The Texas statute of May 6, 1882, making it unlawful for a
railroad company in that state to charge and collect a greater sum
for transporting freight than is specified in the bill of lading,
is, when applied to freight transported into the state from a place
without it, in conflict with the provision in section 6 of the
Interstate Commerce Act of February 4, 1887, c. 104, 24 Stat. 379,
as amended by the Act of March 2, 1889, c. 382, 25 Stat. 855, that
it shall be unlawful for such carrier to charge and collect a
greater or less compensation for the transportation of the property
than is specified in the published schedule of rates provided for
by the act, and in force at the time, and, being thus in conflict,
it is not applicable to interstate shipments.
Page 158 U. S. 99
When a state statute and a federal statute operate upon the same
subject matter and prescribe different rules concerning it, and the
federal statute is one within the competency of Congress to enact,
the state statute must give way.
On May 6, 1882, the Legislature of the State of Texas passed the
following act:
"SEC 1.
Be it enacted by the legislature of the State of
Texas that it shall be unlawful for any railroad company in
this state, its officers, agents or employees, to charge and
collect, or to endeavor to charge and collect, from the owner,
agent or consignee of any freight, goods, wares and merchandise, of
any kind or character whatever a greater sum for transporting said
freight, goods, wares and merchandise than is specified in the bill
of lading."
"SEC. 2. That any railroad company, its officers, agents, or
employees having possession of any goods, wares and merchandise of
any kind or character whatever shall deliver the same to the owner,
his agent, or consignee upon payment of the freight charges as
shown by the bill of lading."
"SEC. 3. That any railroad company, its officers, agents, or
employees that shall refuse fuse to deliver to the owner, agent, or
consignee any freight, goods, wares, and merchandise of any kind or
character whatever upon the payment or tender of payment of the
freight charges due as shown by the bill of lading, the said
railroad company shall be liable in damages to the owner of said
freight, goods, wares, or merchandise to an amount equal to the
amount of the freight charges for every day said freight, goods,
wares, and merchandise is held after payment or tender of payment
of the charges due as shown by the bill of lading, to be recovered
in any court of competent jurisdiction."
Laws of Texas, extra session, 1882, c. 26, p. 35.
Under that act, the defendants in error commenced an action
before a justice of the peace in the County of Milam to recover
$82.80. After judgment, the case was appealed to the county court
of the county. In that court, a trial was had, a jury being waived,
which resulted in a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs and against
the railway company for the full amount
Page 158 U. S. 100
claimed. That was the highest court in the state to which the
case could be taken, and thereupon the defendant sued out this writ
of error.
The facts appear in the findings made by the trial court, and
are as follows: on August 4, 1890, Wolf and Kramer, a firm doing
business in St. Louis, Missouri, shipped from that city a carload
of furniture to the plaintiffs at Cameron, Texas. The shipment was
by the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway Company, and the bill of
lading issued by that company named 69 cents per 100 pounds as the
rate. At this rate, the freight charges amounted to $82.80. On the
arrival of the car at Cameron, the plaintiffs presented this bill
of lading to the agent of the defendant company, together with
$82.80, and demanded the furniture. The agent refused to deliver
without payment of $100.80, that being the amount of charges due at
the rate of 84 cents per 100 pounds. This was the rate named in the
printed tariff sheet posted in the railroad office at Cameron. As a
matter of fact, before the shipment at St. Louis, the rate had, by
the companies, been reduced to 69 cents, but the new tariff sheet
had not reached Cameron, and the agent was ignorant of the
reduction. While declining to deliver the goods except upon payment
at the rate named in his tariff sheet, he told the plaintiffs that
he would telegraph for instructions. He did so, and was advised
that the rate had been reduced, and to accept 69 cents, but the
telegram was not received at once, and so the furniture was
detained one full day. So far as appears, the St. Louis and San
Francisco Railway Company was not only a different corporation from
the defendant, but under separate management and control, though,
as respects through shipments, acting under a joint tariff.
MR. JUSTICE BREWER, after stating the facts in the foregoing
language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
Page 158 U. S. 101
The question presented by this record is this: is the statute of
Texas imposing a penalty for a failure to deliver goods on tender
of the rate named in a bill of lading applicable to interstate
shipments? While the amount in controversy is small -- so small,
indeed, that the case could not be taken from a lower to the
supreme court of the state -- the question is of no little
importance.
At the time of this transaction, the Act of Congress known as
the Interstate Commerce Act, of February 4, 1887, c. 104, 24 Stat.
379, as amended by the Act of March 2, 1889, c. 382, 25 Stat. 855,
was in force. By section 6, every common carrier subject to the
provisions of the act (and all railroads carrying interstate
freight are subject to such provisions) is, for the inspection and
information of the public, required to print and publicly post at
each station upon its routes the schedules of fares and rates for
carriage of passengers and property thereon. No advance in such
fares and rates shall be made except after ten days' public notice,
such advance to be shown by printing and posting new schedules, or
plainly indicated upon the schedules then in force, and duly
posted, nor shall any reduction in such fares and rates be made
except after three days' previous public notice given in like
manner. The section then reads:
"And when any such common carrier shall have established and
published its rates, fares, and charges in compliance with the
provisions of this section, it shall be unlawful for such common
carrier to charge, demand, collect, or receive from any person or
persons a greater or less compensation for the transportation of
passengers or property, or for any services in connection therewith
than is specified in such published schedule of rates, fares, and
charges as may at the time be in force."
After this is a provision in respect to joint rates between
connecting carriers. Such carriers are required to file with the
Interstate Commerce Commission copies of their joint tariffs, which
shall be made public by the carriers when directed by the
Commission insofar as in the judgment of the Commission it is
deemed practicable, the Commission being
Page 158 U. S. 102
given power to prescribe the measure of publicity to be given
and the places in which the joint tariffs shall be published. There
is also a prohibition, like to that quoted, of any advance of such
joint rates, except after ten days' notice, or any reduction except
after three days' notice, and a like declaration that it shall be
unlawful for any common carrier, party to any such joint tariff, to
charge, demand, collect, or receive from any person or persons a
greater or less compensation than is specified in such schedules.
Section 10 makes a violation of these provisions by any carrier, or
any agent or person acting for the carrier, a penal offense subject
to fine not exceeding $5,000, and, in case the offense amounts to
an unlawful discrimination in rates, to imprisonment for a term not
exceeding two years, or both such fine and imprisonment.
Clearly the state and the national acts relate to the same
subject matter, and prescribe different rules. By the state act,
the bill of lading is made controlling as to the rate collectible,
and a failure to comply with that requirement exposes the
delinquent carrier to its penalties, while the national statute
ignores the bill of lading, and makes the published tariff rate
binding, and subjects the offender -- both carrier and agent -- to
severe penalties. The carrier cannot obey one statute without
sometimes exposing itself to the penalties prescribed by the other.
Take the case before us: if, in disregard of the joint tariff
established by the defendant and the St. Louis and San Francisco
Railway Company, and filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission,
the latter company, as a matter of favoritism, had issued this bill
of lading at a less than the tariff rate, both the defendant
company and its agent would, by delivering the goods upon the
receipt of only such reduced rate, subject themselves to the
penalties of the national law, while, on the other hand, if the
tariff rate was insisted upon, then the corporation would become
liable for the damages named in the state act. In case of such a
conflict, the state law must yield. "This Constitution, and the
laws of the United states which shall be made in pursuance thereof
. . . shall be the supreme law of the land." Constitution, Art. VI,
clause 2. It is no answer to say that in this
Page 158 U. S. 103
case, the defendant might have complied with both the state and
the national statute, that it was a party to the reduction of the
joint rate, that therefore the bill of lading was properly issued
at 69 cents per 100 pounds, that it should have promptly notified
its agents at every station of such reduction, that if it had done
so, the agent at Cameron could have complied with the state as well
as the national law, and that its negligence in this respect is
sufficient ground for holding it amenable to the state law. The
question is not whether in any particular case operation may be
given to both statutes, but whether their enforcement may expose a
party to a conflict of duties. It is enough that the two statutes
operating upon the same subject matter prescribe different rules.
In such case, one must yield, and that one is the state law.
It may be conceded that, were there no congressional legislation
in respect to the matter, the state act could be held applicable to
interstate shipments as a police regulation.
Railroad
Company v. Fuller, 17 Wall. 560. In that case, a
statute of Iowa requiring each railroad company annually, in the
month of September, to establish passenger and freight rates, and
on the first day of October following, put up at all the stations
on its route a printed copy of such rates, and cause it to remain
posted during the year, and providing that, for charging and
receiving higher rates than thus posted, it should forfeit not less
than $100 nor more than $200 to any person injured thereby, was
upheld notwithstanding Congress had passed the Act of June 15,
1866, c. 124, 14 Stat. 66, providing
"that every railroad company in the United states . . . be and
is hereby authorized to carry upon and over its road . . . all
passengers . . . freight and property on their way from any state
to another state, and to receive compensation therefor,"
and a recovery in favor of a party having shipped freight from
Illinois into Iowa, and charged higher rates of freight than thus
posted, was sustained. It will be perceived that the two statutes
do not conflict, do not prescribe different rules, and only in a
very general sense can be said to be in relation to the same
subject matter. It was held that the state statute was simply a
police regulation. While so holding,
Page 158 U. S. 104
it was also said that even if it did affect commerce, the
question would arise whether it did not fall within that class of
cases of which several were noticed in the opinion, where an act
conceded to be a regulation of interstate commerce, yet local in
its character, had been sustained by reason of the absence of
congressional legislation in respect thereto. Among the cases named
are
Wilson v. Blackbird Creek
Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245;
Cooley v.
Philadelphia Port Wardens, 12 How. 299;
Pennsylvania v. Wheeling
&c. Co., 18 How. 421;
Brig James
Gray v. Ship John Fraser, 21 How. 184;
Gilman v.
Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713;
Ex Parte
McNiel, 13 Wall. 236. Of the same character are the
following cases since decided:
Pound v. Truck,
95 U. S. 459,
95 U. S. 462;
Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. S. 485,
95 U. S. 488;
County of Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U.
S. 691;
Packet Co. v. Catlettsburg,
105 U. S. 559,
105 U. S. 562;
Transportation Co. v. Parkersburg, 107 U.
S. 691,
107 U. S. 702;
Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U. S. 678, and
Morgan v. Louisiana, 118 U. S. 455. In
this latter case, certain quarantine laws of the State of Louisiana
were upheld although to a certain extent they affected commerce
with foreign nations, the Court saying:
"It may be conceded that whenever Congress shall undertake to
provide for the commercial cities of the United states a general
system of quarantine, or shall confide the execution of the details
of such a system to a national board of health, or to local boards,
as may be found expedient, all state laws on the subject will be
abrogated at least so far as the two are inconsistent."
Generally it may be said in respect to laws of this character
that, though resting upon the police power of the state, they must
yield whenever Congress, in the exercise of the powers granted to
it, legislates upon the precise subject matter, for that power,
like all other reserved powers of the state, is subordinate to
those in terms conferred by the Constitution upon the nation.
"No urgency for its use can authorize a state to exercise it in
regard to a subject matter which has been confided exclusively to
the discretion of Congress by the Constitution."
Henderson v. New York, 92 U. S.
259,
92 U. S.
271.
"Definitions of the police power must, however, be taken
subject
Page 158 U. S. 105
to the condition that the state cannot, in its exercise, for any
purpose whatever encroach upon the powers of the general government
or rights granted or secured by the supreme law of the land."
New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co.,
115 U. S. 650,
115 U. S.
661.
"While it may be a police power in the sense that all provisions
for the health, comfort, and security of the citizens are police
regulations, and an exercise of the police power, it has been said
more than once in this Court that where such powers are so
exercised as to come within the domain of federal authority as
defined by the Constitution, the latter must prevail."
Morgan v. Louisiana, 118 U. S. 455,
118 U. S.
464.
It is unnecessary to pursue this discussion further. The state
statute and the national law operate upon the same subject matter,
and prescribe different rules concerning it. The national law is
unquestionably one within the competency of Congress to enact under
the power given to regulate commerce between the states. The state
statute must therefore give way.
The judgment of the County Court of Milam County is
Reversed, and the case remanded to that court for further
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
