Baltimore & Ohio Railroad v. Public Service Commission

Citations

• 68 Pa. Super. 503
• 1917 Pa. Super. LEXIS 157

Syllabus

<p>Railroads — Rates—Iron a/nd steel companies — Transportation of slag — Waste—Public Service Commission.</p> <p>Iron and steel companies have no natural or statutory right to impose upon carrier railroads in their vicinity the burden of disposing, without compensation, of the waste slag which necessarily results from the manufacture of the products they market and sell, although the railroad companies transport to their plants raw material which they use, and caray away the finished products. Such companies cannot assert that reasonable compensation for such services is concealed in the published rates which they pay for bringing in their raw materials, and taking away their finished product; nor can they claim that they are exempt from such charges because the railroad companies, for a long period of time, but under different circumstances and conditions, did not enforce such payment.</p> <p>Aai order of the Public Service Commission setting aside and abolishing a published schedoile of rates for slag without establishing another schedule of rates in its place, will be reversed by the Superior Court, in the absence of any finding by the eoonmission that the railroads were and are being paid a just and reasonable compeoisation for the disposition of the slag, by reason of any pecooliarly favorable rate charged for the incoming and outgoing freight of the shipping companies. The appellate court will not attempt to fix a rate, but will reverse the order and remit the case to the Public Service Coonmissioao. for further proper investigation and -action.</p> <p>If railroad companies require in the construction and maintenance of their road beds, certain quantities of slag each year, they may lawfully arrange with the companies that produce the slag for the disposition of it; but the railroad companies cannot be compelled to accept slag where they do not need it or require it, and of such need they must be the judges.</p>