Western R. of Alabama v. Railroad Commission of Alabama

Citation171 F. 694
CourtUnited States District Courts. 11th Circuit. United States District Court of Northern District of Alabama
Decision Date07 July 1909
PartiesWESTERN R. OF ALABAMA v. RAILROAD COMMISSION OF ALABAMA et al. LOUISVILLE & N.R. CO. v. SAME. CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. SAME. NASHVILLE, C. & ST. L. RY. CO. v. SAME. SOUTH & NORTH ALABAMA R. CO. v. SAME.

This case is submitted on the demurrers to the supplemental bill by members of the Railroad Commission of Alabama, and the numerous parties defendant named as sheriffs, solicitors, and clerks of courts. The allegations of the bill are fully set forth in the report of the cases under the style of the Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Railroad Commission of Alabama et al. (C.C.) 157 F. 944, and Central of Georgia Ry Co. v. Railroad Commission of Alabama et al. (C.C.) 161 F. 925. The grounds of demurrer assigned are numerous; but the substance of them only need be here stated.

The demurrers by the commission challenge so much of the bill as seeks relief by enjoining the commission from reducing freight and passenger rates below those in force at the time of the commencement of the suit, on the ground that such relief 'restrains legislative action on the part of the commission,' and because the 'statute conferring the power to reduce rates is a valid enactment of the state, and no facts are shown why the commission should be restrained pending the litigation. ' The members of the commission further demur to so much of the bill as seeks to have 'superseded or suspended' the acts of the Legislature prescribing the rates complained of, on the ground that this court has no jurisdiction or power to 'suspend or supersede an act of the Legislature of Alabama,' and also 'because the suspension of an act of the Legislature is a legislative and not a judicial function.'

The defendants named in the bill as sheriffs, clerks of courts solicitors, and deputy solicitors, and each class of state officers, separately and severally, demur to so much of the bill as seeks to enjoin their exercising their functions in performing their duties as officers of the state of Alabama respectively, on the following grounds: They have no such connection with the enforcement of the statute as would justify making them parties defendant. The making of them such parties as representatives of the state is 'an attempt to make the state a party defendant, and to sue the state in contravention to the eleventh amendment to the Constitution. ' Such injunction against the parties defendant as prayed by bill would amount to restraining the state courts from acting in cases brought before the courts and amount to an injunction against action by the state grand juries; also, because 'clerks of courts do not initiate civil or criminal proceedings, and perform their duties under the orders of the courts of which they are respectively clerks. ' They also demur to so much of the bill and prayer for injunction as seeks to restrain 'all other executive and ministerial officers, state, county, and municipal, not specifically named in the bill, who are empowered to make arrests and execute warrants,' etc., on the ground that it is not shown that the unnamed parties, not parties to the bill, bear any relation to or privity with, or are properly represented by, the officers named, and there is no allegation of conspiracy between the unnamed persons and those who are named as defendants.

Steiner, Crum & Weil and Geo. P. Harrison, for complainants.

Alex. M. Garber, Atty. Gen., H. C. Selheimer, and S.D. Weakley, for defendants.

JONES District Judge (after stating the facts as above).

Every question now raised by the demurrers, though then presented in a different mode, was decided adversely to the respondents in Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Railroad Commission of Alabama et al. (C.C.) 161 F. 925, and on appeal the Court of Appeals sustained this court's ruling upon the matters raised by the demurrer, except as to the injunction to prevent the commission from further reduction of the rates before the court, pending the final hearing.

The considerations which controlled this court in issuing that injunction were that as the statutes made the carrier's rates in force on January 1, 1907, the maximum rates thereafter, save wherein the eight group acts and the passenger statute reduced them, and complainant insisted on maintaining the rates it actually had in force when the suit was brought, and, further, that the statutory rates as a whole were unreasonable and confiscatory, necessarily any further reduction in those rates must present a controversy which inevitably was included in that already pending, and the exercise of the power to reduce rates, whatever the extent or nature of the reductions, could have no other effect than to raise in another form, without a particle of difference in substance, an issue which already formed a part of a controversy pending in the court, and could effect nothing more than to impede the court in the maintenance of the status quo which, by the other injunctions issued at the same time, this court had adjudged was the proper status to be observed and enforced pending final decree.

The other ground was: That the commission had no authority to reduce statutory rates, and therefore its action should be restrained, regardless of the reasonableness of the rates themselves. This view was reached on the conclusion that, the specific rates complained of being fixed by statute, the Legislature could not authorize an executive agency to change them, except upon the ascertainment by it of some state of facts which the Legislature itself set forth in the statute, upon the happening and finding of which the executive agency might then change the rates to the extent such statute provided; that the acts conferring power upon the commission to change the statutory rates did not thus provide, but, instead, merely authorized the commission to change the classifications and rates 'from time to time, as conditions may in its judgment render it expedient or proper to do so'; and that, by thus leaving the whole matter in the uncontrolled and undefined discretion of the commission, the Legislature had attempted to delegate legislative power to the commission in violation of the state Constitution, as construed by its highest court.

The Circuit Court of Appeals did not take this view. It held the fair construction of the particular acts was that the rates fixed by the Legislature in the statutes were commanded to be enforced only until otherwise ordered by the commission, and that the Legislature must not be held, in granting the power to alter rates, to intend to confer any authority to be exercised at the mere will or caprice of the commission, but only to confer a power to be exercised reasonably, upon the ascertainment by the commission of such conditions as justly enter into the reduction or increase of rates, and hence had not attempted a forbidden delegation of legislative power.

The opinion of the Court of Appeals, however, did not pass upon what might be the duty or power of the court, if the commission acted unreasonably in the exercise of the power, making repeated orders, reducing specific rates, from time to time, while they are being contested and testimony is being taken, preparatory to final decree. It seems different principles would necessarily apply in a case of that kind, than where reductions are made by the Legislature itself pending contest of the particular rates before the court. The Legislature could not be made a party to a bill like this. Here the Railroad Commission is necessarily a party defendant, and occupies that relation, as well as the status of being the repository of the power to reduce rates from time to time. Taking into consideration this dual relation of the commission and the nature of the controversy, it would seem inevitably to follow that a court of equity has the right to charge the conscience of a party before it not to exercise its power in such manner, in the preliminary stages of the litigation, as to oppress its opponent by changing the issue from time to time, with the further result of impeding the court in its efforts to bring the issues before it to final decision.

2. The demurrer to so much of the bill as seeks to have 'superseded or suspended the acts prescribing the rates complained of,' etc., on the ground that the 'court has no power to suspend or supersede an act of the Legislature, which is a legislative and not a judicial function,' must be overruled. Section 21 of the Declaration of Rights in the Constitution of Alabama, it is true, declares that no 'power of suspending laws shall be exercised except by the Legislature. ' The well-known history and intent of this constitutional provision make its meaning clear. It has no reference whatever to the admitted power and duty of the courts to annul and refuse operation to statutes which transgress the fundamental law. To hold otherwise would require the court to affirm that it had no power to arrest the execution of a statute, or limit or stop its operation, when it adjudged it to be unconstitutional-- a power and duty which in this day is universally admitted, and now beyond the pale of controversy. Besides, the statutes here under review are assailed for violation of the Constitution of the United States, and no provision in a state Constitution can limit the extent of the judicial power of the United States in dealing with them, if found to violate the fundamental law.

The parts of the bill to which the demurrer relates seek, among other things, 'a perpetual injunction, annulling and suspending the rates prescribed in the statutes hereinbefore recited,' etc. If, on final proof, it be shown that the rates are unreasonable or confiscatory, it would be the duty of...

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