United States v. Interstate Commerce Commission (352 U.S. 158)/Dissent Black

by Hugo Black

United States Supreme Court

352 U.S. 158

United States  v.  Interstate Commerce Commission (352 U.S. 158)

 Argued: Oct. 11, 1956. --- Decided: Dec 17, 1956

Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom The CHIEF JUSTICE concurs, dissenting.

From the very beginning the Interstate Commerce Act has made it unlawful for railroads to discriminate by charging some shippers more than others for carrying the same kind of freight the same distance. The provisions of the Act make it clear that the ban on such discrimination cannot be evaded by any contrivance or guise that accomplishes the prohibited end. In the present case the undisputed evidence, as well as the Interstate Commerce Commission's findings, convinces me beyond doubt that the railroads are subjecting the United States, as a shipper, to precisely the kind of discrimination which the Act prohibits. When the mass of verbiage which has befogged this case is stripped away, the issues are not complex and no expert guidance is needed for their proper resolution.

The Government owns several piers at Norfolk, Virginia which are connected by tracks with the main lines of certain major railroads. Storage space is provided on the piers for freight. For many years the piers were leased to a private terminal operator. This operator has a contract which the railroads hauling to the piers to perform handling and wharfage services with respect to their freight. The railroads pay the operator $1 per ton for these services. They do not charge shippers separately for this handling and wharfage but instead include the cost with the transportation charges in a single line-haul rate.

Shipments by the United States through the piers were handled exactly the same as any other shipment. The operator, acting under contract with the railroads, performed the necessary unloading and storage; the railroads paid it $1 per ton for these services; and the Government paid the railroads the single rate covering both transportation and pier services. The Government was not required to pay anything in addition to this single rate.

In 1951, however, with the outbreak of the Korean conflict, the Government found it necessary to operate directly certain portions of the piers in order to facilitate the shipment of military supplies. The Government hired the same operator who was acting for the railroads to perform the same services in handling government shipments as he had before. The sole difference was that the operator acted under contract with the Government and was paid by it rather than by the railroads. The railroads continued to charge the same line-haul rate as before, however, on government shipments. The Government requested that the railroads continue to pay the $1 per ton for handling and wharfage of its shipments. The railroads refused. The net result is that the Government receives less services from the railroads than other shippers although it pays the same rate. Or stated in a more familiar manner it is compelled to pay more than other shippers for the same transportation even though they all ship the same kind of freight from the same points to the same pier.

Nothing in the record below or in the arguments presented to us justifies this plain discrimination. There is no finding, nor even any indication, that it costs the railroads one penny more to transport freight to the portions of the pier operated by the Government than to the immediately adjacent parts of the pier operated by their agent. And the mere fact that a discriminatory rate is embedded in a tariff does not make it legal.

It is claimed that the railroads can establish a general rule that they will not pay for wharfage and handling costs at private piers. This is undoubtedly true, but it does not follow that they can include within the line-haul rate charges for handling services at such piers that the railroads do not perform. Under any realistic appraisal, the railroads' costs for handling and wharfage services in the present situation are included as a part of their line-haul rate and are in no sense a 'free service.' The Government is compelled to pay this rate to get its goods transported. But, as the Interstate Commerce Commission expressly found, wartime conditions make it wholly impractical for the Government in shipping certain military goods to use the wharfage and handling services provided by the railroads under this rate. The Government is entitled to recover that portion of the 'line-haul' rate which it is charged for services that it cannot use. That is all it claims. There is no reason why the railroads should be allowed to operate in a manner that exacts a transportation charge from all shippers for benefits that some can enjoy and others, although in exactly the same situation, cannot. As this Court said in Union Pacific R. Co. v. Updike Grain Co., 222 U.S. 215, 220, 32 S.Ct. 39, 42, 56 L.Ed. 171, 'A rule apparently fair on its face and reasonable in its terms may, in fact, be unfair and unreasonable if it operates so as to give one an advantage of which another, similarly situated, cannot avail himself.'

I would reverse the judgment below.

Notes