Moyor and Board of Aldermen of Town of Vidalia v. Neely Neely v. Mayor and Board of Aldermen of Town of Vidalia

• Decision Date: 06 June 1927
• Docket Number: 163,Nos. 140,s. 140
• Citation: 274 U.S. 676,71 L.Ed. 1292,47 S.Ct. 758
• Parties: MOYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMEN OF TOWN OF VIDALIA v. McNEELY. McNEELY v. MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMEN OF TOWN OF VIDALIA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

274 U.S. 676

47 S.Ct. 758

71 L.Ed. 1292

MOYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMEN OF TOWN OF VIDALIA

v McNEELY.

McNEELY

v. MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMEN OF TOWN OF VIDALIA.

Nos. 140, 163.

Argued Jan. 26 and 27, 1926.

Decided June 6, 1927.

Messrs. Hugh Tullis, of Vidalia, La., L. T. Kennedy, of Natchez, Miss., and W. H. Watkins, of Jackson, Miss., for McNeely's administratrix.

Mr. G. P. Bullis, of Vidalia, La., for town of Vidalia.

Mr. Justice VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit to restrain the town of Vidalia, La., from unwarrantably interfering with the operation by the complainant of a public ferry from that town across the Mississippi river to Natchez, Miss. On a preliminary hearing the District Court awarded the complainant a temporary injunction. 6 F.(2d) 19. In the answer the defendant insisted that the complainant was without a license from it to operate the ferry, and on that ground prayed that he be enjoined from continuing his operation. On the final hearing the temporary injunction was made permanent, with a modification which will be noticed later, and the injunction prayed by the defendant was denied. 6 F.(2d) 21. The parties then were allowed cross-appeals to this court under section 238 of the Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1215), as it stood at that time. The complainant died shortly thereafter, and his administratrix was substituted as a party in his stead, but for convenience we shall state the case and discuss it as if he were still living. The material facts will be stated.

The complainant, McNeely, is a citizen and resident of Mississippi, and for more than 20 years has been operating a public ferry from Vidalia across the Mississippi river to Natchez and from Natchez to Vidalia. He has three boats in the service, and has floating steel docks and other equipment at both Vidalia and Natchez, which he uses in making landings and in receiving and discharging passengers and freight. The value of the boats and equipment is $50,000 or more, and the yearly income from the ferry is about $5,000. At Vidalia his floating docks and landing equipment have been moored and maintained at and near the foot of Concordia street, which was designated by the town as the landing place for his ferry when he began operating it. The variation in the rise and fall of the river is about 55 feet, and a levee extends along the bank and across Concordia street. So it has been essential for him to construct and maintain a ramp or graduated approach from his docks to the intersection of the street and levee. While operating the ferry, he acquired ans still holds the lots abutting on the river for several hundred feet on either side of Concordia street. Occasionally he has moved his docks street. landing facilities to one side of the street or the other, but only in front of his own lots. His boats have been duly inspected, enrolled, and licensed under the navigation laws of the United States, and are manned and operated conformably to the requirements of those laws; but he now has no local license to operate the ferry.

The suit was begun in October, 1924. Theretofore the complainant had been operating the ferry under licenses granted by Vidalia and Natchez, but these licenses had then terminated. Early in 1924 the town of Vidalia adopted an ordinance specially granting to the city of Natchez and its assigns a license to operate a public ferry from Vidalia to Natchez and return for a period of 10 years, on stated terms whereby the licensee was to have the use of all streets and public places on the river side of the levee at Vidalia for a landing place and approaches, was to pay to Vidalia $1,000 per year during the life of the license, and was to have a preference right to receive, without further payment, any license which Vidalia might conclude to give for another ferry to Natchez.

The license so granted to the city of Natchez was transferred by it to the Royal Route Company, a corporation. Vidalia recognized the transfer and then adopted a fur- ther ordinance designating for such assignee the same landing place at the foot of Concordia street which it theretofore had designated for the complainant and which he was still using. This ordinance forbade any one other than such assignee to moor, tie, anchor, or keep any craft or object of any kind in the river within 150 feet of that landing place, imposed a substantial penalty for every violation of that provision, and directed the mayor and marshal of the town to remove immediately any offending craft or object found within such limits. No provision of any kind was made for another landing place for the complainant, or for the further operation of his ferry, or for the operation of any ferry other than that of such assignee.

The complainant, believing that Vidalia had exceeded its power in the premises, continued to operate his ferry, whereupon the town proceeded to arrest and punish him under the provisions just described. He then brought this suit, charging in the complaint that the ordinances and action of the town constituted such an interference with interstate commerce as is forbidden to a state and its agencies by the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States. The District Court, while recognizing that, in the absence of controlling congressional legislation, the town possesses a substantial power of regulation in respect of the operation of such a ferry, was of opinion that its action in this instance was in excess of its power, and therefore that the complainant was entitled to an injunction. It was also of opinion that the river bank from the levee to the water, although belonging to the owner of the adjacent land, is under the law of the state subject to a servitude permitting its use for various public purposes including that of using it as a place of landing for ferry boats and for receiving and discharging passengers and freight carried thereon, and that, while the designation of landing places as between competing ferries is a matter ordinarily resting with local municipal authorities, Vidalia's discriminatory action towards the complainant had been such as to justify the court in making the designation. It accordingly designated for the Royal Route Company 300 feet of the bank and water frontage beginning 10 feet north of the north line of Concordia street and extending thence upstream, and confined the complainant to the portion beginning 10 feet south of the south line of the...