1. The declaration of the Act to Regulate Commerce (§ 1) that it
shall apply to any common carrier engaged in the transportation of
persons or property from any place in the United States to an
adjacent foreign country contemplates its application also to the
transportation by such a carrier from the adjacent foreign country
into the United States, since the test of the application of the
act is the field of the carrier's operation, and not the direction
of the movement. P.
254 U. S.
359.
2. Where a passenger traveling from Canada to Texas and return
without any express stipulation as to the liability of the carrier
for loss of baggage, through the fault of the carrier, lost her
trunk in Texas on the journey out,
held that the amount of
her recovery was limited under the Carmack Amendment by the
carrier's published tariffs .filed with the Interstate Commerce
Commission.
Id.
3. The right of a carrier, under the Carmack Amendment, to limit
by tariff the amount of its liability for the baggage of a
passenger was not altered by the Act of March 4, 1915, known as the
Cummins Amendment, as amended August 9, 1916.
Id.
209 S.W. 432 reversed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
On March 14, 1917, Mrs. Woodbury took the Galveston, Harrisburg
& San Antonio Railway at San Antonio,
Page 254 U. S. 358
Texas, for El Paso, Texas, and checked her trunk, which she took
with her. It was lost, and she sued the company in a state district
court for the value of trunk and contents, which the jury found to
be $500. Mrs. Woodbury was traveling on a coupon ticket purchased
at Timmins, Ontario, from a Canadian railroad, entitling her to
travel over it and connecting lines from Timmins to El Paso and
return, apparently with stop-over privileges. When the trunk was
lost, she was on her journey out. She was not told when she
purchased her ticket or when she checked her trunk that there was
any limitation upon the amount of the carrier's liability. It did
not appear whether the ticket purchased contained notice of any
such limitation, nor did it appear what was the law of Canada in
this respect. The company insisted that Mrs. Woodbury was on an
interstate journey, and that, under the Act to Regulate Commerce,
February 4, 1887, c. 104, 24 Stat. 379, as amended, it was not
liable for more than $100, since it had duly filed with the
Interstate Commerce Commission and published a tariff limiting
liability to that amount unless the passenger declared a higher
value and paid excess charges, which Mrs. Woodbury had not done.
She insisted that her transportation was not subject to the Act to
Regulate Commerce because it began in a foreign country, and that
the liability was governed by the law of Canada, which should, in
the absence of evidence, be assumed to be like the law of Texas,
the forum, and that, by the law of Texas, the limitation of
liability was invalid. The trial court held that she was entitled
to recover only $100, and entered judgment for that amount. This
judgment was reversed by the Court of Civil Appeals, which entered
judgment for Mrs. Woodbury in the sum of $500. 209 S.W. 432. The
case came here on writ of certiorari. 250 U.S. 637. The only
question before us is the amount of damages recoverable.
If Mrs. Woodbury's journey had started in New York,
Page 254 U. S. 359
instead of across the border in Canada, the provision in the
published tariff would clearly have limited the liability of the
carrier to $100, for her journey would have been interstate,
although the particular stage of it on which the trunk was lost lay
wholly within the State of Texas.
Compare Texas & New
Orleans Railroad Co. v. Sabine Tramway Co., 227 U.
S. 111. And the Carmack Amendment, under which carriers
may limit liability by published tariff, applies to the baggage of
a passenger carried in interstate commerce,
Boston & Maine
Railroad Co. v. Hooker, 233 U. S. 97,
although it does not deal with liability for personal injuries
suffered by the passenger.
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific
Railway Co. v. Maucher, 248 U. S. 359. The
subsequent legislation, the Cummins Amendment, Act March 4, 1915,
c. 176, 38 Stat. 1196, as amended by the Act of August 9, 1916, c.
301, 39 Stat. 441, has not altered the rule regarding liability for
baggage.
But counsel for Mrs. Woodbury insists that, solely because her
journey originated in Canada, the provisions of the Act to Regulate
Commerce do not apply. The contention is that § 1 of the Act of
1887 does not apply to the transportation of passengers from a
foreign country to a point in the United States. To this there are
two answers. The first is that the transportation here in question
is not that of a passenger, but of property.
Boston & Maine
Railroad Co. v. Hooker, supra. The second is that the act does
apply to the transportation of both passengers and property from an
adjacent foreign country, such as Canada. Section 1 declares that
the act applies to
"any common carrier . . . engaged in the transportation of
passengers or property . . . from any place in the United States to
an adjacent foreign country."
A carrier engaged in transportation by rail to an adjacent
foreign country is, at least ordinarily, engaged in transportation
also from that country to the United States. The test of the
application of the act is not the direction of the movement,
but
Page 254 U. S. 360
the nature of the transportation as determined by the field of
the carriers' operation. This is the construction placed upon the
act by the Interstate Commerce Commission. International Paper Co.
v. D. & H. Co., 33 I.C.C. 270, 273, citing
Texas &
Pacific Ry. Co. v. ICC, 162 U. S. 197. It
is in harmony with that placed upon the words of § 1 of the Harter
Act, February 13, 1893, c. 105, 27 Stat. 445, "any vessel
transporting merchandise or property from or between ports of the
United States and foreign ports," which, in
Knott v. Botany
Mills, 179 U. S. 69,
179 U. S. 75,
were construed to include vessels bringing cargoes from foreign
ports to the United States. There is a later clause in § 1 which
deals specifically with the transportation of property to or from
foreign countries; but cases arising under that clause are not
applicable here. That clause applies where the foreign country is
not adjacent to the United States. The cases which hold that the
act does not govern shipments from a foreign country in bond
through the United States to another place in a foreign country,
whether adjacent or not, are also not in point.
Compare United
States v. Philadelphia & Reading Ry. Co., 188 F. 484; In
the Matter of Bills of Lading, 52 I.C.C. 671, 726-729; M. Canales
v. Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway Co., 37 I.C.C.
573.
Since the transportation here in question was subject to the Act
to Regulate Commerce, both carrier and passenger were bound by the
provisions of the published tariffs. As these limited the recovery
for baggage carried to $100, in the absence of a declaration of
higher value and the payment of an excess charge, and as no such
declaration was made and excess charge paid, that sum only was
recoverable.
Reversed.