City of Buffalo v. New York, L.E.&W.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 23 March 1897
• Parties: CITY OF BUFFALO v. NEW YORK, L. E. & W. R. CO. (two cases).
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

152 N.Y. 276

46 N.E. 496

CITY OF BUFFALO

v.NEW YORK, L. E. & W. R. CO. (two cases).

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 23, 1897.

Appeal from superior court of Buffalo, general term.

Separate actions by the city of Buffalo against the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad Company in the municipal court of Buffalo. There were judgments for plaintiff, which were affirmed by the superior court of said city (23 N. Y. Supp. 303, 309; 27 N. Y. Supp. 297), and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Bartlett, Haight, and Martin, JJ., dissenting.

George F. Brownell, for appellant.

Charles L. Feldman, for respondent.

O'BRIEN, J.

The plaintiff brought two actions against the defendant in the municipal court of Buffalo to recover penalties for violation of two distinct sections of the city ordinances. In one of the actions the recovery was $50, and in the other $100. Both actions were tried together, at the same time, and upon the same evidence. The judgments have been affirmed by the superior court that city, and leave was granted to the defendant to appeal to this court. One of the ordinances imposes a penalty of $50 for running cars at a greater rate of speed than six miles an hour by any steam railroad across any public street at grade. From the operation of this provision any passenger train running on the Belt line of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad is excepted. There were two penalties recovered under this ordinance; that is, one penalty in each case. The other ordinance imposes a penalty of $50 for any passenger train to cross either of five designated streets in the city without first coming to a full stop. There was a recovery of one penalty for a violation of this provision, and this penalty enters into the judgment of $100.

The only defense to the actions necessary to notice here is that the ordinances are unreasonable, and that they were enacted for the purpose of discriminating unlawfully against the defendant. The record contains no specific findings of fact, nor any request to find, and no motion for a nonsuit or for judgment at the close of the case was made on the ground suggested, nor upon any other specific ground. Of course, every intendment and presumption is in favor of the judgment. We have no power to review the facts, but are confined to questions of law presented by the record; and, since there was no motion for a nonsuit or for judgment, or any request to the trial court to rule or decide upon any state of facts which the defendant claims to be conclusively established, it is difficult to see how this court can deal with many of the questions discussed by the learned counsel for the defendant in the sense that his argument would seem to demand. We are practically asked to examine all the testimony in the record for the purpose of discovering some fact upon which to base a reversal of the judgment, or the absence of some fact for the same purpose.

The only questions of law that appear upon the record are: First, the power of the common council under the charter of the city to pass ordinances for the purpose of regulating the speed of railroad trains passing through the city; and there can be no doubt with respect to the existence of that power, for it is specifically conferred by the statute. Nor is there any doubt with respect to the fact that the governing body of the city enacted the ordinances and promulgated them in such form as to become binding upon the defendant. Municipal ordinances passed in pursuance of authority from the legislature have the force of law, and are as obligatory as if enacted by the legislature itself. That a regulation which requires railroad trains to cross the streets of a populous city at a rate of speed not to exceed six miles per hour is a reasonable one on its face is a proposition too plain for argument. The only question that arises with respect to the ordinance regulating the rate of speed is whether it is vitiated by the exception in favor of the Belt Line carrying passengers. The Belt Line, properly speaking, operates local trains for the convenience of local traffic, and by statute the fare is limited to five cents for each passenger from point to point on any part of the line. The exception obviously refers to these trains, and to no other; and, inasmuch as the restriction in regard to speed might operate to the inconvenience or detriment of citizens using these local trains, it was in the discretion of the common council to make the exception in their favor. The circumstances called upon them to decide whether or not it was proper, and in the public interest, to permit the general words of the restriction to apply to these trains; and we cannot say, under the circumstances, that their decision in that respect was unreasonable. There was a situation which, if the by-law was general, might operate to the inconvenience of the public. So it cannot be said, as matter of law, that this exception was unfair, discriminatory, or unreasonable.

But it is said that other railroad companies, in entering and leaving the city, use the track of this Belt Line, and that they are allowed to run their trains at a greater rate of speed than six miles an hour. That, if true, proves nothing more than that the city does not enforce its ordinance against those companies, or at least did not enforce it prior to the commencement of this action. It is no defense to such an action for the defendant to show that other parties are violating the ordinance, and are not prosecuted. They are liable to be prosecuted, if we are right in the construction of the ordinance; and we should give to it such construction as would make it legal and reasonable, rather than illegal and unreasonable. We think it not only operated upon the defendant, but upon every other railroad as well, except the Belt Line local trains for which a...