CHAPTER XXIV DISTRIBUTION OF FACILITIES AVAILABLE §830. Proper management. Topic A. Arrangements Made for Facilities § 831. Notice necessary for special requirements. 832. Reservation of accommodations granted. 833. Contract obligation to supply facilities. 834. New business accepted without notification. 835. Statutory definition of these obligations. 836. Constitutionality of legislative regulation. Topic B. Proper Priorities in Service § 837. Imperative need of the company itself. 840. Perishable freight. 841. Business needs of the country. 842. Priority of accepted business. Topic C. Assignment of Available Facilities § 843. Right to assign facilities. 844. Separate accommodations. 845. Changing accommodations. 846. Insistence upon the unit of service. 847. Choice of facilities. 848. Separation based upon race. 849. No discrimination permissible in such assignment. Topic D. Fair Apportionment of Service § 850. Duty not to discriminate. 851. Serving applicants in rotation. 852. Proration of limited supply. 853. Distribution of cars to stations. 854. No part of the system given preference. 855. Apportionment of cars to shippers. 856. Basis of prorating cars. 857. Private facilities considered in the apportionment. § 830. Proper management. It must be plain to anyone familiar with the progress of the law governing public services that the oversight of the law over the conduct of public employment is becoming constantly more searching. Doubtless as those who conduct these businesses maintain, it will be wise to leave to those responsible for their management a reasonable discretion in every respect. But this does not mean that the law should not arrive at working standards of proper management with sufficient detail to be really effective. For law should always be present to hold those who have the active management strictly accountable for any conspicuous failures in public service. And in every public business it is sufficiently plain that the modern law will require efficient management according to the highest standards of the particular business.1 "At the same time, it must be remembered that railroads are the private property of their owners; that while from the public character of the work in which they are engaged, the public has power to prescribe rules for securing faithful and efficient service, and equality between shippers and communities, yet in no sense is the public a general manager." 2 Topic A. Arrangements Made for Facilities § 831. Notice necessary for special requirements. Certainly if special arrangements are desired, the proprietor is entitled to notice. If cars are needed in which to load carloads of goods, notice of that fact must be given to the carrier in advance. He cannot be expected to 1 The quotation which follows is from Interstate Comm. Comm. v. Chicago Gt. W. Ry. Co., 209 U. S. 108, 52 L. ed. 705, 28 Sup. Ct. 493 (1908), affirming an elaborate opinion in 141 Fed. 1003 (1905). 2 See Lake Shore & M. S. Ry. Co. v. Smith, 173 U. S. 684, 43 L. ed. 858, 19 Sup. Ct. 565 (1899). 1 provide empty cars of every sort at each station enough to meet an unexpected demand. Only after reasonable notice of the need of such a car will he be liable for delay in supplying the car. This was particularly plain in a recent case 2 where a shipper, an importer, complained that the railroad company had not kept sufficient cattle cars in readiness near the wharves to take his cattle from incoming vessels, although he had apprised them generally of his contingent needs. But the court held that upon such a requisition the railroad company need not keep over a hundred cattle cars tied up at the wharf station for many days in expectation of the arrival of the designated steamers, and certainly they were under no obligation to keep in touch with the bulletins posted at the chamber of commerce for the purpose of ascertaining when vessels would be reported, so as to be prepared to furnish carriage for the transportation of their cargoes. § 832. Reservation of accommodations granted. It is customary in certain services, in innkeeping and carriage particularly, to reserve accommodations upon cer however, further notice is unnecessary: Indiana.-Pittsburgh, C., C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Racer, 10 Ind. App. 503, 37 N. E. 280, 38 N. E. 186 (1894). North Carolina.-McAbsher v. Richmond & D. R. R. Co., 108 N. C. 344, 12 S. E. 892 (1891). 2 Di Giorgio Imp. & S. S. Co. v. Pennsylvania Ry. Co., 104 Md. 693, 65 Atl. 425, 8 L. R. A. (N. S.) 108 (1906). But in Maryland as elsewhere a reasonable request for cars must be honored. Baltimore & O. R. R. Co. v. Whitehill, 104 Md. 295, 64 Atl. 1033 (1906). |