Argument for Intervenors.

225 U. S.

Sales, § 278; and the railroad journey and responsibility begins, Hutchinson on Carriers, § 158; Abe v. Eaton, 51 N. Y. 410. The liability of the carrier, in fact, begins as soon as it receives the merchandise for carriage, even if bills of lading have not been shipped or a journey commenced; the mere reception of the goods for the purpose of immediate transportation is sufficient to inaugurate liability. Ames v. Fargo, 114 App. Div. 666; S. C., 42 Hun, 332; Hutchinson on Carriers, § 113.

The sole distinction between sugar shipped by Arbuckle Brothers to themselves in one and the same car with the general merchandise of another shipper is that the carrier has contracted with the shipper to do a service and furnish an instrumentality of transportation. This the Congress, on the recommendation of the Commission, has expressly authorized.

The Commission exceeded its power in forbidding payment to the Jay Street Terminal for handling Arbuckle Brothers' sugar, because the terminal service is a part of the railroad transportation, the statute allows the carrier to hire the shipper to render such a service and furnish such instrumentality, and the allowance is conceded to be no more than is just and reasonable. Interstate Com. Comm. v. Diffenbaugh, 222 U. S. 42; Union Pacific R. Co. v. Updike Grain Co., 222 U. S. 215.

It is beyond the power of the Commission to order payments to the Federal Company for lightering sugar to the railroad terminals. Wight v. United States, 167 U. S. 512; Chicago & Alton R. Co. v. United States, 156 Fed. Rep. 558; General Electric Co. v. N. Y. C. & H. R. Co., 14 I. C. C. 237; Solvay Process Co. v. D., L. & W. R. Co., 14 I. C. C. 246; Matter of Allowance for Transfer of Sugar, 14 I. C. C. 619.

It is not a discrimination to contract with the Jay Street Terminal to maintain a railroad freight station in Brooklyn and there to collect, receive and deliver freight,

225 U.S.

Argument for Intervenors.

issue bills of lading and float loaded cars between Brooklyn and Jersey City, and at the same time refuse to contract with the Federal Sugar Refining Company for lighterage from Pier 24. Interstate Com. Comm. v. Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., 145 U. S. 276; Central Stock Yards Co. v. L. & N. R. Co., 118 Fed. Rep. 113; aff'd, 192 U. S. 568. See, also, Covington S. Y. Co. v. Keith, 139 U. S. 128; United States v. D., L. & W. R. R. Co., 40 Fed. Rep. 101.

It is lawful for a railroad to procure equipment by lease from one shipper and to refuse to make identical contracts with other shippers. Consol. Forwarding Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 9 I. C. C. 182; Worcester Ex. Co. v. P. R. Co., 3 I. C. C. 577. See, also, Matter of Trans. of Fruit, 1 I. C. C. 360.

It is beyond the power of the Commission to allow more than the cost of lighterage to the Federal Company to offset less than cost paid the Jay Street Terminal for its services. Minn. & St. L. R. Co. v. Minnesota, 186 U. S. 257; Matter of Allowance for Transfer of Sugar, 14 I. C. C. 619.

It is elementary that a partner may engage with other persons in a partnership business outside the scope of his firm business, provided it does not compete therewith. Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, Vol. 22, p. 118; Gossett v. Wilson, 3 Florida, 235; Weaver v. Weaver, 46 N. H. 188.

It necessarily follows that if one partner may engage in a separate and distinct business with other persons under a different partnership name, he may also engage in a separate and distinct business under a different name with the same persons who constitute the firm of which he is already a member. These two partnerships composed of the same individual members engaged in separate and distinct enterprises under different names are in the eyes of the law separate and distinct entities.

Under the Bankrupt Act a partnership is a separate and. distinct legal entity from the individuals who compose it.

Collier on Bankruptcy, pp. 114, 115, 116; In re Sunderlin, 109 Fed. Rep. 857; In re McMurtrey, 142 Fed. Rep. 853.

A partnership may be adjudged a bankrupt although the partners who compose it are not so adjudicated. In re Bertenshaw, 157 Fed. Rep. 363.

The Bankrupt Act is merely declaratory of recognized equitable principles in the administration of insolvent partnerships. Hewitt v. Northrup, 75 N. Y. 506; Wilder v. Keeler, 3 Paige, 67.

Arbuckle Brothers and Jay Street Terminal are separate and distinct entities.

Mr. H. B. Closson filed a brief for the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, appellee.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a suit instituted in the Commerce Court to enjoin the enforcement of an order by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The complainants in the bill are The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, The Central Railroad Company of New Jersey, The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company, The Erie Railroad Company, The Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, The New York, Ontario and Western Railway Company, and The Pennsylvania Railroad Company. The Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal and John Arbuckle and William A. Jamison, copartners, trading as the Jay Street Terminal, intervened and were made parties complainant, they being interested to defeat the order of the Commission.

The defendant named in the bill is the United States. The Interstate Commerce Commission appeared, and the Federal Sugar Refining Company intervened and was made a party defendant.

The order which it was the purpose of the suit to enjoin was made in a proceeding commenced before the Commission on behalf of the Federal Sugar Refining Company, to compel the railroads above named to desist and abstain from paying to Arbuckle Brothers, claimed to be operating what is known as the Jay Street Terminal, certain so-called allowances for floatage, lighterage and terminal services rendered by them to the complainants in connection with sugar transported by them in New York Harbor to and for the complainants, while at the same time paying no such allowances to the said Federal Sugar Refining Company on its sugar.

We substantially adopt as accurate a summary statement made of the subject-matter of the controversy in the brief of counsel for the railroad companies:

"The Federal Sugar Refining Company has a refinery at Yonkers, N. Y., and Arbuckle Brothers have a refinery in the Borough of Brooklyn, New York City. The railroad companies operate what are known as trunk line railroads, extending from New York to western and southern points. In order to receive and deliver freight in New York City they are obliged to transport the same across the waters of New York harbor on lighters by what is called lighterage service, or, when the freight is carried through in railroad cars, on car floats by what is called floatage service. "At numerous points along the New York City water front within the lighterage limits they have established public stations for the receipt and delivery of freight.

"They have also established boundaries known as 'lighterage limits,' including substantially all of what may be called the manufacturing and commercial portion of the water front of New York City and the opposite shore of New Jersey and within these boundaries they receive and deliver freight at any accessible point on the water front without any additional charge above the New York rates, which are, generally speaking, the same as the rates

to and from the terminals on the New Jersey shore. At 'public' docks open to any vessel, the railroad pays the wharfage; at private docks the shipper or consignee must arrange for the necessary dockage.

"At a number of points in the Boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx, the railroad companies or some of them furnish public stations through arrangements made with terminal companies to furnish union public stations and terminal facilities for the receipt and delivery of freight in cars and through freight houses, and for the transportation of such freight between such terminal stations and the railroad companies' rails on the western shore of the harbor, all of which is done for and in the name of the railroad companies under provisions of their tariffs filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission under which their New York rates apply to and from such union public stations.

"One of these public terminal stations, known as the Jay Street Terminal, is owned and operated by William A. Jamison and John Arbuckle, conducting a separate business in that respect as copartners under the name and style of 'Jay Street Terminal' in accordance with the laws of the State of New York. Jay Street Terminal is named as a station of the railroad companies, appellees, in their respective tariffs, and is conducted under contract with the railroad companies like any other freight station, bills of lading being issued from and to it on behalf of the railroad companies and in their names, on the regular uniform form, charges being collected and accounts kept, the Jay Street Terminal performing the entire physical and clerical service and furnishing the necessary docks, freight yard and station buildings and equipment, excepting cars. The Jay Street Terminal also floats or lighters all shipments between the terminal and the rails of the railroad companies on the New Jersey shore. For these services and facilities each railroad company pays to the