By petition filed July 12, 1928, respondent sought from the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia a writ of mandamus compelling petitioner, the Interstate Commerce Commission, to consider the evidence introduced in the proceeding before it known as Los Angeles Passenger Terminal Cases, 100 I. C. C. 421, I. C. C. 489, for the purpose of determining whether the Commission shall order the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, the Southern Pacific Company, and the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad Company to build and use an interstate union passenger station in the city of Los Angeles, Cal.; and after consideration of the evidence, to make such order therein as the facts may require. The Supreme Court of the District dismissed the petition. The Court of Appeals reversed its judgment and remanded the cause for further proceedings. 34 F.(2d) 228. This court granted a writ of certiorari.
The Railroad Commission of that state had in 1921 (19 Opinion of the R. R. Com. of Cal. pp. 740, 937) ordered the carriers to file plans, etc., and to acquire sufficient land within what is known as the Plaza area in that city for a union passenger station and terminal, to submit plans therefor, and, upon their approval of them by that Commission, to proceed with the construction of the station. The carriers carried these orders by writs of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the State, and that court, in Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. Railroad Commission of California, 190 Cal. 214, 244 P. 460, held that by the Transportation Act of 1920 Congress had taken exclusive authority over the matter of a union interstate terminal depot, and the court therefore denied the State Railroad Commission the jurisdiction which it had sought to exercise. The State Railroad Commission petitioned this court for writs of certiorari and at the same time instituted proceedings before the Interstate Commerce Commission which resulted in the orders above referred to.
This court granted a writ of certiorari and on April 7, 1924, rendered its decision in Railroad Commission of California v. Southern Pacific Co. et al., 264 U.S. 331, 44 S.C.t. 376, 68 L. Ed. 713, wherein, in affirming the judgment of the state court, we held that the relocation of tracks, which were incidental to the proposed union passenger station, required a certificate of approval by the Interstate Commerce Commission under paragraphs 18 to 21 of section 1, Interstate Commerce Act as amended by section 402, Transportation Act of 1920 (41 Stat. 476-478 (49 USCA § 1)), as a condition precedent to the validity of any action by the carriers or of any order by the State Railroad Commission, and that until the Interstate Commerce Commission had acted under those paragraphs, the carriers could not be required to provide a new union station or to extend their main tracks thereto as ordered by the State Railroad Commission.
Pending the hearing of the causes in 264 U.S. 331, 44 S.C.t. 376, 68 L. Ed. 713, the direct proceeding, referred to above, was instituted before the Interstate Commerce Commission by the city of Los Angeles, asking for an order by the Commission requiring the three railroads to build a new union station at the Plaza site. With it were consolidated an application by the Southern Pacific Company for authority to abandon certain main line tracks and the operation of passenger and freight train service on Alameda street, and an application by the Southern Pacific and the Salt Lake for authority to construct new, and to extend existing, lines.
The Commission held, 100 I. C. C. 421, that it was without authority to require the construction of the new union station. It said in the report, at page 430: 'We conclude that we are not empowered to require the construction of a union passenger station as sought in No. 14778. To make the record clear, we repeat that no question of discrimination or preference is presented here; and that under the issue framed in the complaint in No. 14778 we will give no consideration to matters shown of record for the purpose of determining whether we should issue an order requiring the construction and use of a union station by any of the defendants.'