v.
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company
The controlling facts in this case are as follows: The Clark Coal & Coke Company and other companies doing a wholesale coal business in Davenport, Iowa, had for a number of years shipped coal from points in Illinois to themselves as 'consignees at Davenport, and, upon receipt of orders for said coal, they would pay the freight charges of the initial carrier in full, have the cars of coal placed on the interchange track, and thereafter tender a written billing for said coal to the defendant company to 'be shipped to various points in Iowa under the Iowa distance tariff. The defendant company finally refused to receive said coal under such billing, unless the same was unloaded and reloaded in its own equipment. Complaint was thereupon made to the Board of Eailroad i Commissioners of the state, and upon a hearing an order i was made requiring the defendant to accept said' coal for ;.f transportation in whatever equipment loaded, without requiring a reloading in its own equipment. The defendant [ railway company refused to comply with the order of the commissioners, - and this action was thereupon brought to compel compliance therewith. '¡The defendant answered the petition, and also filed a cross-petition asking that the said order of the Board of Eailroad Commissioners be set aside; the substance of the answer and the cross-petition1' being that the order was an attempt on the part of the ‘, board to regulate commerce between the several states, that ! it relates to shipments between the states and not to a ship- [' ment originating within the State of Iowa, and further j alleging that the Board of Eailroad Commissioners was f and is without authority to make said order, because it is ¡J contrary to the provisions of the Constitution of the United/ States. -
It was also alleged that the board was without author-1 [*319] 'ity to require the defendant to accept the cars mentioned and contemplated by said order, .because the statutes ofj, the state only require it to accept cars from the connecting carrier itself, and not from an individual or private person not operating a line of railway. It should first be deter] mined whether, under the facts presented, the shipment1 tendered to the defendant was an interstate shipment. That the shipment from Illinois to Davenport was such a shipment is unquestioned, but it does not necessarily follow that the shipment tendered to the defendant was merely a continuation of such interstate shipment. There could be an ending of its • interstate character by a delivery to the consignee, and thereafter its trahsportation over the defendant’s road from Davenport to some other point within the state would be an intrastate shipment only, so that the primary question for determination is whether there was, in fact, a delivery by the initial carrier to the consignees in Davenport.
In State v. Mason City & Ft. Dodge R. Co., 85 Iowa, [*322] 516, we held that the railroad commissioners had author-J ity, under the provisions of section 2113, to order a pri-j vate crossing for the benefit of the landowner. No just dis-j, tinetion can be made between that case and this one, and hence it is authority for our conclusion that the order in question was authorized by section 2113. The general intent of the statute is' further made manifest by Code Supp. 1907, section 2153, which provides that: “Every owner or consignor of freight to be transported by railway from any point within this state to any other point within this state shall have the right to require that the same shall be transported over two or more connecting lines of railway, to be transferred at the connecting point or points without change of car or cars, if in carload lots, . . . and it shall be the duty, upon request of any such owner or consignor of freight, ... to transport the freight without change of-car or cars, if the shipment be fin carload lot or lots.” The Legislature in the statute just quoted evidently recognized the long-continued custom of railroads of receiving the cars of other roads for the transportation of freight over their own roads without breaking bulk. It is a custom so general as to be within the knowledge of all men, and it has been practised so long that the courts will take judicial notice of it. Burlington, C. R. & N. Ry. Co. v. Dey, 82 Iowa, 312. Under the authority of section 2153, the owner or consignor of freight for shipment from one point to another within the state may require the carrier to transport it without change of cars. We can see no reason why the same requirement should not be held proper under the facts presented here, and we believe that the Legisla-( ture intended to and did clothe the board with the power to make such a requirement when deemed reasonable and ' expedient for the convenience and accommodation of the shipper. The fact that section 2116 refers only to cars of connecting roads is not very significant in view of the general powers conferred by sections 2112 and 2113. It prob [*323] ably never occurred to tbe members of the Legislature that a railroad company would refuse to accept freight in carload lots unless loaded in its own cars. An examination of almost any freight traiu on any road in the United States would furnish a sufficient reason for a contrary conclusion.
We reach the conclusion that the judgment should be, and it is, affirmed.