MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railroad has freight stations at Oakley and at Madisonville, both within the city limits of Cincinnati. It duly published, in connection with other carriers, interstate carload rates on lumber from southern points to Oakley and to Madisonville. It also duly published intrastate carload rates from Oakley to Madisonville. The interstate rates to Madisonville were higher than the interstate rates to Oakley plus the local rate from Oakley to Madisonville. W.H. Settle & Co., who are lumber dealers, with a place of business at Madisonville, had lumber shipped from the South to Oakley; paid the freight to that point; received at that station delivery of the loaded cars on the team tracks or in the bulk yard; and, without unloading any of the cars, reshipped them within a few days to Madisonville on local bills of lading, paying the local freight rate. Thus, the shippers secured transportation of the lumber to Madisonville by paying less in freight charges than would have been payable according to the interstate tariff, if the cars had been billed through to Madisonville. At the time these cars were shipped from points of origin, and continuously thereafter, it had been the intention of the shippers that the cars should go to Madisonville. They were billed to Oakley and physical possession was
It is admitted that if the reshipment from Oakley to Madisonville was part of a through interstate movement, the railroad was entitled to recover. The question is presented whether, in view of the undisputed facts, the original and continuing intention so to reship made the reshipment, as matter of law, part of a through interstate movement. The following instruction given and excepted to shows sufficiently how the question arose:
"As a matter of law, the existence of an original and continuing intention in the minds of the defendants Settle and Clephane to reship this lumber from Oakley to Madisonville, for the purpose of saving expense, is not, of itself, sufficient to convert the shipments into through shipments, if there was otherwise a good-faith delivery at Oakley. . . . If there was a good-faith delivery of this lumber at Oakley, to Settle and Clephane, the fact they always had an intention in their mind, and persevered in that intention, of reshipping it to Madisonville
No material fact, evidential or ultimate, had been left in dispute. There was no room for any issue of good faith to be determined by the jury. Physical delivery of the cars to the shippers had been made at Oakley, after payment of the freight and other charges. The shippers had no place of business at Oakley. The delivery there was the completion of one stage in the contemplated movement to Madisonville. After a brief interval the second stage was begun under the local bill of lading. It was conceivable that the shippers might find a customer who would take the lumber at Oakley; and, in that event, the rail movement would have ended there. But that was not probable or expected; nor was it the reason for shipping to Oakley. The movement had been divided by the shippers into two stages — instead of using through billing — because they believed that by so doing they could secure transportation to Madisonville at less than the through interstate rate. Whether under the Act to Regulate Commerce lower intermediate rates can be so used in combination, is the precise question for decision.
The contention of the shippers is that the character of a movement, as intrastate or interstate, and, hence, what the applicable rate is, depends solely upon the contract of transportation entered into between shipper and carrier at the point of origin of the traffic; that when an interstate shipment reaches the destination named in this contract and, after payment of charges, delivery is taken there by the consignee, the contract for interstate transportation is ended; that any subsequent movement of the commodity is, of necessity, under a new contract with the carrier and at the published rate; and that, since this lumber came to rest at Oakley before that new movement, the reshipment from there to Madisonville (both
If the intention with which the shipment was made had been actually in issue, the fact that possession of the cars was taken by the shipper at Oakley and that they were not rebilled for several days, would have justified the jury in finding that it was originally the intention to end the movement at Oakley and that the rebilling to Madisonville was an afterthought. But the defendant Clephane admitted at the trial that it was intended from the beginning that the cars should go to Madisonville;
Through rates are, ordinarily, made lower than the sum of the intermediate rates. This practice is justified, in part, on the ground that operating costs of a through movement are less than the aggregate costs of the two independent movements covering the same route. But there may be traffic or commercial conditions which compel, or justify, giving exceptionally low rates to movements
Before the decisions above referred to it was commonly assumed that, while a carrier, or one of its employees, might not act as a reconsigning agent for a shipper in order to enable him to use a combination of lower intermediate rates and thus avoid the higher charges incident to the through interstate movement, the shipper might so use the combination, provided he consigned the car to himself at the intermediate point, there paid the charges, took possession, and then reshipped the car on the local rate to its real destination.
The mere fact that cars received on interstate movement are reshipped by the consignee, after a brief interval, to another point, does not, of course, establish an essential continuity of movement to the latter point. The reshipment, although immediate, may be an independent intrastate movement. The instances are many where a local shipment follows quickly upon an interstate shipment and yet is not to be deemed part of it, even though some further shipment was contemplated when the original movement began. Shipments to and from distributing points often present this situation, if the applicable tariffs do not confer reconsignment or transit privileges.
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS dissents.
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