Court Opinion

ID: 3278113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 16:51:27.297702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:24:51.700828
License: Public Domain

The respondents have petitioned this court for the reopening of this cause and a reconsideration of the points originally urged by them in favor of the judgment. After an extended consultation the justices of this court have reached the conclusion that, upon a rehearing, there would be no likelihood of a recession from the result arrived at in the original opinion filed herein. We may remark, however, that we keenly appreciate the gravity and importance of the ultimate question submitted for decision in this cause, both in its legal aspect and in its effect upon the parties to the action, whatever may be the final decision; but, we may further observe, it is a source of much comfort to us to know that, if we have conceived erroneous views upon the legal questions, upon the solution of which the ultimate result must depend, there is another court that can correct the errors of our judgment.
It is said in the petition that "for over forty years these defendants have exacted tolls on this road"; that "at the present time appellants are bleeding the public and the public has no redress," and that "if the time has not come, it will soon come when the profits from this toll road will amount to more in one year than the whole cost of construction and repair." It must readily be admitted that these are considerations which should make it most desirable that the public should own the road, or that it should not remain in private hands, a consummation not at all adverse to our sentiments, if the conditions be as they are depicted in the petition, but learned counsel will not, of course, undertake to maintain that such considerations constitute a legal argument in favor or in support of the confiscation of private property or the destruction of vested rights, or that will justify *Page 352 
the establishment of a principle or precedent that must of necessity operate most disastrously to the owners generally of such franchises. If the appellants are "bleeding the public" — a phrase that can imply nothing short of an accusation that they are exacting unauthorized and illegal tolls — the plain, ready and effectual remedy lies in a proceeding looking to a forfeiture of the franchise for a misuser of the right granted to them by the state. The boards of supervisors of the two counties into which the road extends have the power and it is their bounden duty not only to regulate the rates of toll, but to establish such rates only as are reasonable and just both to the owners of the franchise and the public. The owner of the franchise is entitled to only a reasonable return on his investment, and if the appellants in this case are now charging such rates as will make the profits of the venture in one year equal to the sum total of the original cost of the construction of the road and the cost of maintaining it, the fault lies with the rate fixing body in such cases and with no one else.
But counsel declare that our construction of section 1044 of the Civil Code is entirely too broad, "because it does not include or provide for the transfer of a franchise such as this"; that "the term 'property' as used in this section, refers to private property, and not to grants of public functions." We are unable to follow the argument that franchises such as the one involved in this controversy do not constitute private property. What are they if not private property? They are as much private property as franchises authorizing the construction and maintenance of railroads. There can be no distinction in principle between the two classes of franchises. It is true that they are charged with a public use and subject to the control, for the purposes of necessary and proper regulation, of the granting power and may be forfeited for misuser or nonuser, but, subject to these necessary restraints, they are as much private property in the hands of the grantees as is any other species of property. As stated in our former opinion, the state undoubtedly has the right to annex as a condition to the transfer of such franchises the procurement of its consent, but it did not do so in the case of the present franchise and in the absence of a provision *Page 353 
expressly requiring that its consent shall first be obtained before said franchise may be transferred, there was, in our opinion, no necessity for such course to be pursued.
But, having fully presented in the original opinion filed herein our views on the questions discussed in the petition, there is no necessity for further consideration of them now.
As stated, feeling that further consideration of the cause or the points passed upon by us would not have the effect of changing or modifying our views, it will certainly save time to the parties and hasten a final decision, if the judgment of this court does not stand, by denying the petition and thus affording the earliest opportunity of getting the cause before the supreme court, if counsel choose to adopt that course.
The petition is denied.
Burnett, J., and Chipman, P. J., concurred.
A petition to have the cause heard in the supreme court, after judgment in the district court of appeal, was denied by the supreme court on December 29, 1911.