Court Opinion

ID: 9853690
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:52:21.652225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:00.562162
License: Public Domain

Miller, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court.
The Carolina Coach Company of Virginia is the holder of certificates of public convenience and necessity from the Virginia State Corporation Commission (hereinafter called the Commission) under which it is authorized to engage in the common carriage of passengers over designated State highways and along these routes it operates a fleet of busses and transports passengers for hire.
Under section 156(b) of the Constitution of Virginia and section 52-276, Code of Virginia, 1950, the Commission is empowered and required to supervise, regulate and control motor carriers doing business in this State and make and impose such rules and regulations upon them as are necessary to prevent unjust or unreasonable discrimination in favor of or against any person. (See also sec. 12-14, Code, 1950.)
An act of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1930, ch. 128, p. 343 (sections 56-326, 56-327, 56-328, 56-329, and 56-330, Code of 1950, formerly sections 4097z, 4097aa, 4097bb, 4097cc and *7474097dd, Code, 1942, Michie), provides for the separation and segregation of white and colored passengers in motor busses.
The pertinent parts of the Act are in the footnote below.1
The motor carrier is required by the Act to separate white and colored passengers by designating in each bus a portion thereof or certain seats therein to be occupied by the passengers of the respective races, but no discrimination in quality or convenience of accommodations for or against either race is permitted, and when necessary for the convenience and comfort of the passengers, the driver is empowered and directed to increase or decrease the space or number of seats set apart for either race, “but no contiguous seats on the same bench shall be occupied by white or colored passengers at the same time.” (Emphasis added.) The Act also provides that the passengers shall occupy the seat or seats or space assigned to them and shall *748change their seats from time to time as occasions may require “pursuant to any lawful rule, regulation or custom in force” by the carrier “as to assigning separate seats or other space to white and colored passengers.”
In conformity with the Act, rules and regulations were promulgated and published by the Company. The material parts of those rules are:
‘ ‘ NOTICE TO PASSENGEBS.
“Bules and Begulations.
“To enable this Company to perform the duties it has undertaken, to protect its property and business, to preserve order and decorum, and for the safety, convenience, and comfort of its passengers, it hereby publishes the following rules and regulations :
# # * * # #
“2. The Company reserves full control and discretion as to the seating of passengers, reserves the right to change such seating at any time during a trip, and reserves the right to transfer passengers from one vehicle to another whenever necessary.
“3. White passengers will occupy space nearest the front of the bus, and colored passengers will occupy space nearest the rear of the bus.
“4. The Company reserves the right to refuse to transport a person * * * whose conduct is such, or is likely to become such, as to make him or her objectionable to other passengers.
“5. Any passenger who shall engage in any disorderly conduct on a bus * * * or who shall fail or refuse to comply with these regulations, shall be subject to removal.
“6. All passengers carried by this Company are subject to these Bules and, Begulations, and all Company drivers, dispatchers and supervisors are instructed and directed to enforce them.”
The facts hearing upon the legal question presented in this case are as follows:
On April 11, 1950, Everett Baney, herein called petitioner, a young negro man who resides in Suffolk, Virginia, and who was aware of the Virginia statutes and familiar with the rules and regulations of the Company, undertook to board one of the Company’s busses for an intrastate trip to Norfolk, Virginia. He held a ticket from Suffolk to Norfolk, which provided that “the *749purchaser of this ticket accepts it subject to the rules and regulations of this Company and of the carrying Company.”
The bus petitioner boarded was of the usual type, having a center aisle with a row of seats on each side with space on each seat for two passengers, and a longer seat or bench across the bus at the rear which accommodated several occupants. When he entered the bus it contained almost an equal number of white and colored passengers 'and all seats were occupied but one. This vacant seat was on the aisle near the front part of the bus and next to a white woman, that is, the white passenger occupied the position on the dual seat next to the window, leaving the half of the seat on the aisle vacant. The two sets of seats immediately behind this one were occupied by white passengers. Petitioner took the vacant seat near the front of the bus and when the driver noticed that he was seated on the same bench, beside and contiguous to a white passenger, he asked him to move, which he declined to do unless the driver secured him another seat.
The driver surveyed the situation and ascertained that there was no other vacant seat nor could any be secured by rearranging the passengers. All seating room was taken except this space for one passenger beside the white occupant. The driver was aware that the Virginia statute and the ‘ ‘ Rules and Regulations ’ ’ of the Company forbade him. to move the bus with white and colored passengers occupying contiguous seats. He, therefore, explained this to petitioner and made further request of him that he vacate that seat, and upon his continued refusal to move, he was tendered back his ticket which he declined to accept.
The driver then sought the assistance of two city police officers who likewise requested Raney to move, but they were unsuccessful in their effort. All passengers were then asked by the driver to leave the bus. Upon their compliance, he drove the bus around the block and back to the terminal and began to reload the passengers. To comply with a company rule that “through passengers” who temporarily get off a bus- at stops along the route shall retain their seats, he undertook to readmit those passengers first. However, well before-all “through passengers” had re-entered the bus, Raney presented himself in the door and undertook to enter, but was directed to move by one of the police officers. He thereupon remarked, “Thank you for helping me prove my case”, and left.
In short, petitioner was not denied transportation, but was *750not allowed to sit in the one vacant seat on the bench with and contiguous to the white passenger, and being denied that seat, he declined to stand and left.
Petitioner thereupon instituted this proceeding before the State Corporation Commission under section 56-6, Code of Virginia, 1950, in which he alleged that as an individual and passenger upon the common carrier, he had been discriminated against because of his race and color. He prayed that an injunction issue restraining the carrier from again discriminating against him in its carriage of him as a passenger from Suffolk, Virginia, to Norfolk, Virginia, or elsewhere, and that it be compelled and required to perform its public duties by transporting him without disermination. The 'Commission concluded that petitioner had not been discriminated against and no right guaranteed to him under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States denied, and from an order refusing the injunction and denying the relief prayed for, he appealed.
There is no indication in the record that any occupant of the bus was an interstate passenger, nor from what point or points the bus had traveled before it reached Suffolk, Virginia, en route to Norfolk, Virginia. It is thus clear that no question concerning the transportation of interstate passengers is presented in this case.
In New v. Atlantic Greyhound Limes, 186 Va. 726,43 S. E. (2d) 872, we held that the decision of Morgan v. Commonwealth, 328 U. S. 373, 66 S. Ct. 1050, 90 L. ed. 1317,165 A.L.R. 574, (reversing Morgan v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 24, 34 S. E. (2d) 491), did not render Acts of Assembly of 1930, ch. 128, p. 343, supra, wholly invalid and inoperative. In the Morgan Case, the Supreme Court of the United States in 1946 decided that when applied to interstate passengers the statute imposed undue and unreasonable burdens upon interstate commerce which requires uniformity and was thus beyond a state’s power and invalid. Thereafter, in the New Case decided in 1947, we concluded and held that the sections of our Code in question might be applied to and were valid and operative upon intrastate passengers though inoperative as to interstate passengers. 11 Am. Jur., “Constitutional Law”, secs. 163, 164 and 165. The Act was held to be severable as to subject matter and legal operation as between intrastate and interstate commerce and could and would be ap*751plied solely to the former class of passengers, and when so applied, was reasonable and within the police power of the State.
Thus construed, the public policy of the State and the purpose of the Act are that white and colored passengers in intrastate carriage, though given equal accommodations, shall be separated from physical and intimate contact. That purpose and intent is unequivocally stated and made abundantly clear by the phrase in section 56-328, “but no contiguous seats on the same bench shall be occupied by white and colored passengers at the same time.”
Petitioner does not contend that the sections of the Virginia Code in question really and in truth contravene the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. He does, however, say that as construed and enforced by the Company through its rules, he is denied rights guaranteed to him as an individual under that amendment, which provides that, “No State shall,make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” He insists that the Virginia statutes should be so interpreted and enforced as to allow and bring about sepáration of the white and colored races on the carrier so long as no one is denied an available seat. In the final analysis, if the last and only seating space available to an occupant of the bus is on the same bench with, beside and contiguous to a passenger of the opposite race (as was true in the instant case), then he insists that the statute and rules of the Company may and must be construed so as to allow the passenger to be seated.
In view of the clear context and obvious purpose of the Virginia Act, we cannot give assent to that interpretation and construction. Though providing that the white and colored passengers shall be given equal accommodations and no discrimination practiced, the purpose of the Act to separate white and colored passengers in intrastate carriage from actual physical and intimate contact upon the same bench or seat is made certain and clear. In the plain and unequivocal language, i. e., “but no contiguous seats on the same, bench shall be occupied by white and colored passengers at the same time”, there is no ambiguity or uncertainty. It undoubtedly means that individuals of the two-*752races shall not occupy contiguous space or seats on the same bench.
In short, this is a mandatory separation and segregation of the races on a bench seating basis. That is to say, each race is, by the method adopted, allowed and entitled to equal space and accommodation and each passenger entitled to the same rights as he boards the bus, and all reasonable and practical means must be resorted to so as to accomplish and preserve that status. Yet when a member of one race boards the bus as a passenger and first occupies one of the benches allotted to his race, a member of the other race may not- occupy the contiguous space on that particular bench. Thus reasonable physical segregation of individuals of the opposite races is effected upon that basis of separation and inconvenience seldom imposed upon any passenger of either race.
Chief among the decisions cited and relied upon by petitioner in his contention that the Virginia statute, as construed and enforced in the rules and regulations of the Company, violates his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment are Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, 38 S. Ct. 16, 62 L. ed. 149, Ann. Cas. 1918a, 1201; Chance v. Lambeth, 186 F. (2d) 879; Henderson v. United States, 339 U. S. 816, 70 S. Ct. 843, and Washington, etc., Elec. Ry. Co. v. Waller, 53 App. D. C. 200, 289 F. 598, 30 A.L.E. 50.
It is sufficient to say that none of the above cases deals with or disposes of the precise question here presented. The Buchanan Case had to do with the validity of a city ordinance which forbade colored persons the right to occupy houses in blocks where the greater number were occupied by members of the white race. The ordinance was held to be unconstitutional and invalid because its practical effect was to prevent the sale to or acquisition of property by a colored person. The other three cases cited above, as well as Morgan v. Commonwealth, supra, Mitchell v. United States, 313 U. S. 80, 61 S. Ct. 873, 85 L. ed. 1201, and Whiteside v. Southern Bus Lines, 177 F. (2d) 949, mentioned in argument and relied upon to some extent, all deal with interstate passengers and hinged upon the terms and effect of section 3(1) of the Interstate Commerce Act, Title 49, U. S. C. A., or Article 1, sec. 8, cl. 3 of the Constitution of the United States.
More nearly similar to the case at bar factually and in the resultant legal question presented than any other decision that *753we have found (except the Virginia case of New v. Atlantic Greyhound Lines, supra), is Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 16 S. Ct. 1138, 41 L. ed. 256. There a Louisiana statute which required separation and segregation on all railroad trains of the white and colored races in intrastate transportation was assailed as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The first section of that statute provided, “that all railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in this State, shall provide equal hut separate accommodations for the white, and colored races, by providing-two or more passenger coaches for each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger coaches by a partition so as to secure separate accommodations: Provided, * * * No person or persons, shall be admitted to occupy seats in coaches, other than, the ones, assigned to them on account of the race they belong to.”
Other parts of the act required that the officers of passenger trains should assign “each passenger to the coach or compartment used for the race to which such passenger belongs” and any passenger who insisted upon going into a coach or compartment to which by race he did not belong was liable to fine or imprisonment and any officer of the carrier who insisted upon assigning a passenger to a coach or compartment other than the one set aside for his race was likewise made liable to punishment. In holding the act valid and not in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment, the court said:
“The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power.” (163 U. S. at p. 544.) ■
“ * '* * we think the enforced separation of the races, as applied to the internal commerce of the State, neither abridges the privileges or immunities of the colored man, deprives him of his property without due process of law, nor denies him the *754equal protection of the laws, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. * * * (163 IT. S. at p. 548.)
‘ ‘ So far, then, as a conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, the case reduces itself to the question whether the statute of Louisiana is a reasonable regulation, and with respect to this there must necessarily be a large discretion on the part of the legislature. In determining the question of reasonableness it is at liberty to act with reference to the established usages, customs and traditions of the people, and with a'view to the promotion of their comfort, and the preservation of the public peace and good order. Gauged by this standard, we cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable. * (163 IT. S. at p. 550.)
In Plessy v. Ferguson, supra, segregation and separation of the races in intrastate carriage was adjudged within the police powers of a state and valid. Within recent weeks the conclusion reached in that decision has been approved and the principle adhered to reaffirmed in Briggs v. Elliott, 98 F. Supp. 529. To say that there may be separation of the races by allotting to each race certain coaches or partitions within a coach, but such segregation may not be had by allottment of different benches or dual seats within a bus to each race is to purposely overlook and evade the realities and practical results of that decision. There is not and cannot be any fundamental or legal difference in segregation by seats on a bus and segregation by coaches or compartments on a train. For we know that factually and in reality- all seats in a coach or in a partitioned part of a coach assigned to one race must, in the nature of things, be at times occupied and no seat available to a passenger of that race when there are unoccupied seats in the other coach or partitioned space allotted the other race. The physical difference, such as it is, in the two methods or modes of segregation is that segregation by seats affords a more equitable allotment of space and convenience than' does separation by coaches or by partitions in coaches.
By this legislation, no paramount rights or privileges are given to one race over the other or to one individual over another. It is not due to any discrimination, but to circumstances, applying alike to all-—as well to a white citizen as to a colored one, that a member of one race or the other may under some conditions find no seating accommodation available.
*755We find no discrimination against the enjoyment of fundamental rights and thus denial of “the equal protection of the law” when seating accommodations have been bona fide and fairly allotted alike to each race, if, because a greater number of one race seeks transportation upon the carrier than may be then fully accommodated in the space allotted their race, one has to stand and thus to undergo a minor inconvenience not then incurred by others.
The order of the Commission is affirmed.

Affirmed.

 “* * * all passenger motor vehicle carriers, operating under the provisions of chapter one hundred and sixty-one-a of the Code of Virginia, shall separate the white and colored passengers in their motor busses and set apart and designate in each bus or other vehicle, a portion thereof, or certain seats therein, to be occupied by white passengers, and a portion thereof or certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored passengers, * * *.
“2. The said companies, corporations or persons so operating motor vehicle carriers shall make no difference or discrimination in the quality or convenience of the accommodations provided for the two races under the provisions of the preceding section.
“3. The driver, operator, or other person in charge of any motor vehicle above mentioned shall have the right and he is hereby directed and required at any time when it may be necessary or proper for the comfort and convenience of passengers so to do, to change the designation so as to increase or decrease the amount of space or seats set apart for either race; but no contiguous seats on the same bench shall be occupied by white and colored passengers at the same time; and said driver, operator or other person in charge of the vehicle, may require any passenger to change his or her seat as it may be necessary or proper; * * *.
“4. Each driver, operator or person in charge of any vehicle, in the employment of any company operating the same, while actively engaged in the operation of said vehicle, shall be a special policeman and have all of the powers of conservators of the peace in the enforcement of this act. * * *.
“5. All persons who fail while on any motor vehicle carrier, to take and occupy the seat or seats or other space assigned to them by the driver, operator or other person in charge of such vehicle, or by the person whose duty it is to take up tickets or collect fares from passengers therein, or who fail to obey the directions of any such driver, operator or other person in charge, as aforesaid, to change their seats from time to time as occasions require, pursuant to any lawful rule, regulation or custom in force by such lines as to assigning separate seats or other space to white and colored passengers, respectively, having been first advised of the fact of such regulation and requested to conform thereto, shall be deemed guilty of a misdmeanor, * * *. Furthermore, such persons may be ejected from such vehicle by any driver, operator or person in charge of said vehicle, or by any police officer or other conservator of the peace. * *