VALIDITY AND SCOPE OF THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT. § 61. Common-Law Obligations of Common Carriers. 62. Power of Congress over Interstate Commerce. 63. Additional Powers given the Interstate Commerce Commission. 64. Effect of Sections 13 and 15a of Interstate Commerce Act on the Right of States to Regulate Intrastate Commerce. 65. The Hoch-Smith Resolution. 66. Commission May Suspend Changes in Rates. 67. Constitutionality of the Act to Regulate Commerce. 68. Same Subject.-Transportation Act, 1920. 69. Effect of Section 15a of the Interstate Commerce Act on Earnings of Strong and Weak Carriers. 70. Reasons for the Original Act to Regulate Commerce. 71. Carriers Included in the Act. 72. Carriers' Duties under the Act. 73. What Transportation is Included in the Act. 74. Transportation Included in the Act, Continued. 81. Reports of Carriers. Court Procedure with Reference to the Orders of the Commission. § 61. Common-Law Obligations of Common Carriers.The duty of a common carrier to transport at reasonable rates existed at common law.353 This was, and is, true because the business of carriage for the public is one of a quasi-public nature, and the charges therefor are subject to regulation by the public. In the Abilene case,354 Mr. Justice White, delivering the opinion of the court, said: 353 Tift v. Southern Ry. Co., 123 Fed. 789. The Circuit Court expressed the idea in the following apt language: “And so we are of opinion that the right of a shipper to have his property carried at a reasonable rate in the transaction of his business is a right of property, that to enforce such right our system of jurisprudence does not leave him remediless, and that where an action at law is inadequate a remedy in equity must and does exist,-McLean Lumber Co. v. United States, 237 Fed. 460, 466." 354 The Abilene Case-Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 51 L. Ed. 553, 27 Sup. Ct. 350, 9 Ann. Cas. 1075. See also Penn. R. Co. v. Puritan Coal Co., 237 U. S. 121, 59 L. Ed. 867, 35 Sup. Ct. 484. "Without going into detail it may not be doubted that at common law, where a carrier refused to receive goods offered for carriage except upon the payment of an unreasonable sum, the shipper had a right of action in damages. It is also beyond controversy that when a carrier accepted goods without payment of the cost of carriage or an agreement as to the price to be paid and made an unreasonable exaction as a condition of the delivery of the goods, an action could be maintained to recover the excess over a reasonable charge. And it may further be conceded that it is now settled that even where, on the receipt of goods by a carrier, an exorbitant charge is stated and the same is coercively exacted either in advance or at the completion of the service, an action may be maintained to recover the overcharge.-2 Kent Comm. 599, and note A; 2 Smith Lead. Cas., pt. 1, 8th Ed., Hare & Wallace Notes, p. 457." The principle of the right of organized society to regulate the rates and practices of public carriers was recognized at least as early as the date of the laws of Hammurabi, King of ancient Babylon,355 and the same principle appears in the common law. The application of the principle is traced in the opinion of Chief Justice Waite in Munn v. Illinois,356 wherein the reason therefor is stated to be that where "one devotes his property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in effect, grants to the public an interest in that use." It has been held by the Supreme Court of the United States that rates charged in contracts of fire insurance may be regulated by state laws, the basis for the decision being that when a business, by its circumstances and nature, rises from a private to a public concern, such business becomes subject to governmental regulation.357 Unjust discrimination was also illegal at common law. The 355 Stephens v. Central of Ga. Ry. Co., 138 Ga. 625, 628, 75 S. E. 104, 42 L. R. A. (N. S.) 541, 1913 E. Ann. Cas. 609. 356 Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 4 Otto 113, 24 L. Ed. 77. For summary of state legislation regulating public utility corporations, see Interstate Com. Com. v. C. N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co., 167 U. S. 479, 495, 496, 42 L. Ed. 243, 17 Sup. Ct. 896, and Simpson V. Shepard, 230 U. S. 352, 412-417 inc., 57 L. Ed. 1511, 33 Sup. Ct. 729. 357 German Alliance Ins. Co. v. Lewis, 233 U. S. 389, 58 L. Ed. 1011, 34 Sup. Ct. 612. Supreme Court has approved a charge substantially to the effect that not every discrimination in rates is unjust, and that in order to constitute an unjust discrimination, there must be a difference in rates under substantially similar conditions as to service. All rates must be reasonable; and, under like conditions, all patrons must be served on equal terms. While there is no body of federal common law separate and distinct from the common law existing in the several states, the principles of the common law are operative upon all interstate commercial transactions, except so far as they are modified by congressional enactment.358 § 62. Power of Congress over Interstate Commerce.-Paragraph (3) Section 8, Article I, of the Constitution of the United States contains the grant of power to Congress over interstate commerce and gives Congress the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." The limitation of the scope of this book and a general statement of the extent of the regulatory power of the federal government have been stated in Chapter I, ante. There it was shown that the power of Congress over interstate commerce is plenary and indivisible. That the power to regulate interstate commerce is complete in Congress has never been doubted. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall stated this power in language which has frequently been cited with approval. He said:359 "We are now arrived at the inquiry, What is this power? It is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the constitution. If, as has always been understood, the sovereignty of Congress, though limited to specified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with foreign nations and among the several 358 Western Union Tel. Co. v. Call Pub. Co., 181 U. S. 92, 45 L. Ed. 765, 21 Sup. Ct. 561. 359 Gibbons v. Ogden 9 Wheat., 22 U. S. 1, 6 L. Ed. 23, 70. See, also, states is vested in Congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government, having in its constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the Constitution of the United States." This broad statement of the power of Congress has been repeatedly affirmed and the principle applied. Congress, in the Act to Regulate Commerce, and the acts amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto, has not, as was shown in Chapter I hereof, as yet exercised its full constitutional power. In the laws regulating the liability of employers in interstate transportation, Congress has fully occupied the field, and the decisions with reference to the scope of these laws are not always applicable to the statutes regulating interstate transportation generally.360 The proviso to Section 1 of the Interstate Commerce Act exempts from the provisions of that Act intrastate transportation.361 This exemption, however, does not leave the states free to regulate intrastate transportation so as to burden interstate transportation. This question was presented to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which held that certain Texas intrastate rates prescribed under authority of the statutes of Texas and maintained by carriers serving both Texas and Louisiana, were violative of Section 3 of the Act to Regulate Commerce (now the Interstate Commerce Act), in that such rates constitute undue and unreasonable prejudice against shippers in Louisiana and gave an unreasonable preference to shippers in Texas. The Commission ordered the carriers to desist from this discrimination.362 This order was sustained by the Commerce Court, and an appeal taken to the Supreme Court.363 Both in the opinion of the Commission and in that of the Commerce Court mention was made of the fact that the carriers had not resisted in the courts the rates prescribed by the Texas Railroad Commission. This fact seems not to have been regarded as material by the Supreme Court, which court upheld the order of the Commission on the broad ground that any unjust discrimination, however caused, was prohibited by Congress, and that no state could lawfully require the maintenance of transportation rates within the state which unjustly discriminated against interstate shippers. The court, in a convincing opinion, held that where injurious discrimination resulted from state-made intrastate rates, Congress is not bound to reduce interstate rates below what it may deem to be a proper standard, fair to the carrier and to the public; but, that Congress— and by Congress is included tribunals authorized to act in prescribing rates-is entitled to maintain its own standard of interstate rates.364 Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, maintaining intrastate passenger fares of two cents a mile, brought complaint before the Interstate Commerce Commission alleging that the interstate passenger fares of three cents a mile into and through these states were unreasonable and discriminatory. The Interstate Commerce Commission, having found that the evidence failed to show that the interstate fares were unreasonable, dismissed the complaint. In the course of the opinion, it was said:365 "That rates established by state laws or state authorities, prescribing the charge for intrastate transportation of persons and property, are facts that we consider, and that we respect the authority establishing such rates constitutes no valid reason relieving us from performing the duties devolving upon this Commission under the Constitution and laws of the United States. The Constitution of the United States reserves to Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, and Congress, under this grant of authority, has imposed upon this Commission certain duties. If any rate for transportation wholly within a state may be made the measure of the rates when that transportation moves from one state through or into another, the interstate rate so resulting would not be regulation of interstate commerce by the authority prescribed by the Constitution, but by the state. If 364 Houston E. & W. T. R. Co. v. U. S., 234 U. S. 342, 58 L. Ed. 1341, 34 Sup. Ct. 833. 365 Corp. Com. of Okla. et al. v. A. T. & S. F. Ry. Co. et al., 31 I. C. C. 532, 540, 541. See also Rates on Beer and Other Malt Products, 31 I. C. C. 544. |