Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. United States, 295 U.S. 193 (1935)

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. United States

No. 606

Argued March 15, 1935
Decided April 29, 1935 *
295 U.S. 193

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

Syllabus

1. By long usage and under § 15(5) of the Interstate Commerce Act, the unloading into pens of ordinary livestock consigned in carload lots to the Chicago stockyards is a transportation service to be performed by the carrier without extra charge to the shipper or consignee. P. 198.

2. The boundary between the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission and the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Agriculture under the Packers and Stockyards Act, with respect to livestock consigned to public stockyards, is where the transportation ends. P. 201.

3. A consignee of livestock, upon receiving cattle unloaded from the cars into the unloading pens, drove them over the property of the stockyards company, including a viaduct, directly into the consignee’s plant. The Interstate Commerce Commission ruled that a yardage charge for use of the stockyards facilities was unlawful, and ordered the carriers and the Yards Company to desist from exacting it, but no definite finding was made as to what constituted complete delivery or where transportation ended. Held that the order was invalid for want of basic findings. P. 201.

4. This Court will not search the record to ascertain whether, by use of what there may be found, general and ambiguous statements in the report, intended to serve as findings, may by construction be given a meaning sufficiently definite and certain to constitute a valid basis for the order. P. 201.

5. Lack of express finding by an administrative agency may not be supplied by implication. P. 202.

8 F.Supp. 825 reversed.

Appeals from a decree of the District Court, constituted of three judges, dismissing a suit to enjoin enforcement of an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission.