Pacific Portland Cement Co. v. Western Pac. R. Co

Appellee received judgments in the district court for demurrage charges alleged to have accrued on cars furnished appellant to make shipments of gypsum products. From 1924 through the two-year period covered by this suit, ending in December 1946, appellant operated a gypsum plant situate approximately five miles south of Gerlach, Nevada, a station on appellee’s main line between San Francisco, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The plant was connected with appellee’s tracks at Gerlach by a private railroad owned by appellant. Because the private tracks of appellant would not sustain a regular freight locomotive, a switch engine owned by appellant was used to haul cars between its plant and Gerlach.

From 1924 to 1926 appellant’s practice was to take onto its tracks only the number of empty cars which it was in a position to return loaded within the next six to eighteen hours. Orders for the cars were given to appellee’s Gerlach station agent before appellant removed the cars from the Gerlach yard. In 1926 the Gerlach agent requested appellant’s plant superintendent to take cars from the Gerlach yard in advance of the time they were needed for loading in order to relieve…