Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/91425/louisville-nashville-r-co-vs-garrett
Timestamp: 2016-12-07 15:14:22
Document Index: 493446143

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 17', '§ 820', '§ 27', '§ 209', '§ 218', '§ 209', '§ 818', '§ 819', '§ 818', '§ 817', '§ 816', '§ 819', '§ 816']

Louisville and Nashville R Co Vs Garrett - Citation 91425 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize Louisville and Nashville R. Co. Vs. Garrett - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/91425CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnDec-01-1913Case Number231 U.S. 298AppellantLouisville and Nashville R. Co.RespondentGarrettExcerpt:
louisville & nashville r. co. v. garrett - 231 u.s. 298 (1913)
louisville & nashville railroad company v. garrett
unless the case imperatively demands such a decision, this court is reluctant to..... Judgment:
tribunals to which the question properly belongs.
Michigan Central R. Co. v . Powers,
In prescribing intrastate rates, the legislature of a state may act directly or, in the absence of constitutional restriction, it may commit the authority to do so to a subordinate body, and
that the Legislature of Kentucky, by the Act of March 10, 1900, properly authorized the Railroad Commission of that state, under certain conditions, to fix reasonable intrastate rates for railroad transportation in conformity with the provisions of the constitution of the state.
The legislature may determine what are reasonable rates either directly or through a subordinate body and use methods like those of judicial tribunals to elicit facts without invading the province of the judiciary.
Presumably the state, as well as the federal, courts are open to a carrier to test the constitutionality of an order made by a railroad commission and to obtain protection by bill in equity against its enforcement if unconstitutional.
orders of it railroad commission,
, failure to provide for such an appeal doe not deny the carrier due process of law a guaranteed by he Fourteenth Amendment.
, followed to the effect that the establishment of railroad rates wholly intrastate by a state Railroad Commission is not an unwarrantable interference with, or a regulation of, interstate commerce.
This is an appeal from an order denying a motion for an interlocutory injunction.
Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Siler,
186 F. 176. The motion was heard by three judges, and the appeal is taken under § 17 of the Act of June 18, 1910, c. 309, 36 Stat. 539, 557.
The statute under which the Commission acted in establishing these rates is that of March 10, 1900, known as the McChord Act (Kentucky Statutes § 820a, Carroll's ed.1909). [
] It provides in substance that, when complaint shall be made to the Railroad Commission accusing any railroad company of charging extortionate rates, or when the Commission shall receive information or have reason to believe that such rates are being charged, it shall be its duty "to hear and determine the matter as speedily as possible." The Commissioners are to give the company complained of not less than ten days' notice, stating the time and place of hearing and the nature of the complaint or matter to be investigated. They
The order fixing rates.
Because of the federal questions raised by the bill the circuit court had jurisdiction and was authorized to determine all the questions in the case, local as well as federal.
. A similar rule must be deemed to govern the application for preliminary injunction under the statute, which requires a hearing before three judges and authorizes an
1. It is objected that the Act of March 10, 1900, violates §§ 27, 28, 109, and 135 of the state constitution [
] by undertaking
to confer judicial powers upon the Commission. By these sections, provision is explicitly made for three distinct departments of government; the judicial power of the commonwealth is vested in the courts established by the Constitution, and no judicial power can be exercised by any other officer except those thus named unless authorized by some other provision of that instrument.
Roberts v. Hackney,
109 Ky. 265, 268;
Pratt v. Breckinridge,
112 Ky. 1.
So far as we are advised, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky has not passed upon the validity of the act in question, and this Court has often expressed its reluctance to adjudge a state statute to be in conflict with the Constitution of the state before that question has been considered by the state tribunals -- to which it properly belongs -- unless the case imperatively demands such a decision.
101 U. S. 144
. Here, the argument against the statute is not of that compelling character.
It has frequently been pointed out that prescribing rates for the future is an act legislative, and not judicial, in kind.
Interstate Commerce Commission v. C., N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co.,
McChord v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co.,
183 U. S. 495
. It pertains, broadly speaking, to the legislative power. The legislature may act directly or, in the absence of constitutional restriction, it may commit the authority to fix rates to a subordinate body.
116 U. S. 336
-394,;
211 U. S. 291
Grand Trunk Ry. Co. v. Railroad Commission,
U.S. 400,
. The Railroad Commission of Kentucky was established by § 209 of the Constitution (adopted in the year 1891), which provided that "the powers and duties of the railroad Commissioners shall be regulated by law," and that,
and by § 218, of the same instrument (the long and short haul provision) the Commission was authorized "in special cases, after investigation," to permit a less charge for longer than for shorter distances, and to "prescribe the extent" to which the common carrier might be "relieved from the operations" of the section.
Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Commonwealth,
106 Ky. 63;
183 U. S. 183
U.S. 503. It is unnecessary to review the statutes defining the powers of the then-existing Commission, to which § 209 refers (General Statutes of Kentucky, ed. 1888, pp. 1021
Act of March 7, 1890, 1 Acts 1889-90, p. 25). For, while the former commission had not been authorized to fix rates, it can hardly be doubted that the Constitution, in providing that the powers and duties of the new commission should be regulated by law, contemplated that it should be available as an appropriate instrument in the supervision and regulation of railroads, and left the legislature free to adopt, if it saw fit, a practice already familiar (
167 U. S. 495
-496), and to call this agency to its aid in prescribing reasonable intrastate rates. This authority the legislature granted by the Act of March 10, 1900, empowering the Commission where, as in this case, particular rates were found to be exorbitant to fix the reasonable rates thereafter to be charged.
213 U. S. 197
The contention is that, before the Commission makes such an order, it is required to exercise judicial functions. It is first to determine whether the carrier has been exacting more than is just and reasonable; it is to give notice and a hearing; it is to "hear such statements, arguments, or evidence offered by the parties" as it may deem relevant, and it is in case it determines that the carrier is "guilty of extortion" that it is to prescribe the just and reasonable rate. Still, the hearing and determination, viewed as prerequisite to the fixing of rates, are merely preliminary to the legislative act. To this act the entire proceeding led, and it was this consequence which gave to the proceeding its distinctive character. Very properly, and it might be said, necessarily -- even without the express command of the statute -- would the Commission ascertain whether the former, or existing, rate, was unreasonable before it fixed a different rate. And in such an inquiry, for the purpose of prescribing a rule for the future, there would be no invasion of the province of the judicial department. Even where it is essential to maintain strictly the distinction between the judicial and other branches of the government, it must still be recognized that the ascertainment of facts, or the reaching of conclusions upon evidence taken in the course of a hearing of parties interested, may be entirely proper in the exercise of executive or legislative, as distinguished from judicial, powers. The legislature, had it seen fit, might have conducted similar inquiries through committees of its members, or specially constituted bodies, upon whose report as to the reasonableness of existing rates it would decide whether or not they were extortionate and whether other rates should be established, and it might have used methods like those of judicial tribunals in the endeavor to elicit the facts. It is "the nature of the final act" that determines "the nature of the previous inquiry."
It is also charged, invoking a doctrine analogous to that declared in
, that the Commission assumed a power which it did not possess by proceeding upon the theory of a supposed equitable estoppel in favor of the distillers because they had been induced to erect and extend their plants upon the faith of the former rates. This contention finds no support in the record. The Commission purported to act under its statutory authority, and, finding the rates charged by the carrier to be extortionate, fixed other rates which they declared to be reasonable.
Commonwealth v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co.,
20 Ky. 491, to the effect that the provisions of § 818 are too uncertain to support a criminal proceeding under § 819, it is not contended by the appellant that it would be subject to the prescribed penalties so far as § 818 is concerned. And it is urged by the attorney general of the state, on behalf of the appellees, that § 817 does not apply to discrimination as between localities.
void. But the statute does not deny to the carrier the right of access to the courts for the purpose of determining any matter which would be the appropriate subject of judicial inquiry. We have not been referred to any decision of the state court holding that the statute should be so construed (
). If the Commission establishes rates that are so unreasonably low as to be confiscatory, an appropriate mode of obtaining relief is by bill in equity to restrain the enforcement of the order.
134 U. S. 459
St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Gill,
. Presumably the courts of the state, as well as the federal courts, would be open to the carrier for this purpose (
211 U. S. 278
) without express statutory provision to that effect. In answer to the present objection, it is sufficient to say that there is no showing here of an attempt to preclude such resort to the courts, or to deny to the carrier the assertion of its rights, unless it can be found in the severity of the penalties attached to disobedience of the order. And if it were assumed that these would be open to objection as operating to deprive the carrier of a fair opportunity to contest the validity of the Commission's action, still, the penal provisions would be separable, and the force of the remaining portion of the statute would not be impaired.
enacted. In the absence of a legislative rate, it is the province of the courts in deciding cases that arise between shippers and carriers to pass upon the reasonableness of the compensation which the carrier has demanded for its services. In so doing, the courts apply the common law. But it is the province of the legislature to make the law, and when the legislature or the body acting under its authority establishes the rate to be thereafter charged by the carrier, it is the duty of the courts to enforce the rule of law so made unless the constitutional limits of the ratemaking power have been transgressed. The ratemaking power necessarily implies a range of legislative discretion, and, so long as the legislative action is within its proper sphere, the courts are not entitled to interpose and upon their own investigation of traffic conditions and transportation problems to substitute their judgment with respect to the reasonableness of rates for that of the legislature or of the Railroad Commission exercising its delegated power. It may be assumed that the statute of Kentucky forbade arbitrary action; it required a hearing, the consideration of the relevant statements, evidence, and arguments submitted, and a determination by the Commission whether the existing rates were excessive. But, on these conditions' being fulfilled, the questions of fact which might arise as to the reasonableness of the existing rates in the consideration preliminary to legislative action would not become, as such, judicial questions to be reexamined by the courts. The appropriate questions for the courts would be whether the Commission acted within the authority duly conferred by the legislature, and also, so far as the amount of compensation permitted by the prescribed rates is concerned, whether the Commission went beyond the domain of the state's legislative power and violated the constitutional rights of property by imposing confiscatory requirements.
-434. Undoubtedly a state may permit appeals to its courts from the ratemaking orders of its railroad Commission, and, upon the review of such orders, it may expressly authorize its judicial tribunals to investigate and decide questions which otherwise would not belong to them, or even to act legislatively (
Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line, supra
). But the guaranties of the Fourteenth Amendment do not entitle the carrier to the exercise by the courts of such extrajudicial authority.
By another provision of this chapter, in the article relating to railroads (§ 816), a railroad corporation charging more than a just and reasonable rate of compensation is guilty of extortion; the penalty was a fine provided for in § 819. In
99 Ky. 132 the Court of Appeals, holding that § 816 was too indefinite to be sustained as a penal statute, concluded its opinion by saying:
We do not find it necessary to review all the questions that are suggested. Apart from other considerations, it is manifest that the statute of March 10, 1900, was a continuing authority to the Railroad Commission. The order of the Railroad Commission in fixing rates was a legislative act under its delegated power. It had "the same force as if made by the legislature."
. It is for this reason that it is a "law" passed by the state, within the meaning of the contract clause.
Grand Trunk Ry. Co. v. Railroad Commission, supra; Ross v. Oregon,
227 U. S. 163
. As it had full legislative effect, the appellant could not assert against its operation the provision of a contract which had previously become subject to legislative alteration.
-275. Upon the filing of the resolution, the charter provision as to the maximum rates therein specified ceased to be an obstacle, if it had been such before, to the exercise by the state of its ratemaking power.
provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. But, as already stated, these provisions are separable. It is also objected that the order of the Commission constitutes an unwarrantable interference with, and a regulation of, interstate commerce. The questions thus raised cannot be distinguished from those which were considered and decided in
The order for reparation.
* Original docket title Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Siler
constituting the Railroad Commission of Kentucky.
This statute is set forth in full in
McChord v. L. & N. R. Co.,
183 U. S. 485
Siler v. L. & N. R. Co.,
213 U. S. 178