A railroad, in a time of coal-car shortage, distributed open-top
cars to tipple mines, which can use only that type, and boxcars to
wagon mines. The owner of a wagon mine, shipping interstate,
refused boxcars and, relying on § 22 of the Interstate Commerce
Act, sued the railroad in the state court for breach of its duty to
furnish cars under the local law.
Held that the action
would not lie, since the question at issue was the reasonableness
of the carrier's practice of car distribution, which was an
administrative question for the Interstate Commerce Commission. P.
276 U. S.
484.
172 Ark. 898, reversed.
Certiorari, 275 U.S. 514, to a judgment of the Supreme Court of
Arkansas which affirmed a recovery in an action against the
railroad for failure to furnish coal cars.
Page 276 U. S. 483
MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Barkley and Burnett operated a wagon coal mine in Arkansas
located about a quarter of a mile from the line of the Midland
Valley Railroad, a corporation of that state. They shipped their
coal by that carrier, largely in interstate commerce. In the spring
and summer of 1922, there was a widespread strike in bituminous
coal mines throughout the United States. When mining was resumed in
August, an acute car shortage developed. Coal is usually shipped in
open top cars, and tipple mines, which are the largest producers of
coal, can use only cars of that type. The supply of these being
inadequate, the Midland, like other carriers, distributed the
available open top cars among the tipple mines and its boxcars
among the wagon mines. Barkley and Burnett refused to accept
boxcars, and later brought, in an Arkansas court, this action
against the Midland to recover damages for the alleged failure to
furnish, during the period of the car shortage, an adequate supply
of cars. By appropriate proceedings, the defendant objected to the
maintenance of the action in the state court. It contended that the
proper distribution of coal cars by interstate carriers in time of
car shortage was an administrative question which Congress had
committed to the Interstate Commerce Commission, and that the
plaintiffs should have sought relief by application to that board.
The trial court overruled the objection; the plaintiffs got a
verdict; the judgment entered thereon was affirmed by the highest
court of the state, 172 Ark. 898, and this Court granted a writ of
certiorari, 275 U.S. 514. The only question for decision is whether
the action lies.
The plaintiffs contend, and the state court held, that the
action lay because it was brought to enforce the common law duty of
the carrier to furnish cars,
Midland Valley
Page 276 U. S. 484
R. Co. v. Hoffman Coal Co., 91 Ark. 180, 189, a duty
confirmed by the statutes of the state (Crawford & Moses'
Arkansas Digest, 1921, § 895) and recognized by the Interstate
Commerce Act. They argue that the right to bring an action in the
courts of a state for a breach of that duty has been specifically
preserved to the shipper by § 22 of the Interstate Commerce Act,
which declares that
"nothing in this act contained shall in any way abridge or alter
the remedies now existing at common law or by statute, but the
provisions of this act are in addition to such remedies;"
that the plaintiffs made no attack, open or covert, upon any
regulation or order of the Commission relating to the supply or
distribution of cars,
compare Lambert Coal Co. v. Baltimore
& Ohio R. Co., 258 U. S. 377;
that consequently no administrative question was involved,
compare Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil
Co., 204 U. S. 426;
Loomis v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 240 U. S.
43;
Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Merchants Elevator
Co., 259 U. S. 285, and
that the case is governed by
Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Puritan
Coal Co., 237 U. S. 121, and
Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Sonman Shaft Coal Co., 242 U.
S. 120, rather than by
Baltimore & Ohio R. Co.
v. Pitcairn Coal Co., 215 U. S. 481, and
Morrisdale Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 230 U.
S. 304.
The assertion that no administrative question is here involved
rests upon a misapprehension. It may be assumed that there was no
order of the Commission which required the Midland to distribute
all available upon top cars among the tipple mines. But the
reasonableness of the Midland's practice in doing so, and in
allotting boxcars to the wagon mines, was the substantial matter in
controversy. The right of a shipper to cars is not an absolute
right, and the carrier is not liable if its failure to furnish cars
was the result of sudden and great demands which it
Page 276 U. S. 485
had no reason to apprehend would be made and which it could not
reasonably have been expected to meet in full. The law exacts only
what is reasonable from such carriers. The reasonableness of the
rule adopted by the carrier is a matter for the Commission.
Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Puritan Coal Co., 237 U.
S. 121,
237 U. S.
133-134. In the case at bar, the right of the plaintiffs
to recover depended upon whether the defendant's practice of
distributing its open top cars to tipple mines and its boxcars to
wagon mines was reasonable. The practice is one which was generally
adopted in times of car shortage by rail carriers in the same
territory; which had, under like circumstances, been prescribed by
general orders of the Director General, [
Footnote 1] which had been to some extent prescribed by
the Interstate Commerce Commission, [
Footnote 2] and the propriety of which in individual cases
has been repeatedly the subject of consideration by the Commission
on applications by shippers for relief. [
Footnote 3] It was clearly one of those questions
which, as recognized in the
Puritan case, calls for
"the
Page 276 U. S. 486
exercise of the regulating function of the Commission." P.
237 U. S. 133.
Compare Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co.,
222 U. S. 506.
In the case at bar, the adequacy of the carrier's supply of open
cars in normal times was not seriously questioned; there was no
suggestion that the plaintiffs' mine had been discriminated
against, and the only substantial complaint was that the Midland's
practice in allotting the open top cars to the tipple mines was
illegal. Thus, the facts are unlike those in which actions at law
for failure to furnish cars have been entertained. In
Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Puritan Coal Co., 237 U.
S. 121, and in
Illinois Central R. Co. v. Mulberry
Hill Coal Co., 238 U. S. 275, the
claim was that, under a rule confessedly valid, the carrier had
discriminated against the plaintiff. In
Eastern
Railway
Page 276 U. S. 487
Co. v. Littlefield, 237 U. S. 140, the
claim was that the carrier, knowing of the car shortage, had not
only failed to notify the shipper, but had accepted the shipment.
In
Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Sonman Shaft Coal Co.,
242 U. S. 120,
242 U. S.
125-127, the action was for failure to supply cars in
confessedly normal times.
Compare Pennsylvania R. Co. v.
Stineman Coal Co., 242 U. S. 298,
242 U. S.
300-301. In none of those cases was the reasonableness
of the carrier's practice in controversy.
We have no occasion to consider whether the then existing orders
of the Commission required the Midland to adopt the practice
followed. Nor need we determine whether, by the amendments of the
Interstate Commerce Act made in Transportation Act 1920, c. 91, §
402, pars. 10-17, 41 Stat. 456, 476, and the Act of September 22,
1922, c. 413, 42 Stat. 1025, Congress evinced the intention to
occupy the field of regulating the distribution of coal cars, and
thereby abrogated the preexisting limited right to sue in a state
court for failure to supply cars.
Reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
By an order dated June 17, 1918, the Regional Directors were
instructed that
"open top cars suitable and available for loading at tipple
mines should be first supplied to such mines, and should not be
supplied to wagon mines until the tipple mines have been
supplied."
This modified an earlier order of March 20, 1918, which had
directed that open top cars should not be furnished to wagon mines
for loading on public team tracks if boxcars were available for
such loading.
[
Footnote 2]
By notice of March 2, 1920, the Commission recommended that the
rules as to the distribution of coal cars embodied in Railroad
Administration Car Service Section Circular CS-31, issued September
12, 1918, revised December 23, 1919, be continued in effect.
See in re Rules Governing Ratings of Coal Mines, 95 I.C.C.
309, 320. This recommendation appears to have been generally
accepted by the carriers.
Compare Winding Gulf Colliery
Co. v. Virginian Ry. Co., 102 I.C.C. 41. From time to time, the
Commission has issued emergency orders governing the distribution
of coal cars, under the power conferred by paragraph 15 of § 402 of
Transportation Act, 1920, c. 91, 41 Stat. 456, 476. Several of
these orders recognize the necessity of a distinction, in time of
shortage, between wagon and tipple mines. By Service Order No. 14,
issued August 25, 1920, the Commission directed that, on any day
when a carrier was unable to supply all mines on its line with the
required open top cars, such cars should not be furnished to wagon
mines, which were unable to load on private tracks and from a
tipple or like arrangement, until all tipple mines had been
supplied. This was rescinded by Service Order No. 17, effective
September 19, 1920, which, however, prohibited a carrier from
furnishing open top cars in time of shortage to mines which did not
customarily load cars within 24 hours of the time of placement, a
prohibition which would include most wagon load mines. This order
was vacated March 6, 1921. A similar requirement was incorporated
into Service Order No. 25 by Amendment No. 1, effective October 17,
1922. Service Order No. 25 applied only to common carriers "east of
the Mississippi River, including the west bank crossings thereof;"
it was vacated December 11, 1922.
[
Footnote 3]
Thompson v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 10 I.C.C. 640; Swaney v.
Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 49 I.C.C. 345.
Compare Glade
Coal Co. v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 10 I.C.C. 226; Northern
Coal Co. v. Mobile & Ohio R. Co., 55 I.C.C. 502; Griffith v.
Jennings, 60 I.C.C. 232; Dickinson Fuel Co. v. Chesapeake &
Ohio Ry. Co., 60 I.C.C. 315.