The Mail Divisor Cases

Background

Railroad companies sued for extra pay after the Postmaster General changed how average mail weight was calculated. Before 1907 the Department often divided total weight by the number of working days used in the weighings (for example, 35 calendar days divided by 30 working days). On June 7, 1907, the Postmaster General issued Order No. 412 directing that the whole number of calendar days in the weighing period be used as the divisor. The Court of Claims rejected the railroads’ claims for unpaid amounts and the cases reached this Court.

Reasoning

The central question was whether statutes from 1873 onward removed the Postmaster General’s authority to set how the average weight is calculated. The Court’s majority explained that the statutes gave the Postmaster General broad discretion to arrange contracts and to determine reasonable bases for pay, and that the law did not fix the precise divisor. The majority treated Order No. 412 as a permissible exercise of that administrative discretion and held the railroads were not entitled to additional pay under the old practice. The result: judgments for the government were affirmed and the Postmaster General prevailed.

Real world impact

Railroads that accepted the Department’s weighing method and payment after Order No. 412 cannot later recover higher pay based on the earlier divisor. The ruling upholds an administrative change that lowered calculated averages and therefore reduced some rail carriers’ pay. The decision also signals that similar internal measurement rules by the Post Office are likely binding when adopted and acted upon.

Dissents or concurrances

Two Justices dissented (Day and Van Devanter). Justice Pitney concurred in the affirmances but relied on different reasoning about the meaning and effect of the weighing-day language.