New Mexico Wool Growers' Ass'n v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co.

Citations

• 20 N.M. 33
• 145 P. 1077

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>The State Corporation Commission is authorized by the provisions of section 7, art. 11, of the state Constitution to require railway companies to provide and maintain adequate depots, stock pens, station buildings, agents, and facilities for the accommodation of pássengers and for receiving and delivering freight and express. Upon a petition presented to the Commission asking that a railway company be required to install and maintain hoof stock scales at designated stations, the burden of proof rested upon the petitioner to establish the fact that such scales were a necessary facility for receiving and delivering shipments of live stock. Where the evidence shows that the rates for the shipment of live stock are based upon the minimum capacity of cars, in stated pounds, and that the weights are determined upon track scales in transit or at points of destination, and that hoof stock scales are never used for determining the weight upon which the tariff is based, and that in loading stock into the cars the shipper loads the same, not according' to weight, but places in a given car only so much stock as will ride safely to the point of destination, without over-crowding and consequent suffocation, and that the - only useful purpose such scales would serve would be to enable the shipper to settle with those from whom he has purchased live stock, at the point of shipment, such hoof stock scales cannot reasonably be held to be a necessary facility for receiving and delivering freight.</p> <p>P. 37</p>