Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/107/691/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:30:38+00:00

Document:
"that may discharge or receive freight, or land on or anchor at or in front of any public landing or wharf belonging to the city, for the purpose of discharging or receiving freight."
A transportation company, owning duly enrolled and licensed steamers which ply between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and touch at the intermediate points complained that the wharfage was extortionate, and was merely a pretext for levying a duty of tonnage. The company thereupon filed a bill in the circuit court, praying that the prosecution of a suit brought by the city in the state court to collect the wharfage be enjoined and that the ordinance be declared void and that other relief he granted. Held that the character of the charges must be determined by the ordinance itself, and as it on its face imposed them for the use of the wharf only, and not for entering the port or lying at anchor in the river, the court, though it might deem them unreasonable and exorbitant, will not entertain an averment that they were intended as a duty of tonnage, nor inquire into the secret purpose of the body imposing them.
2. Wharfage is the compensation which the owner of a wharf demands for the use thereof; a duty of tonnage is a charge for the privilege of entering, or loading at or lying in, a port or harbor, and can be laid only by the United States.
3. The question as to which of these classes, if either, a charge against a vessel or its owner belongs is one not of intent, but of fact and law -- of fact whether the charge is imposed for the use of a wharf or for the privilege of entering a port; of law whether, upon the facts which are shown to exist, it is wharfage or a duty of tonnage.
4. Although wharves are related to commerce and navigation as aids and conveniences, yet being local in their nature, and requiring special regulations at particular places, the jurisdiction and control thereof, in the absence of congressional legislation on the subject, properly belong to the states in which they are situated.
5. A suit for relief against exorbitant wharfage cannot, as one arising under the Constitution or the laws of the United States, be maintained in the circuit court, even though it be alleged that the wharfage was intended as a duty of tonnage, the alleged intent not being traversable.
which the city may lawfully charge and receive wharfage for the purpose of discharging or receiving freight shall pay the city for wharfage the following sums or rates for each respectively, to-wit: on steamboats of less than 100 tons burden, three dollars for the first twenty-four hours or any part thereof, and one dollar and fifty cents for every subsequent twenty-four hours, or any part thereof; on steamboats of 100 and less than 150 tons, three dollars and seventy-five cents for the first, and two dollars for every subsequent twenty-four hours, or any part thereof, and so on, regulating the charges according to the tonnage, and reducing them where only a small quantity of freight is discharged or received. Provision is then made for recovering the wharfage by bringing the parties before the recorder or a justice of the peace. The bill alleges that under and by virtue of this ordinance, the City of Parkersburg has, ever since the organization of the complainant, required it and its agents to pay the charges provided in the ordinance for all the steamboats owned or controlled by it that have discharged or received freight or passengers or landed at the said wharf, which payments have been made under protest.
are based upon and regulated solely by the 'tons burden' of said boats, and said charges are made indiscriminately, whether the boat lands or anchors at or in front of any public landing or wharf of said city. And your orator further avers that the Congress of the United States has never given its consent to the passage or enforcement of said ordinance, but, on the contrary, tonnage duties are expressly prohibited by sec. 4220 of the Revised Statutes of the United States to be levied upon enrolled or licensed vessels trading from one port in the United States to another port within the same."
The bill further alleges that the rates charged by the ordinance are unreasonable, extortionate, and oppressive, and are made and levied as a tax upon commerce for the express purpose (under the assumed pretense of wharfage dues) of replenishing its treasury and increasing its revenue; that the cost of the wharf has been collected over and over again; that it is allowed to remain in bad repair, and that the wharfage dues collected have been used for other city purposes, paying its debts, etc.; that in the year of 1876, over $2,700 was collected from the various boats and vessels, less than $50 of which was spent on the wharf, and the same thing in other years. These facts are stated for the purpose of showing the extortionate character of the ordinance, and that it is used for the purpose of laying duties and imposts on imports and exports.
The bill further shows that for the recent refusal of the complainant to pay these wharfage charges, the City of Parkersburg has instituted suits against it before the recorder under said ordinance; wherefore it prays a decree to restrain all further proceedings against the complainant by said suits or otherwise, from enforcing any judgment recovered by the city for the violation of said ordinance, or otherwise interfering with the rights of the complainant to the free use of the Ohio River by means of its steamboats, and for the recovery of moneys already exacted from it under said ordinance, amounting to over $2,000, and that the ordinance may be declared null and void.
To this bill the defendants demurred, and upon argument of the demurrer the bill was dismissed. From that decree the present appeal is taken.
If sec. 720 of the Revised Statutes, which declares that "the writ of injunction shall not be granted by any court of the United States to stay proceedings in any court of a state," applies to suits originally brought in the circuit courts by virtue of the Act of March 3, 1875, in cases arising "under the Constitution or laws of the United States," it is clear that so much of the bill in this case as prays for an injunction to restrain legal proceedings already instituted before the recorder of Parkersburg before it was filed cannot be maintained. But that portion of the bill which seeks to have the wharfage ordinance declared void and to restrain any further collections under it and any further interference with the right of the complainant to the free navigation of the Ohio River is not open to this objection, and perhaps the demand for a return of the wharfage already paid (although itself of a legal nature) may come in as incidental to the other relief. The main question to be solved is whether, as contended by the complainant, the ordinance is void as being in violation of the Constitution or any law of the United States.
redress for unreasonable wharfage are fixed and settled. But whether a charge imposed is a charge of wharfage or a duty of tonnage must be determined by the terms of the ordinance or regulation which imposes it. They are not the same thing; a duty of tonnage is a charge for the privilege of entering, or trading, or lying in, a port or harbor; wharfage is a charge for the use of a wharf. Exorbitant wharfage may have a similar effect as a burden on commerce as a duty of tonnage has, but it is exorbitant wharfage, and not a duty of tonnage, and the remedy for the one is different from the remedy for the other. The question whether it is the one or the other is not one of intent, but one of fact and law; of fact as whether the charge is made for the use of a wharf or for entering the port; of law as whether, according as the fact is shown to exist, it is wharfage or a duty of tonnage. The intent is not material, and is not traversable. It is not like the case of a deed absolute on its face, but intended as a mortgage; there, the intent is the result of an agreement between the parties, which may be proved and which it would operate as a fraud on one of the parties not to allow to be proved. Nor is it like the case of a mistake in an instrument, by which the intent of the parties contravened; in that case also, the actual agreement between them may be shown for the purpose of correcting the instrument. Nor is it like the case of an intent to deceive or defraud or to commit a crime; there, the intent is a material part of the offense charged, while in the present case, a supposed intent is suggested for the purpose of making of one act another and a different act. It is, in truth, more like the case of an averment to contradict the express terms of a written instrument by parol.
"That under and by virtue of said ordinance, the City of Parkersburg has, ever since the time of organization of your orator, required your orator, its agents, and servants, to pay to it the charges provided in said ordinance for all steamboats owned or controlled by your orator that have discharged or received freight or passengers, or landed at its said wharf."
"No vessel belonging to any citizen of the United States, trading from one port within the United States to another port within the United States or employed in the bank, whale, or other fisheries, shall be subject to tonnage tax or duty if such vessel be licensed, registered, or enrolled,"
at a wharf or landing. The one is imposed by the government; the other by the owner of the wharf or landing. The one is a commercial regulation, dictated by the general policy of the country upon considerations having reference to its commerce or revenue; the other is a rent charged by the owner of the property for its temporary use. It is obvious that the mode of rating the charge in either case, whether according to the size or capacity of the vessel or otherwise, has nothing to do with its essential nature. It is also obvious that since a wharf is property, and wharfage is a charge or rent for its temporary use, the question whether the owner derives more or less revenue from it, or whether more or less than the cost of building and maintaining it, or what disposition he makes of such revenue, can in no way concern those who make use of the wharf and are required to pay the regular charges therefor, provided always that the charges are reasonable and not exorbitant.
"If the King or subject have a public wharf unto which all persons that come to that port must come and unlade or lade their goods as for the purpose because they are the wharves only licensed by the King, according to the statutes of 1 Eliz. cap. 11, or because there is no other wharf in that port, as it may fall out where a port is newly erected; in that case there cannot be taken arbitrary and excessive duties for cranage, wharfage, pesage, etc.; neither can they be enhanced to an immoderate rate, but the duties must be reasonable and moderate, though settled by the King's license or charter."
Be this, however, as it may, it is an undoubted rule of universal application that wharfage for the use of all public wharves must be reasonable. But then the question arises by what law is this rule established, and by what law can it be enforced? By what law is it to be decided whether the charges imposed are or are not extortionate? There can be but one answer to these questions. Clearly it must be by the local municipal law, at least until some superior or paramount law has been prescribed. At Parkersburg, it is the law of West Virginia. The rule referred to is a rule of the common law, undoubtedly, but it has force in West Virginia because the common law is the law of that state, and not because it is the law of the United States. The courts of the United States do not enforce the common law in municipal matters in the states because it is federal law, but because it is the law of the state.
expensive canal. It has created ports of delivery along the river, of which the City of Parkersburg itself is one, and others are at Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Cincinnati, Louisville, Madison, Jeffersonville, New Albany, Evansville, Paducah, and Cairo. It has regulated the bridges which have been thrown across the river by authority of the states. It authorized the Wheeling Bridge to stand after this Court had declared it to be a nuisance, requiring the officers of all vessels to regulate their pipes and chimneys so as not to interfere with the bridge, 10 Stat. 112, thus extending its common protection to commerce by land and commerce by water. It required the Newport and Cincinnati Bridge to be removed or placed at a greater height above the water after having been constructed in accordance with the laws of the states and of the United States. 16 Stat. 572.
Now wharves, levees, and landing places are essential to commerce by water no less than a navigable channel and a clear river. But they are attached to the land; they are private property, real estate, and they are primarily, at least, subject to the local state laws. Congress has never yet interposed to supervise their administration; it has hitherto left this exclusively to the states. There is little doubt, however, that Congress, if it saw fit, in case of prevailing abuses in the management of wharf property -- abuses materially interfering with the prosecution of commerce -- might interpose and make regulations to prevent such abuses. When it shall have done so, it will be time enough for the courts to carry its regulations into effect by judicial proceedings properly instituted. But until Congress has acted, the courts of the United States cannot assume control over the subject as a matter of federal cognizance. It is the Congress, and not the judicial department, to which the Constitution has given the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states. The courts can never take the initiative on this subject.
commission of acts done or attempted to be done under the authority of such unconstitutional laws. In such cases, the nonaction or silence of Congress will be deemed to be an indication of its will that no exaction or restraint shall be imposed. Such is the import of the various passenger cases in which this Court has pronounced unconstitutional any tax, duty, or other exaction imposed by the states upon emigrants landing in the country. Such is also the import of those cases in which it has been held that state laws imposing discriminating burdens upon the persons or products of other states are unconstitutional, it being deemed the intent of Congress that interstate commerce shall be free where it has not itself imposed any restrictions thereon. See Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 48 U. S. 462; Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299, 53 U. S. 319; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713; Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 42; Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, 79 U. S. 432; Case of the State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. 232, 82 U. S. 279; Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275; Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U. S. 259, 92 U. S. 272; People v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, ante, p. 107 U. S. 59.
for the regulation of pilots and pilotage is plain. The act of 1789 contains a clear and authoritative declaration by the first Congress that the nature of this subject is such that until Congress should find it necessary to exert its power, it should be left to the legislation of the states; that it is local and not national; that it is likely to be best provided for not by one system or plan of regulations, but by as many as the legislative discretion of the several states should deem applicable to the local peculiarities of the ports within their limits."
No words could be more fitly applied to the subject of the regulation of wharves than are here used by the court in reference to pilotage. It is true, no act of Congress has relegated the subject of wharfage to the states, as was done in the case of pilotage; but this was not necessary; the regulation of wharves belongs. prima facie and in the first instance, to the states, and would only be assumed by Congress when its exercise by the states is incompatible with the interests of commerce, and Congress has never yet assumed to take that regulation into its own hands or to interfere with the regulation of the states.
declaration that nothing shall be done with respect to them, but is rather to be deemed a declaration that, for the time being and until it sees fit to act, they may be regulated by state authority."
See also the remarks of THE CHIEF JUSTICE in Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. S. 485.
It is not necessary to cite other cases. The principle laid down in Cooley v. Board of Wardens has become fully recognized and established in our jurisprudence, and it is manifest that no subject can be more properly classified as local in its nature and as requiring the application of local regulations than that of wharves and wharfage.
From this view it is plain that the courts of the United States have no authority to ignore the state laws and regulations on the subject of wharves and wharfage and to declare them invalid by reason of any supposed repugnancy to the Constitution or laws of the United States. As already remarked, the courts cannot take the initiative in this matter. Congress must first legislate before the courts can proceed upon any such ground of paramount jurisdiction. If the rates of wharfage exacted are deemed extortionate or unreasonable, the courts of the United States (in cases within their ordinary jurisdiction) as well as the courts of the states must apply and administer the state laws relating to the subject, and these laws will probably in most cases be found to be sufficient for the suppression of any glaring evils. At all events, there is not at present any federal law on the subject by which relief can be obtained.
former cases on this subject were reviewed in Escanaba Company v. Chicago, ante, p. 107 U. S. 678.
It is believed that no case can be found in which state laws or regulations under state authority on subjects of a local nature have been set aside on the ground of repugnance to the power of regulating commerce given to Congress unless it has appeared that they were contrary to some express provision of the Constitution or to some act of Congress or that they amounted to an assumption of power exclusively conferred upon Congress.
"The court will enter upon the inquiry whether the laws of New York, as expounded by the highest tribunal of that state, have, in their application to this case, come into a collision with an act of Congress and deprived a citizen of a right to which the act entitles him."
Subsequent cases are to the same effect, among which, in addition to those already cited in this opinion, we may refer to Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35; Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418; Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275; Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U. S. 259, and People v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, ante, p. 107 U. S. 59.
"That if the said bridge shall be so constructed as to injure the navigation of said river, the said bridge shall be treated as a public nuisance and shall be liable to abatement upon the same principles and in the same manner that other public nuisances are."
"that the use and navigation of the River Ohio, so far as the territory of the proposed state or the territory that shall remain within the limits of this commonwealth lies thereon, shall be free and common to the citizens of the United States,"
and to this act the assent of Congress was given by the Act of Feb. 4, 1791, c. 4. "This compact," the Court said, "by the sanction of Congress, has become a law of the Union." Upon all these grounds, it was held that the State of Pennsylvania, having large interests which were affected by the erection of the bridge, was entitled to a decree for its prostration as a nuisance unless such alterations should be made in its construction as to leave the navigation of the river unimpaired.
as Congress sees fit to abstain from action on the subject, our conclusion is that it is entirely within the domain and subject to the operation of the state laws.
The City of Parkersburg -- which has been created a port of delivery in conformity with the laws of the United States -- exacts and collects for the use of its wharf by boats engaged in commerce on the Ohio River certain fees or dues, called wharfage charges, which, pursuant to the ordinance of May 17, 1865, are in every case measured by the tonnage or capacity of the boat so using the wharf.
from boats for its use is largely in excess of any expense incurred in its maintenance and repair; that it has been permitted to become and remain in bad repair at times almost unfit for use; that nearly all the money so raised is applied by the city to increase its general revenue and pay it indebtedness; and, lastly, that the wharfage charges are unreasonable in amount and oppressive.
The opinion of the Court, if I do not wholly misapprehend it, proceeds upon the broad ground that municipal wharfage charges, even when measured by the tonnage of the boat, and however much in excess of fair and reasonable compensation, are not duties of tonnage within the meaning of the Constitution, and that their exaction infringes no right given or secured by the Constitution or the existing statues of the United States. If, however, such charges are duties of tonnage, or if their collection violates any right so given or secured, then a case unquestionably arises under the Constitution or laws of the United States of which the circuit court, under the Act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, can take original jurisdiction, without reference to the citizenship of the parties.
I had supposed, and am still of opinion, that a vessel or boat duly enrolled and licensed under the laws of the United States (as those of the appellant are conceded to be) and engaged in commerce upon the Ohio, a public navigable water, is entitled, in virtue of the Constitution and laws of the United States, to enter any port on that river and also to land at any wharf established for public use without being subjected (apart from mere police regulation) to any burden tax, or duty therfor, beyond reasonable compensation to the owner of the wharf for its use.
Such I have understood to be the doctrine announced inCannon v. New Orleans, 20 Wall. 577; Packet Company v. Keokuk, 95 U. S. 80; Packet Company v. St. Louis, 100 U. S. 423; Vicksburg v. Tobin, 100 U. S. 430.
"the use and navigation of the River Ohio, so far as the territory of the proposed state or the territory that shall remain within the limits of this Commonwealth [Virginia] lies thereon, shall be free and common to the citizens of the United States."
power, providing for licensing vessels, establishing ports of entry, and imposing duties and inflicting penalties upon officers of boats engaged in navigation, and the sanction by Congress of the compact between Virginia and Kentucky, declaring that the use and navigation of the Ohio River shall be free to all citizens of the United States -- give to the boats of the appellant the right to enter the port of Parkersburg and land at the wharf provided for the use of boats engaged in navigation. It is a right given and secured by the Constitution and the existing laws of the United States, and therefore one which the courts of the Union may protect against invasion or violation.
For its protection, additional legislation does not seem to be necessary, since the circuit court has original jurisdiction of all suits arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States when the matter in dispute exceeds a prescribed amount.
the rights of free commerce against exactions of that kind. It is, I think, their duty to adjudge all such local regulations to be in conflict with the supreme law of the land. To burden the exercise of a constitutional right with conditions which materially impair its value or which practically compel the abandonment of the right, rather than to submit to the conditions is in law an infringement of that right. The opinion of the Court, I repeat, rests necessarily upon the ground that the enforced exaction and collection by a municipal corporation of unreasonable compensation for the use of its wharf by a boat, duly enrolled and licensed under the laws of the United States and engaged in commerce upon the Ohio River, do not infringe or impair any right given or secured either by the Constitution or the existing laws of the United States. To that proposition I am unable to give my assent.
For the reason stated, I dissent from the opinion and judgment.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.