Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 222 U.S. 506 (1912)

Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company

No. 17

Submitted April 28, 1911
Decided January 9, 1912
222 U.S. 506

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS

OF THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

Syllabus

By the Act to Regulate Commerce, Congress has provided a system for establishing, maintaining, and altering rate schedules and of redressing injuries, and committed to a single tribunal authority to investigate complaints, enforce conformity to prescribed standards, and order reparation to injured parties for nonconformity with those standards.

No action for reparation for exactions for railroad freight payments can be maintained in any court, federal or state, in the absence of an appropriate finding and order of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The rule laid down in Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Abilene Oil Co., 204 U.S. 426, as to suits for recovery of unreasonable rates applies also to suits for recovery of rates as discriminatory.

Section 14 of the Act to Regulate Commerce, making decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission as published in the official reports competent evidence, does not relieve a party relying on a decision from putting it in evidence -- or require courts to take judicial notice thereof; the statute relieves from expense and inconvenience in connection with producing evidence, but it does not otherwise change the rules of evidence.

In this case, held that an action could not be maintained for discriminatory exaction on coal rates of fifty cents a ton when loaded from wagons and not from tipples, as the complaint had not shown that the schedule had been the subject of complaint to the Interstate Commerce Commission and held by it to be discriminatory.

64 W.Va. 406 affirmed.

The facts, which involve the validity of charges of common carriers on coal shipments and whether illegal discrimination existed, are stated in the opinion.