Court Opinion

ID: 9850904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:04:04.53285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:45.341654
License: Public Domain

*959BISTLINE, Justice,
specially concurring in dissent of HUNTLEY, J.
The opinion authored by Justice Huntley and the oral arguments in this case telling of high speed trains whizzing through Idaho without stopping, have reminded me of my terms in the office of prosecuting attorney of Bonner County and Boundary County. Both Burlington lines (formerly Great Northern and Northern Pacific) ran through one or both counties. It was always generally understood that the personnel on those trains — this was back in the days of passenger trains, club cars, buffet cars, and dining cars — were subject to the laws of Idaho while in Idaho, and accordingly no liquor or beer was sold while the trains traversed the panhandle. If westbound train personnel sold drinks on leaving Thompson Falls or Libby, Montana, and if personnel on trains eastbound out of Spokane, Washington, sold drinks before crossing the Idaho state line, there was no violation of the law in the drinking of the drinks as the trains moved swiftly through Idaho. So it was understood, or at least so I understood then, and recollect now.
Accordingly, the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific did not go to the bother and expense of buying Idaho liquor licenses. Not only was a state license required if they chose to sell in Idaho, ch. 274, sec. 6, 1947 Sess. Laws, with the license, or duplicate thereof, having to be posted in the buffet, dining, or club cars, but county, city, or village licenses had to be acquired, for a license fee, of course. Id., sec. 16. Bartenders also had to meet certain requirements, and be bonded in the amount of $1000. Id., sec. 22, sec. 22A. Days and hours of permissible sale were set. Id., sec. 25. State, county, and village officers had the right to examine premises where liquor was sold at any time. Id., sec. 28. Prosecuting attorneys, sheriffs, and all other county, city, and village officers were placed under an obligation — under penalty of being removed from office for failure to comply — to inform against and punish any violations of the liquor law. Id., sec. 33. A railroad company or bartender selling in Idaho without an Idaho license was subjected to a fine of $1000, plus one to five years of imprisonment. Id., sec. 35.
Some of these statutes may have been since amended, but for the most part are nearly the same. I.C., Title 23, Ch. 9.
Sheriff Don Maynard and I discussed our obligation to ride those trains from time to time, but it would have meant traveling to Spokane or the two last Montana stops to get aboard — and no getting off. Moreover, it would not have been reasonable for the railroad companies to have gone to the bother of purchasing state of Idaho licenses plus county and city or village licenses. There very well may have been violations by a bartender selling drinks while the trains were in Idaho, knowing full well that those in authority would not go to the trouble of investigating. If a drink was sold on a train while in Idaho it would have been an inadvertence on the part of a newly employed bartender who didn’t know when he was in or out of Idaho. Whatever may or may not have been taking place, the bartenders were, while in Idaho, subject to Idaho law providing for fine or imprisonment — or both — if the law was broken.
Having lived in Bonner and Boundary counties for a quarter of a century, I feel relatively safe in stating that the non-stop trains going through those counties travel over the same tracks as do the locals. Upon that predicate it can be also added that both through trains and locals encounter the same crossings where railroad tracks intersect state and county highways, and city streets as well. The law in Idaho since before statehood, R.S. 1887 Sec. 69098, has been that any conductor, engineer, brakeman, switchman, or other person having charge in whole or in part of any railroad car, locomotive or train, who wilfully or negligently allows or causes the same to collide with another locomotive, car, or train, or with any other object or thing, resulting in death is punishable by imprisonment in Idaho for one to ten years. I.C. § 18-6001, as slightly amended in 1972.
Under the provisions of the next section, I.C. § 18-6002, it is a misdemeanor on the part of the engineer to omit to sound a bell *960or whistle at least 80 rods from a crossing. Similarly under I.C. § 18-6003, it is a misdemeanor for certain railroad personnel to be intoxicated on the job.
Clearly, railroad personnel on trains traveling through Idaho, whether a local or non-stop, have been required to conform to the laws of Idaho. Equally clear, through trains, unlike airplanes, have as a nexus a firm commitment to Mother Earth and the laws of this state. Equally clear, in times of disaster such as happened in the 1950’s on the Northern Pacific between Carey-wood and Athol, in Bonner County, Idaho, the county’s emergency people responded, and the local hospitals cared for the injured.
The Idaho legislatures have, since territorial days, resolved the issue presented by declaring that railroad personnel in Idaho via trains on which they are employed are subject to criminal and civil provisions of Idaho law. If a distinction in the law has been drawn favoring those from Spokane who travel through on trains as against their fellow workers out on the locals, I am presently unable to grasp it. Nor am I able to fathom the justification for creating a distinction where the taxing authorities of this state are proceeding to treat equally the two classes of workers — only to be confronted by a barrier with flashing red lights.
HUNTLEY, J., concurs.