By the Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 584, c. 3591,
Congress legislated concerning the deliveries of cars in interstate
commerce, and made it the duty of the carrier to provide and
furnish transportation.
There can be no divided authority over interstate commerce, and
regulations of Congress on that subject are supreme.
As to those subjects upon which the states may act in the
absence of legislation by Congress, the power of the state ceases
the moment Congress exerts its paramount authority thereover.
Since the enactment of the Hepburn Act, it is beyond the power
of a state to regulate the delivery of cars for interstate
shipments, and so
held as to the Reciprocal Demurrage Law
of Minnesota of 1907.
110 Minn. 25 reversed.
A statute passed by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota,
and known as the Minnesota Reciprocal Demurrage Law, became
effective on July 1, 1907. Laws of Minnesota, 1907, c. 23.
The law, among other things, made it the duty of a railway
company subject to its provisions, on demand by a shipper, to
furnish cars for transportation of freight at terminal points on
its line of road in Minnesota, within forty-eight hours, and at
intermediate points within seventy-two hours, after such demand,
Sundays and legal holidays excepted. For each day's delay in
furnishing cars when so demanded -- except when prevented by
strikes, public calamities, accident, or any cause not within the
power of the railroad to prevent -- the defaulting company was made
liable to pay to the shipper
Page 226 U. S. 427
one dollar per car, together with the damages sustained and a
reasonable attorney's fee.
Alleging that, in respect of delays in the deliveries to it of
fourteen freight cars, pursuant to eight applications made for such
cars between September 19, 1907, and October 22, 1907, the first
section of the act in question had been violated, the Hardwick
Farmers Elevator Company, defendant in error here, commenced this
action in a district court of Minnesota to recover from the railway
company, plaintiff in error here, penalties aggregating $218 and an
attorney's fee of $50, together with the costs and disbursements of
the action. As a defense, the railway company set up that the cars
in question were demanded for the purpose of interstate traffic,
and that the delays complained of were occasioned solely by an
unusual and unprecedented congestion of traffic and a consequent
scarcity of cars, arising from their use in moving traffic and
commerce between the states, and that such delays therefore arose
from causes not within the control and power of the company. It was
also claimed that, if the statute in question embraced interstate
commerce, and was applied to the requisitions for cars referred to
in the complaint, it would be repugnant to the commerce clause and
to the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution
of the United States. The action was tried to a jury. The trial
judge refused to give instructions asked for by the railway
company, embodying the constitutional objections made in its
answer. A verdict was returned for the plaintiff for the amount
claimed, including an attorney's fee, and a judgment entered on the
verdict was affirmed by the supreme court of the state. 110 Minn.
25.
Page 226 U. S. 433
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE, after making the foregoing statement,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The argument at bar has been primarily concerned with the
question of the validity of the Minnesota statute, considered as
having been enacted in the exercise of a power assumed to exist to
legislate reasonably in the absence of action by Congress on the
subject of the delivery when called for, of cars to be used in
interstate traffic. Thus, counsel for the defendant in error urges
the correctness of the action of the Supreme Court of Minnesota in
sustaining the statute upon the hypothesis that Congress had not
legislated on the subject, and that the act was a reasonable
exertion of the power of the state. On the contrary, on behalf of
the railroad company, it is insisted that, even upon the assumption
that the state had power to deal with the subject for which the
statute provides, in the absence of legislation by Congress, the
enactment is nevertheless void since it but expresses a policy
which by penalization, fines, and forfeitures will substitute for a
free and unrestrained flow of commerce a service favoring a
particular locality and shippers within the confines of one state,
to the disadvantage of others. We are not, however, called upon to
test the merits of these conflicting contentions, since we are of
opinion that, by the Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 584, c. 3591,
known as the Hepburn Act, amendatory of the Act to Regulate
Commerce, Congress has legislated concerning the deliveries of cars
in interstate commerce by carriers subject to the act.
In the original Act to Regulate Commerce, the term
"transportation" was declared to embrace all instrumentalities of
shipment or carriage. By the Hepburn Act, it was declared that the
term "transportation" (italics ours) --
Page 226 U. S. 434
"shall include cars and other vehicles and all instrumentalities
and facilities of shipment or carriage, irrespective of ownership
or of any contract, express or implied, for the use thereof, and
all services in connection with the receipt, delivery, elevation,
and transfer in transit, ventilation, refrigeration or icing,
storage, and handling of property transported,
and it shall be
the duty of every carrier subject to the provisions of this act to
provide and furnish such transportation upon reasonable request
therefor, and to establish through routes and just and
reasonable rates applicable thereto."
The purpose of Congress to specifically impose a duty upon a
carrier in respect to the furnishing of cars for interstate traffic
is, of course, by these provisions clearly declared. That Congress
was specially concerning itself with that subject is further shown
by a proviso inserted to supplement § 1 of the original act,
imposing the duty under certain circumstances to furnish switch
connections for interstate traffic, whereby it is specifically
declared that the common carrier making such connections "shall
furnish cars for the movement of such traffic to the best of its
ability, without discrimination in favor of or against any such
shipper." Not only is there then a specific duty imposed to furnish
cars for interstate traffic upon reasonable request therefor, but
other applicable section of the Act to Regulate Commerce give
remedies for the violation of that duty. Thus, by § 8 it is
provided
"that, in case any common carrier subject to the provisions of
this act . . . shall omit to do any act, matter, or thing in this
act required to be done, such common carrier shall be liable to the
person or persons injured thereby for the full amount of damages
sustained in consequence of any such violation of the provisions of
this act, together with a reasonable counsel or attorney's fee, to
be fixed by the court in every case of recovery, which attorney's
fee shall be taxed and collected as part of the costs in the case.
"
Page 226 U. S. 435
Further, by § 9 an election is given to either make
complaint to the Interstate Commerce Commission or to bring, in a
designated court, an action for the recovery of damages, and by
§ 10 it is made a criminal offense for an employee of a
corporation carrier to "willfully omit or fail to do any act,
matter, or thing in this act required to be done."
As legislation concerning the delivery of cars for the carriage
of interstate traffic was clearly a matter of interstate commerce
regulation, even if such subject was embraced within that class of
powers concerning which the state had a right to exert its
authority in the absence of legislation by Congress, it must
follow, in consequence of the action of Congress to which we have
referred, that the power of the state over the subject matter
ceased to exist from the moment that Congress exerted its paramount
and all-embracing authority over the subject. We say this because
the elementary and long settled doctrine is that there can be no
divided authority over interstate commerce, and that the
regulations of Congress on that subject are supreme. It results,
therefore, that in a case where, from the particular nature of
certain subjects, the state may exert authority until Congress
acts, under the assumption that Congress, by inaction, has tacitly
authorized it to do so, action by Congress destroys the possibility
of such assumption, since such action, when exerted, covers the
whole field, and renders the state impotent to deal with a subject
over which it had no inherent, but only permissive, power.
Southern Ry. Co. v. Reid, 222 U.
S. 424.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Minnesota must therefore be
reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion.
Judgment reversed.
