Santa Fe, Prescott & Phœnix Railway Co. v. Grant Bros. Construction Co.

Citations

• 228 U.S. 177
• 33 S. Ct. 474
• 57 L. Ed. 787
• 1913 U.S. LEXIS 2363

Syllabus

<p>A rule of law restricting thS right of contract which rests on principles of public policy, because of the public ends to be achieved, extends no further than the reason for it and does not apply to contracts wholly outside of and not affecting those ends.</p> <p>The rule that common carriers cannot secure immunity from liability for their own negligence has no application when a railroad company is acting outside the performance of its duty as a common carrier. In such a case the ordinary rules of law relating to contracts control.</p> <p>A contract made by a railroad company for construction work is one made outside of the performance of its duty as a common carrier, and a stipulation that the contractor, in consideration of lawfully reduced rates for transportation of supplies and employés, will assume all risk of damage of any kind'even if occasioned by the company’s negligence, is not void as against public policy. Balt. & . Ohio Ry. Co. v. Voight,176 U. S. 498, followed; Railroad Co. v. Lockwood, 17 Wall. 357, distinguished.</p> <p>In dealing with transportation of supplies and employés of contractors in connection with construction and improvement of its own road, a railroad company does not act as a common carrier; arrangements made in good faith with such contractors for free or reduced rates are not violations of the prohibitions of the Interstate Commerce Act against rebates. See Matter of Railroad-Telegraph Contracts, 12 I. C. C. Rep. 10.</p> <p>Where no rule of public policy denies effect to stipulations in a contract, the highest public policy is found in enforcing the contract as actually made.</p> <p>Courts are not at liberty to revise contracts. They can only determine what the parties meant by the terms and expressions as used.</p> <p>In this cáse held that expressions to effect that the contractor assumed “all risk and damage” and the railroad company assumed “no-obligation or risk” in a contract between a railroad company and contractor for co