. Louisville & Nashville
R. Co., 37 F. 567, 610, 620. The rights under the latter which
are relied upon especially could not be established without
discussion.
Compare Atkinson v. Newcastle &c. Waterworks
Co., L.R. 2 Exch. Div. 441;
Johnston v. Consumers' Gas
Company of Toronto, [1898] A.C. 447. For the same purpose, we
further assume that such rights as the plaintiff has may be
enforced by bill in equity.
See Interstate Stock-Yards Co. v.
Indianapolis Union Railway, 99 F. 472. We also lay on one side
the question whether the section of the Constitution of Kentucky is
or is not invalid as an attempt to regulate commerce among the
states. For we are of opinion that the defendant's conduct is not
within the prohibitions or requirements of either the act of
Congress or the Constitution of Kentucky as those provisions fairly
should be construed.
The Bourbon Stockyards are the defendant's depot. They are its
depot nonetheless that they are so by contract, and not by virtue
of a title in fee. Unless a preference of its own depot to that of
another road is forbidden, the defendant is not within the act of
Congress. Suppose that the Southern Railway station and the
Louisville & Nashville station were side by side, and that
their tracks were connected within or just outside the limits of
the station grounds. It could not be said that the defendant was
giving an undue or unreasonable preference to itself or subjecting
its neighbor to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage if it
insisted on delivering livestock which it had carried to the end of
the transit at its own yard. These views are sanctioned by what was
said in
Covington Stock-Yards Co. v. Keith, 139 U.
S. 128. The fact that the plaintiff's stockyards are
public does not change the case.
See further Butchers' &
Drovers' Stock-Yards Co. v. Louisville & Nashville R., 67
F. 35.
If the cattle are to be unloaded, then, as was said in
Covington Stock-Yards co. v. Keith, the defendant has a
right to unload them where its appliances for unloading are,
and
Page 192 U. S. 571
cannot be required to establish another set hard by. On the
other hand, if the cattle are to remain in the defendants' cars, it
cannot be required to hand those cars over to another railroad
without a contract, and the courts have no authority to dictate a
contract to the defendant or to require it to make one.
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co. v. Denver & New
Orleans R., 110 U. S. 667,
110 U. S. 680.
The consensus of the circuit courts is to the same effect.
Kentucky & Indiana Bridge Co. v. Louisville & Nashville
R. Co., 37 F. 567, 629, 630;
Little Rock & Memphis R.
Co. v. St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Ry., 41 F. 559;
Chicago & Northwestern Ry. v. Osborne, 52 F. 915;
Oregon Short Line & Utah Northern Ry. v. Northern Pacific
R. Co., 61 F. 158,
aff'g 51 F. 465;
Little Rock
& Memphis R. Co. v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry., 63 F. 775;
St. Louis Drayage Co. v. Louisville & Nashville R.
Co., 65 F. 39;
Allen v. Oregon R. & Navigation
Co., 98 F. 16. All that was decided in
Wisconsin,
Minnesota & Pacific R. Co. v. Jacobson, 179 U.
S. 287, was that, by statute, two railroad companies
might be required to make track connections. So much of the statute
as undertook to regulate rates was not passed upon.
See
Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Minnesota, 186 U.
S. 257,
186 U. S. 263.
There is no act of Congress that attempts to give courts the power
to require contracts to be made in a case like this.
What we have said applies, in our opinion, to the Constitution
of Kentucky with tittle additional argument. The requirement to
deliver, transfer, and transport freight to any point where there
is a physical connection between the tracks of the railroad
companies must be taken to refer to cases where the freight is
destined to some further point by transportation over a connecting
line. It cannot be intended to sanction the snatching of the
freight from the transporting company at the moment and for the
purpose of delivery. It seems to us that this would be so
unreasonable an interpretation of the section that we do not find
it necessary to consider whether, under any interpretation, it can
be sustained. In view of the course taken by the argument, we may
add that we do
Page 192 U. S. 572
not find a requirement that the railroad company shall deliver
its own cars to another road. The earlier part of § 213 provides
that all railroads
"shall receive, transfer, deliver, and switch empty or loaded
cars, and shall move, transport, receive, load, or unload all the
freight in carloads or less quantities, coming to or going from any
railroad . . . with equal promptness and dispatch and without any
discrimination. . . ."
Promptness and the absence of discrimination are the point, and
that shows that the words "coming to or going from any railroad"
qualify the words "empty or loaded cars" as well as "freight," and
therefore that the cars referred to are cars from other roads. The
same thing is shown by the word "receive," which is the starting
point of all that relates to cars.
See Louisville &
Nashville R. Co. v. Commonwealth, 108 Ky. 628, 633. The other
sections of the Constitution need no special remark.
We have discussed the case as if the two stockyards were side by
side. They were not, but they both were points of delivery for
cattle having Louisville as their general destination. They both
were Louisville stations, in effect. It may be that a case could be
imagined in which carriage to another station in the same city by
another road fairly might be regarded as
bona fide further
transportation over a connecting road and within the requirements
of the Kentucky Constitution. However that may be, we are of
opinion that the court below was entirely right, so far as appears,
in treating this as an ordinary case of stations at substantially
the same point of delivery, and therefore as one to be dealt with
as if they were side by side. As the defendant would not be bound
to deliver at the Central Stockyards if they were by the side of
its track, its obligation is no greater because of the intervention
of a short piece of the track of another railroad. As we have said,
the delivery would have to be made either by unloading or by the
surrender of the defendants' cars.
Decree affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA concurs in the result.