Court Opinion

ID: 9810786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:59:07.03728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:13.413880
License: Public Domain

OlaRK, C. J.,
concurring: In Harvey v. R. R., 153 N. C., 567, the Court did not find it necessary to pass upon the validity of the requirement that the holder of a mileage book shall present it and obtain a ticket thereon, but, passing by that question, as in this case, held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover. 153 N. C., at p. 577.
I am of opinion that in any aspect the plaintiff is entitled to recover, for that such requirement is an unreasonable regulation and therefore void, for at least four reasons:
1. Down to the enactment of the statute by which the General Assembly of 1908 prescribed 2% cents per mile as a maximum legal rate for transportation over the railroads of this State, such requirement had never been heard of in North Carolina. It is therefore not necessary, and hence unreasonable.
2. Throughout the Union, except practically in this and two or three other adjoining States, such requirement is still unheard of, and mileage is still pulled on the trains as was the case here prior to 1908. See table, 153 N. C., at p. 580. Therefore it cannot be necessary in this State where the volume of.travel is much smaller than in many others, and hence it is unreasonable to vex the public by an unnecessary requirement.
3. By chapter 216, Laws 1907, the General Assembly prescribed 2% cents per mile as a maximum legal rate for transportation over the railroads in this State. The railroad companies proposed to the Executive of this State that “if the rate were changed to 2% cents per mile they would issue mileage books, good on their lines within and without the State and good on all railroads within the State, at the rate of 2 cents per mile.” Thereupon, the Special Session of 1908 was called, *443which enacted the 2% cents per mile rate. This session was , held at considerable expense to the taxpayers of the State'. No one in this State had ever heard of a requirement that mileage books be exchanged for a ticket. Every one understood, of course, that the mileage books issued would be such as the public had always been accustomed to. That mileage had" saved the public the annoyance which it now daily suffers of being compelled to purchase tickets. The requirement to buy tickets with mileage was adopted after the General Assembly had adjourned. It was a breach of faith and hence unnecessary and void. It is vexatious and annoying to the traveling public.
4. This hitherto unheard-of requirement that mileage should be used, not as mileage, but to buy tickets with, was doubtless adopted to deter the public from the purchase of mileage books by making their use less of a convenience. For that reason, also, it should be held void, for travel should be made as convenient as possible for the traveling public. The great “Pennsylvania System” as well as some other roads finds it an economy and a convenience to themselves as well as to the public to allow mileage books to be used on the train, not only by the holder, but for any one else who may be with him. . It is certainly less expensive to the railroad company to have an agent, other than the conductor, to take up mileage on the train than to have extra agents at the stations to exchange tickets for mileage. In this State the Ealeigh and Southport, and possibly some other roads, still accept mileage on their trains. This is another evidence that the innovation of requiring the public to buy tickets with mileage is unnecessary and a vexatious imposition upon the public.