Court Opinion

ID: 9526948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:26:20.345702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:19.204318
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Douglas,
dissenting.
I have expressed my doubts whether the courts should intervene in situations like the present and strike down state legislation on the grounds that it burdens interstate commerce. McCarroll v. Dixie Greyhound Lines, 309 U. S. 176, 183-189. My view has been that the courts should intervene only where the state legislation discriminated against interstate commerce or was out of harmony with laws which Congress had enacted, p. 184. It seems to me particularly appropriate that that course be followed here. For Congress has given the Interstate Commerce Commission broad powers of regulation over interstate carriers. The Commission is the national agency which has been entrusted with .the task of promoting a safe, adequate, efficient, and economical transportation service. It is the expert on this subject. It is in a position to police the field. And if its powers prove inadequate for the task, Congress, which has paramount authority in this field, can implement them.
But the Court has not taken that view. As a result the question presented is whether the total effect of Arizona’s train-limit as a safety measure is so slight as not to outweigh the national interest in keeping interstate commerce free from interferences which seriously impede or burden it. The voluminous evidence has been reviewed in the opinion of the Court and in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Black. If I sat as a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission or of a legislative committee to decide whether Arizona’s train-limit law should be superseded by a federal regulation, the question would not be free from doubt for me. If we had before us the ruling of the Interstate Commerce Commission (In the Matter of Service Order No. 85, 256 I. C. C. 523, 534) that Ari*796zona’s train-limit law infringes “the national interest in maintaining the free flow of commerce under the present emergency war conditions,” I would accept its expert appraisal of the facts, assuming it had the authority to act. But that order is not before us. And the present case deals with a period of time which antedates the war emergency. Moreover, we are dealing here with state legislation in the field of safety where the propriety of local regulation has long been recognized. See Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Georgia, 234 U. S. 280, 291, and cases collected in California v. Thompson, 313 U. S. 109, 113-114. Whether the question arises under the Commerce Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment, I think the legislation is entitled to a presumption of validity. If a State passed a law prohibiting the hauling of more than one freight car at a time, we would have a situation comparable in effect to a state law requiring all railroads within its borders to operate on narrow gauge tracks. The question is one of degree and calls for a close appraisal of the facts.1 I am not persuaded that the evidence adduced by the railroads overcomes the presumption of validity to which this train-limit law is entitled. For the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Black, Arizona’s train-limit law should stand as an allowable regulation enacted to protect the lives and limbs of the men who operate the trains.

 See Biklé, Judicial Determination of Questions of Fact Affecting The Constitutional Validity of Legislative Action, 38 Harv. L. Rev. 6.