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it pleases them; without ample power to enforce the production of evidence; and without any power to enforce their findings.

Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. (1912), 222 U. S. 506, is in principle exactly like the Abilene Case, and was decided upon its authority. There, the schedule published and filed conformably to the Act made a differential between coal loaded into the car from wagons and coal loaded from a tipple. Robinson's shipments having come under the higher rate, he sued to recover from the company $150 which was the excess paid by him over what would have been required if his coal had been loaded from a tipple. There was an agreed statement of facts, but in it was no suggestion that the schedule had been the subject of complaint before the Interstate Commerce Commission or had been found by that Commission to be unjustly discriminatory, or that any order had been made about it. Naturally and properly this court held that there was no right of action. The pith of the reasoning is lucidly expressed in the opinion of the court (by Mr. Justice Van Devanter) as follows (pp. 508, 509):

"The Act, c. 104, 24 Stat. 379; c. 382, 25 Stat. 855; c. 61, 28 Stat. 643; c. 708, 32 Stat. 847, whilst prohibiting unreasonable charges, unjust discriminations and undue preferences by carriers subject to its provisions, also prescribed the manner in which that prohibition should be enforced; that is to say, the Act laid upon every such carrier the duty of publishing and filing in a prescribed mode, schedules of the rates to be charged for the transportation of property over its road, declared that the rates named in schedules so established should be conclusively deemed to be the legal rates until changed as provided in the Act, forbade any deviation from them while they remained in effect, invested the Interstate Commerce Commission with authority to receive complaints against rates so established, and to inquire and find whether they were in any wise violative

PITNEY, J., dissenting.

230 U. S.

United States in the manner pointed out in the statute, prima facie effect in such courts being given to the findings of fact made by the Commission. By the ninth section of the Act it was provided as follows:

'That any person or persons claiming to be damaged by any common carrier subject to the provisions of this Act. may either make complaint to the Commission, as hereinafter provided for, or may bring suit in his or their own behalf for the recovery of the damages for which such common carrier may be liable under the provisions of this Act, in any District or Circuit Court of the United States of competent jurisdiction; but such person or persons shall not have the right to pursue both of said remedies, and must in each case elect which one of the two methods of procedure herein provided for he or they will adopt.

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"And by section 22, which we shall hereafter fully consider, existing appropriate common-law and statutory remedies were saved.

"When the Act to Regulate Commerce was enacted there was contrariety of opinion whether, when a rate charged by a carrier was in and of itself reasonable, the person from whom such a charge was exacted had at common-law an action against the carrier because of damage asserted to have been suffered by a discrimination against such person or a preference given by the carrier to another. (Parsons v. Chicago & Northwestern Ry., 167 U. S. 447, 455; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baltimore & Ohio R. R., 145 U. S. 263, 275.) That the Act to Regulate Commerce was intended to afford an effective means for redressing the wrongs resulting from unjust discrimination and undue preference is undoubted. Indeed, it is not open to controversy that to provide for these subjects was among the principal purposes of the Act. (Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Ry. Co., 167 U. S. 479, 494.) And it is apparent that the means by which these great purposes

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were to be accomplished was the placing upon all carriers the positive duty to establish schedules of reasonable rates which should have a uniform application to all and which should not be departed from so long as the established schedule remained unaltered in the manner provided by law. (Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Ry. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 162 U. S. 184; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Ry. Co., 167 Ib. 479.)

"When the general scope of the Act is enlightened by the considerations just stated it becomes manifest that there is not only a relation, but an indissoluble unity between the provision for the establishment and maintenance of rates until corrected in accordance with the statute and the prohibitions against preferences and discrimination. This follows, because unless the requirement of a uniform standard of rates be complied with it would result that violations of the statute as to preferences and discrimination would inevitably follow. This is clearly so, for if it be that the standard of rates fixed in the mode provided by the statute could be treated on the complaint of a shipper by a court and jury as unreasonable, without reference to prior action by the Commission, finding the established rate to be unreasonable and ordering the carrier to desist in the future from violating the Act, it would come to pass that a shipper might obtain relief upon the basis that the established rate was unreasonable, in the opinion of a court and jury, and thus such shipper would receive a preference or discrimination not enjoyed by those against whom the schedule of rates was continued to be enforced. This can only be met by the suggestion that the judgment of a court, when based upon a complaint made by a shipper without previous action by the Commission, would give rise to a change of the schedule rate and thus cause the new rate resulting from the action of the court to be applicable in future as to all. This suggestion, however, VOL. CCXXX--19

PITNEY, J., dissenting.

230 U. S.

is manifestly without merit, and only serves to illustrate the absolute destruction of the Act and the remedial provisions which it created which would arise from a recognition of the right asserted. For if, without previous action by the Commission, power might be exerted by courts and juries generally to determine the reasonableness of an established rate, it would follow that unless all courts reached an identical conclusion a uniform standard of rates in the future would be impossible, as the standard would fluctuate and vary, dependent upon the divergent conclusions reached as to reasonableness by the various courts called upon to consider the subject as an original question. Indeed the recognition of such a right is wholly inconsistent with the administrative power conferred upon the Commission and with the duty, which the statute casts upon that body, of seeing to it that the statutory requirement as to uniformity and equality of rates is observed. Equally obvious is it that the existence of such a power in the courts, independent of prior action by the Commission, would lead to favoritism, to the enforcement of one rate in one jurisdiction and a different one in another, would destroy the prohibitions against preferences and discrimination, and afford, moreover, a ready means by which, through collusive proceedings, the wrongs which the statute was intended to remedy could be successfully inflicted. Indeed no reason can be perceived for the enactment of the provision endowing the administrative tribunal, which the Act created, with power, on due proof, not only to award reparation to a particular shipper, but to command the carrier to desist from violation of the Act in the future, thus compelling the alteration of the old or the filing of a new schedule, conformably to the action of the Commission, if the power was left in courts to grant relief on complaint of any shipper, upon the theory that the established rate could be disregarded and be treated as unreasonable, without reference to previous action by the

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Commission in the premises. This must be, because, if the power existed in both courts and the Commission to originally hear complaints on this subject, there might be a divergence between the action of the Commission and the decision of a court. In other words, the established schedule might be found reasonable by the Commission in the first instance and unreasonable by a court acting originally, and thus a conflict would arise which would render the enforcement of the Act impossible.

"Nor is there merit in the contention that section 9 of the Act compels to the conclusion that it was the purpose of Congress to confer power upon courts primarily to relieve from the duty of enforcing the established rate by finding that the same as to a particular person or corporation was so unreasonable as to justify an award of damages. True it is that the general terms of the section when taken alone might sanction such a conclusion, but when the provision of that section is read in connection with the context of the Act and in the light of the considerations which we have enumerated, we think the broad construction contended for is not admissible. And this becomes particularly cogent when it is observed that the power of the courts to award damages to those claiming to have been injured, as provided in the section, contemplates only a decree in favor of the individual complainant, redressing the particular wrong asserted to have been done, and does not embrace the power to direct the carrier to abstain in the future from similar violations of the Act; in other words, to command a correction of the established schedules, which power, as we have shown, is conferred by the Act upon the Commission in express terms. In other words, we think that it inevitably follows from the context of the Act that the independent right of an individual originally to maintain actions in courts to obtain pecuniary redress for violations of the Act conferred by the ninth section must be confined to redress of such wrongs as can, con

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