Interstate Commerce Commission v. Mechling, Doing Business As A. L. Mechling Barge Line, et al. (330 U.S. 567)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 31, 1947 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 330 U.S. 567 · 67 S. Ct. 894
- Docket
- No. 72
- Argued
- February 12, 1947
- Decided
- March 31, 1947
- Term
- October Term 1946
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Black
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Burton, Justice Douglas, Justice Reed, Justice Black (wrote), Justice Rutledge, Justice Murphy
- Dissenting
- Justice R. H. Jackson (wrote), Justice Frankfurter (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. A District Court of three judges enjoined in part an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the case is here on appeal under 28 U. S. C. §§ 47, 47a, and 345. The Commission order specifically relates to the railroad rate for grain transported from Chicago, Illinois, to New York and other eastern points, after that grain has been transported to Chicago from the west by connecting rail or water carriers on through bills of lading. In such through shipments the through rate is a combination of distinctly separate rates charged respectively for shipments from the west to Chicago and from Chicago to the east. The charge fixed for the last leg of the shipment is called, in railroad parlance, a “reshipping” or “proportional” rate. It is lower from Chicago to the east than a “local” rate charged for a shipment from Chicago to the east which originates in Chicago. See Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. United States, 279 U. S. 768, 771. For many years eastern railroads have carried grain east from Chicago at reshipping rates 8% cents per hundred pounds lower than local rates. Up to 1939 this Chicago-to-the-east reshipping rate had been identical for grain, whether brought to Chicago by a connecting railroad, connecting lake steamer, or connecting barge. Although barge lines were much slower than railroads, they were less…
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