Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Co Hardin v. Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Co

• Decision Date: 31 January 1966
• Docket Number: 71,Nos. 69,s. 69
• Citation: 15 L.Ed.2d 501,382 U.S. 423,86 S.Ct. 594
• Parties: BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS et al., Appellants, v. CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND AND PACIFIC RAILROAD CO. et al. Robert N. HARDIN, Prosecuting Attorney for the Seventh Judicial Circuit ofArkansas, etc., et al., Appellants, v. CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND AND PACIFIC RAILROAD CO. et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

382 U.S. 423

86 S.Ct. 594

15 L.Ed.2d 501

BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS et al., Appellants,

v CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND AND PACIFIC RAILROAD CO. et al.

Robert N. HARDIN, Prosecuting Attorney for the

Seventh Judicial Circuit ofArkansas, etc., et

al., Appellants,

v. CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND AND PACIFIC RAILROAD CO. et al.

Nos. 69, 71.

Argued Dec. 8 and 9, 1965.

Decided Jan. 31, 1966.

[Syllabus from pages 423-424 intentionally omitted] Jack L. Lessenberry and James E. Youngdahl, Little Rock, Ark., for appellants.

Robert V. Light, Little Rock, Ark., and Dennis Lyons, Washington, D.C., for appellees.

Opinion of the Court by Mr. Justice BLACK, announced by Mr. Chief Justice WARREN.

Appellees, a group of interstate railroads operating in Arkansas, brought this action in a United States District Court asking that court to declare two Arkansas statutes unconstitutional and to enjoin two Arkansas Prosecuting Attorneys, appellants here, from enforcing or attempting to enforce the two state statutes. The railroad brotherhoods, also appellants here, were allowed to intervene in the District Court in order to defend the validity of the state statutes. One of those statutes, enacted in 1907, makes it an offense for a railroad operating a line of more than 50 miles to haul freight trains consisting of more than 25 cars without having a train crew consisting of not 'less than an engineer, fireman, a conductor and three brakemen * * *.'¹ The second statute challenged by the railroads, enacted in 1913, makes it an offense for any railroad operating with lines 100 miles or more

[Amicus Curiae intentionally omitted] in length to engage in switching activities in cities of designated populations, with 'less than one (1) engineer, a fireman, a foreman and three (3) helpers. * * *'² The complaint charged that, as applied to the plaintiff railroads, both statutes (1) operate in an 'arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory and unreasonable' manner in violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) unduly interfere with, burden and needlessly increase the cost of interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause, Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, of the Constitution, and contrary to the National Transportation Policy expressed in the Interstate Commerce Act; (3) discriminate against interstate commerce in favor of local or intrastate commerce; and (4) by seeking to regulate and control the number of persons working on interstate railroad locomotives and cars invade a field of legislation preempted by the Federal Government primarily through federal enactment of Public Law 88 108 passed by Congress in 1963.³ This law was passed to avert a nationwide railroad strike threatened by a labor dispute between the national railroads and the brotherhoods over the number of employees that should be used on trains.

In their complaint the railroads admitted that this Court had on three separate occasions, in 1911,⁴ in 1916,⁵ and again in 1931,⁶ sustained the constitutionality of both state statutes against the same Fourteenth Amendment and Commerce Clause challenges made in the present action. The complaint alleged, however, that improvements have now been so great in locomotives, freight cars, couplers, brakes, trackage, roadbeds, and operating methods that the facts on which the prior holdings rested no longer exist. The brotherhoods and the two defendant Prosecuting Attorneys answered the complaint asserting the constitutionality of the Acts and denying that there had been a change in conditions so significant as to justify any departure from this Court's prior decisions. The brotherhoods' answer alleged that modern developments had actually multiplied the dangers of railroading thus making the Arkansas statutes more necessary than ever. The pleadings therefore, at least to some extent, presented factual issues calling for the introduction and determination of evidence under prior holdings of this Court. See, e.g., Southern Pacific Co. v. State of Arizona, 325 U.S. 761, 65 S.Ct. 1515, 89 L.Ed. 1915. At this stage of the trial, however, the railroads, claiming there was no substantial dispute in the evidence with reference to any relevant issues, filed a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56, Fed.Rules Civ.Proc. alleging that: (1) Both state statutes are 'pre-empted by federal legislation in conflict therewith, to-wit: Public Law 88—108 and the award of Arbitration Board No. 282 pursuant thereto; the Railway Labor Act * * *; and the Interstate Commerce Act * * * particularly the preamble thereto'; (2) the state statutes constitute discriminatory legislation against interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause; and (3) the state statutes deny the railroads equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Without hearing any evidence the three-judge court convened to consider the case sustained the railroads' motion for summary judgment, holding, one judge dissenting, that the Arkansas statutes are 'in substantial conflict with Public Law 88—108 * * * and the proceedings thereunder, and are therefore unenforce- able against the plaintiffs * * *.' 239 F.Supp. 1, 29. The District Court did not purport to rule on the other questions presented in the motion for summary judgment and the complaint. We noted probable jurisdiction, 381 U.S. 949, 85 S.Ct. 1802, 14 L.Ed.2d 723.

A few weeks ago this Court held in Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U.S. 111, 86 S.Ct. 258, that an allegation that a state statute is pre-empted by a federal statute does not allege the unconstitutionality of the state statute so as to call for the convening of a three-judge court under 28 U.S.C. § 2281 (1964 ed.). Thus, under Swift, the pre-emption issue in this case standing alone would not have justified a three-judge court, and hence would not have justified direct appeal to us under 28 U.S.C. § 1253 (1964 ed.). The complaint here, however, also challenged the Arkansas statutes as being in violation of the Commerce, Due Process, and Equal Protection Clauses. In briefs submitted to us after oral argument the appellants have argued that all these constitutional challenges are so insubstantial as a matter of law that they are insufficient to make this an appropriate case for a three-judge court. We cannot accept that argument. Whatever the ultimate holdings on the questions may be we cannot dismiss them as insubstantial on their face. Nor does the fact that the pre-emption issue alone was passed on by the District Court keep this from being a three-judge case. Had all the issues been tried by the District Court and had that court enjoined enforcement of the state laws on preemption alone, we would have had jurisdiction of a direct appeal to us under 28 U.S.C. § 1253 (1964 ed.). Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Jacobsen, 362 U.S. 73, 80 S.Ct. 568, 4 L.Ed.2d 568. The same is true here where the state laws were enjoined on the basis of preemption but the other constitutional challenges were left undecided. Thus we have jurisdiction and so proceed to the merits.

I.

We first consider the question of pre-emption. Congress unquestionably has power under the Commerce Clause to regulate the number of employees who shall be used to man trains used in interstate commerce. In the absence of congressional legislation on that subject, however, the States have extensive power of their own to regulate in this field, particularly to protect the safety of railroad employees and the public. This Court said in Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Norwood, one of the previous decisions upholding the constitutionality of these Arkansas statutes, that:

'In the absence of a clearly expressed purpose so to do Congress will not be held to have intended to prevent the exertion of the police power of the states for the regulation of the number of men to be employed in such crews.' 283 U.S., at 256, 51 S.Ct., at 462.

See also the same case, 290 U.S. 600, 54 S.Ct. 227.

In view of Norwood and the two preceding cases, all of which sustained the constitutionality of the Arkansas statutes over charges of federal preemption, the question presented to this Court is whether in adding the 1963 compulsory arbitration Act to previous federal legislation, Congress intended to pre-empt this field and supersede state legislation like that of Arkansas, or, stated another way, whether application of the Arkansas law 'would operate to frustrate the purpose of the (1963) federal legislation like that of Arkansas, or, statfeurs and Helpers Union v. Morton, 377 U.S. 252, 258, 84 S.Ct. 1253, 1257, 12 L.Ed.2d 280.

Since the railroad unions first gained strength in this country the problem of manning trains has presented an issue of constant dispute between the railroads and the unions. Some States, such as Arkansas, believing perhaps that many railroads might not voluntarily assume the expense necessary to hire enough workers for their trains to make the operations as safe as they could and should be, passed laws providing for the minimum size of the train crews. Where these laws were not in effect the question of the size of the crews was settled by collective bargaining, though not without great difficulty. It was this sensitive and touchy problem which brought on the explosive collective bargaining impasse that triggered the 1963 Act which the railroads now contend was intended to permanently supersede the 1907 and 1913 Arkansas statutes. Such a permanent supersession would, of course, amount to an outright repeal of the statutes by Congress.

The particular dispute which eventually led to the enactment of Public Law 88—108 began in 1959 when the Nation's major railroads notified the brotherhoods that they considered it to be the right of management to have the unrestricted discretion to decide how many employees should be used to man trains, and that they did not intend to submit that subject to collective bargaining in the future. The brotherhoods...