Kansas City Southern Railway Co. v. United States

Citations

• 55 Ct. Cl. 515
• 252 U.S. 147

Syllabus

<p>Judgment was rendered in favor of the defendants in the court below. On appeal the judgment was affirmed and the Supreme Court decided:</p> <p>A railroad company which enters into a contract to carry the mails “ upon the conditions prescribed by law,” etc., is liable to fines or deductions from its compensation for failures to maintain its mail train schedules (Rev. Stats., secs. 3962, 4002; act of June 26, 1906, c. 3546, 34 Stat. 472).</p> <p>The fact that the Post Office Department long abstained from making such deductions under Rev. Stats., sec. 3962, where delays were less than 24 hours, does not amount to construing that section as inapplicable to shorter delays.</p> <p>And in any event, the right to such construction could not be claimed by a company whose contract was made soon after the Postmaster General had issued an order for deductions in future when trains arrived 15 or more minutes late a designated number of times per quarter, and soon after the approval of the act of June 26, 1906, supra, directing him to impose and collect reasonable fines for failure of railroads to comply with their contracts respecting the times of arrival and departure of trains.</p>