Interstate Busses Corporation v. Holyoke St Ry Co, 343

• Decision Date: 03 January 1927
• Docket Number: No. 343,343
• Parties: INTERSTATE BUSSES CORPORATION v. HOLYOKE ST. RY. CO. et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

273 U.S. 45

47 S.Ct. 298

71 L.Ed. 530

INTERSTATE BUSSES CORPORATION

v HOLYOKE ST. RY. CO. et al.

No. 343.

Argued Oct. 27 and 28, 1926.

Decided Jan. 3, 1927.

Messrs. Edward H. Kelly and Augustine Lonergan, both of

Hartford, Conn., for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 46-47 intentionally omitted] Messrs. David H. Keedy and William H. Brooks, both of Springfield, Mass., for appellees.

Mr. Justice BUTLER delivered the opinion of the Court.

This suit was brought by appellant against the Holyoke Street Railway Company, its president and general manager, police and prosecuting officers of a number of cities and towns, the chief of the state police, and the district attorneys of the Western and Northern Districts of Massachusetts. Its purpose is to restrain the enforcement of a state statute relating to common carriers of passengers by motor vehicles as in conflict with the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States and with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case was heard before a court of three judges (section 266, Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1243)) on an agreed statement of facts, and a final decree dismissing the complaint was entered.

Sections 45, 48a and 49 of chapter 159, General Laws, as amended by c. 280, Acts of 1925, contain the provisions attacked: No person shall operate a motor vehicle upon a public way in any city or town for the carriage of passengers for hire so as to afford a means of transportation similar to that afforded by a railway company by indiscriminately receiving and discharging passengers along the route on which the vehicle is operated, or as a business between fixed and regular termini, without first obtaining a license. The licensing authority in a city is its council in a town is its selectmen; and, as to public ways under its control, is the metropolitan district commission. No person shall operate a motor vehicle under such license unless he has also obtained from the department of public utilities a certificate that public convenience and necessity require such operation. Any one operating under a license from local authority and a certificate from the department is declared to be a common carrier and subject to regulation as such. Violations of sections 45-48, or of any order, rule, or regulation made under them, are punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. And the act gives to the Supreme Judicial and superior courts jurisdiction in equity to restrain any violation upon petition of the department, any licensing authority, ten citizens of a city or town affected by the violation, or any interested party. Neither license nor certificate is required in respect of such carriage as may be exclusively interstate.

The material facts stipulated are: For many years, the appellee Holyoke Street Railway Company has been a common carrier of passengers by street railway in Massachusetts through Holyoke, South Hadley, Granby, Amherst, and into Sunderland. Appellant is engaged in the business of transporting passengers for hire by motor vehicle, and operates busses between Hartford, Conn., and Greenfield, Mass. It has operated its busses between Hartford and Springfield since December 1, 1924, and north of Springfield to Greenfield since about December 15, 1925. Its route in Massachusetts passes through Springfield, West Springfield, Holyoke, Granby, Amherst, Sunderland, Deerfield, and Greenfield. With certain exceptions not here material, all its busses run the whole distance between Hartford and Greenfield. It transports persons from one state into the other, and also those whose journeys begin and end in Massachusetts. Both classes of passengers, intrastate and inter- state, are carried in the same vehicles. Intrastate passengers constitute a very substantial part of the whole number carried in Massachusetts. Appellant maintains an office and garage at Springfield and advertises its route and rates. The busses are operated between fixed termini in Massachusetts. They operate regularly on public ways parallel to and alongside the tracks of the street railway company and afford means of transportation similar to those furnished by that company. They stop regularly and also on signal to receive and discharge passengers. The operation of the busses in competition with the street railway has resulted in substantial loss to the latter. Appellant has not obtained a license from any of the cities or towns served by the street railway company. And that company, its president and counsel, have caused plaintiff's employees to be arrested and prosecuted, and intend to continue to prosecute them, for operating without obtaining the licenses and certificate required by the statute.

The statutory provisions in question have been sustained by the highest court of Massachusetts. New York, N. H. & H. Railroad v. Deister, 253 Mass. 178, 148 N. E. 590; Barrows v. Farnum's Stage Lines (Mass.) 150 N. E. 206; Boston & M. R. R. v. Cate (Mass.) 150 N. E. 210; Boston & M. R. R. v. Hart, (Mass.) 150 N. E. 212; ...