Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/90412/prentis-vs-atlantic-coast-line-co
Timestamp: 2017-01-17 06:02:14
Document Index: 777714827

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 720', '§ 720', '§ 720', '§ 720', '§ 709', '§ 720']

Prentis Vs Atlantic Coast Line Co - Citation 90412 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize Prentis Vs. Atlantic Coast Line Co. - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/90412CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnNov-30-1908Case Number211 U.S. 210AppellantPrentisRespondentAtlantic Coast Line Co.Excerpt:
prentis v. atlantic coast line co. - 211 u.s. 210 (1908)
a judicial inquiry investigates, declares, and enforces liabilities as they stand on present or past facts and under existing laws, while legislation looks to the future and changes conditions, making new rules to be..... Judgment:
The making of a rate by a legislative body, after hearing the interested parties, is not
upon the validity of the rate when questioned by those parties in a suit in a court. Litigation does not arise until after legislation; nor can a state make such legislative action
in subsequent litigation.
These are bills in equity brought in the circuit court to enjoin the members and clerk of the Virginia State Corporation Commission from publishing or taking any other steps to enforce a certain order fixing passenger rates. The bills allege, with some elaboration of the facts, that the rates in question are confiscatory, and other matters not necessary to mention, and set up the Fourteenth Amendment, etc. The defendants appeared specially, and by demurrer and plea, respectively, put forward that the proceedings before the commission are proceedings in a court of the state, which the courts of the United States are forbidden to enjoin, Rev.Stats., § 720, and that the decision of the commission makes the legality of the rates
On these pleadings, final decrees were entered for the plaintiffs, and the defendants appealed to this Court. Therefore, as the case is presented, it is to be assumed that the order confiscates the plaintiffs' property and infringes the Fourteenth Amendment if the matter is open to inquiry. The question principally argued, and the main question to be discussed, is whether the order is one which, in spite of its constitutional invalidity, the courts of the United States are not at liberty to impugn.
The State Corporation Commission is established and its powers are defined at length by the constitution of the state. There is no need to rehearse the provisions that give it dignity and importance or that add judicial to its other functions, because we shall assume that, for some purposes, it is a court within the meaning of Rev.Stat. § 720, and in the commonly accepted sense of that word. Among its duties, it exercises the authority of the state to supervise, regulate, and control public service corporations, and to that end, as is said by the Supreme Court of Virginia and repeated by counsel at the bar, it has been clothed with legislative, judicial, and executive powers.
Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line R. Co. v. Commonwealth,
103 Va. 289, 294.
In order to decide the cases, it is not necessary to discuss all the questions that were raised or touched upon in argument, and some we shall lay on one side. We shall assume that when, as here, a state constitution sees fit to unite legislative and judicial powers in a single hand, there is nothing to hinder, so far as the Constitution of the United States is concerned.
Winchester & Strasburg R. Co. v. Commonwealth,
106 Va. 264, 268. We shall assume, as we have said, that some of the powers of the commission
But we think it equally plain that the proceedings drawn in question here are legislative in their nature, and nonetheless so that they have taken place with a body which, at another moment or in its principal or dominant aspect, is a court such as is meant by § 720. A judicial inquiry investigates, declares, and enforces liabilities as they stand on present or past facts and under laws supposed already to exist. That is its purpose and end. Legislation, on the other hand, looks to the future and changes existing conditions by making a new rule, to be applied thereafter to all or some part of those subject to its power. The establishment of a rate is the making of a rule for the future, and therefore is an act legislative, not judicial, in kind, as seems to be fully recognized by the Supreme Court of Appeals,
Commonwealth v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co.,
106 Va. 61, 64, and especially by its learned president in his pointed remarks in
106 Va. 264, 281.
See further Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Ry. Co.,
167 U. S. 505
189 U. S. 440
Proceedings legislative in nature are not proceedings in a court, within the meaning of Rev.Stat. § 720, no matter what may be the general or dominant character of the body in which they may take place.
Southern Ry. Co. v. Greensboro Ice & Coal Co.,
134 F. 82, 94,
aff'd sub nom. McNeill v. Southern Ry. Co.,
. That question depends not upon the character of the body, but upon the character of the proceedings.
100 U. S. 348
. They are not a suit in which a writ of error would lie under Rev.Stat. § 709, and Act of February 18, 1875, c. 80, 18 Stat. 318.
See Upshur County v. Rich,
U.S. 415,
. The decision upon them cannot be
when a suit is brought.
See Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.,
. And it does not matter what inquiries may have been made as a preliminary to the legislative act. Most legislation is preceded by hearings and investigations. But the effect of the inquiry, and of the decision upon it, is determined by the nature of the act to which the inquiry and decision lead up. A judge sitting with a jury is not competent to decide issues of fact; but matters of fact that are merely premises to a rule of law he may decide. He may find out for himself, in whatever way seems best, whether a supposed statute ever really was passed. In
Pickering v. Barkley,
Style 132, merchants were asked by the court to state their understanding as an aid to the decision of a demurrer. The nature of the final act determines the nature of the previous inquiry. As the judge is bound to declare the law, he must know or discover the facts that establish the law. So, when the final act is legislative, the decision which induces it cannot be judicial in the practical sense, although the questions considered might be the same that would arise in the trial of a case. If a state constitution should provide for a hearing before any law should be passed, and should declare that it should be a judicial proceeding
and the decision binding upon all the world, it hardly is to be supposed that the simple device could make the constitutionality of the law
if it subsequently should be drawn in question before a court of the United States. And all that we have said would be equally true if an appeal had been taken to the Supreme Court of Appeals and it had confirmed the rate. Its action in doing so would not have been judicial, although the questions debated by it might have been the same that might come before it as a court, and would have been discussed and passed upon by it in the same way that it would deal with them if they arose afterwards in a case properly so called. We gather that these are the views of the Supreme Court of Appeals itself.
Atlantic Coast Line Ry. Co. v. Commonwealth,
102 Va. 599, 621. They are implied
in many cases in this and other United States courts in which the enforcement of rates has been enjoined, notwithstanding notice and hearing and what counsel in this case call "litigation" in advance. Legislation cannot bolster itself up in that way. Litigation cannot arise until the moment of legislation is past.
See Southern Ry. Co. v. Commonwealth,
107 Va. 771, 772.
169 U. S. 517
See McNeill v. Southern Railway Co.,
202 U. S. 50
L. ed. 1142, 26 Sup.Ct. Rep. 722; Ex Parte Young,
. Other cases further illustrating
this point are Chicago & N.W. Ry. Co. v. Dey, 35 F. 866;
Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Keyes,
91 F. 47;
Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Myatt,
98 F. 335.
If the rate should be affirmed by the Supreme Court of Appeals and the railroads still should regard it as confiscatory, it will be understood from what we have said that they will be at liberty then to renew their application to the circuit court without fear of being met by a plea of
It will not be necessary to wait for a prosecution by the commission. We may add that, when the rate is fixed, a bill against the commission to restrain the members from enforcing it will not be bad as an attempt to enjoin legislation or as a suit against a state, and will be the proper form of remedy.
173 U. S. 167
Mississippi Railroad Commission v. Illinois
Central Ry. Co.,
It is proper before closing to mention one decision that was relied upon by the appellees, and one or two other matters peculiar to the cases before the court. In
, the same moment was selected for bringing suit as in these cases, while an examination of the laws of North Carolina discloses that there were statutory provisions for appeal somewhat similar to those in the Virginia Constitution to which we now are referring. But, apart from other differences, in that case, the ground of the decree was that the state commission was dealing with a subject matter beyond its power; no regulation would have been valid (202 U.S.
), and the considerations to which we now are giving weight naturally were not urged. But this decision suggests that, in three of the present cases, an equally potent constitutional bar is alleged against the proceedings of the commission. The Chesapeake & Ohio, the Norfolk & Western, and the Southern Railway Companies all set up general laws, alleged to be incorporated in their charters and to constitute contracts, providing that their tolls should not be diminished except under conditions of fact alleged not to exist.
If the state has bound itself by contract not to cut down the rates as contemplated, there would seem to be no reason why the suit should not be entertained now.
154 U. S. 393
. But it would be premature and is unnecessary to decide whether the state has done so or not. No rate is irrevocably fixed by the state until the matter has been laid before the body having the last word. It may be that that body will adhere to the old rate, or will establish one that will not be open to the charge of violating the contracts alleged. The contracts alleged do not prohibit a certain reduction if the profits heretofore realized have exceeded a certain amount. On the question of contract, as on that of confiscation, it is reasonable and proper
The appellee companies refused either to obey the order of the commission or to appeal therefrom, and publication of the order was directed; but before it had been accomplished, and on May 15, 1907, appellees filed bills in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia, to enjoin the commission from enforcing its order of April 27, 1907, or taking any other steps therein, and a restraining order was entered enjoining the members of the commission and their clerk from further proceeding in the matter until a motion for an injunction
could be heard, and requiring them to appear before the circuit judge in Asheville, North Carolina,
The cause having been heard on the rule and answers thereto, the circuit judge, on July 10, 1907, overruled the objection to the court's jurisdiction and granted injunctions
as prayed for. Thereupon the defendant Prentis filed his demurrer, based on substantially the same grounds as those assigned in the answer to the rule, and the three other defendants filed their joint and separate plea, setting up specifically that the commission is a court within the purview of § 720 of the United States Revised Statutes, and on September 10, 1907, by leave of court, all four of the defendants filed their joint and separate plea of
December 26, 1907, the court overruled the demurrer and both pleas, and, the defendants declining to answer further, a final decree was on that day entered in each case, taking the bills
and perpetuating the injunctions, with costs. Thereupon appeals were allowed and prosecuted from said final decrees.
In my opinion, a preliminary objection is fatal to the maintenance of these bills. It appears on their face that the appellees did not avail themselves of the right of appeal to the court of appeals of Virginia, which was absolutely vested in them by the Constitution and laws of that commonwealth. Such an appeal would have brought up the question of the alleged unreasonableness of the designated rate, and appellees cannot assume that the decision of the commission would necessarily have been affirmed. If reversed or changed to meet appellees' views, the whole ground of equity interposition would disappear. In such circumstances, it is the settled rule that courts of equity will not interfere. The transaction must be complete, and jurisdiction cannot be rested on hypothesis.
this must be so where federal courts are asked to interfere with the legislative, executive, or judicial acts of a state, unless
"Comity," said Mr. Justice Gray in the leading case of