Campbell v. Illinois Commerce Comm'n

• Decision Date: 19 April 1929
• Docket Number: No. 18744.,18744.
• Citation: 334 Ill. 293,165 N.E. 790
• Parties: CAMPBELL et al. v. ILLINOIS COMMERCE COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

334 Ill. 293

165 N.E. 790

CAMPBELL et al.

v.ILLINOIS COMMERCE COMMISSION et al.

No. 18744.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 20, 1929.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing April 19, 1929.

Commissioners' Opinion.

Application by the Evanston Bus Company to the Illinois Commerce Commission for extension permit, to which C. Roy Campbell and others filed objections. From judgment of the circuit court confirming order of commission granting extension, the objectors appeal.

Affirmed.Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; Michael Feinberg, judge.

Mecartney & Duft, of Chicago, for appellants.

Carroll H. Jones, of Chicago, for appellees.

CROW, C.

The Evanston Bus Company filed its application with the Illinois Commerce Commission for permission to extend its bus line westward in Grant street from Hartrey avenue to Ridgeway avenue, a distance of eight blocks, in the city of Evanston. The commission had previously granted permission to the company to operate its busses in certain streets, and by other orders had extended the routes upon which it might operate for the carriage of passengers to different parts of the city. Other transportation companies operating in the city were made parties to the application. None of them are resisting it. C. Roy Campbell, owning property on Grant street, filed objections to the application for the extension. The objections were afterward adopted by 80 property owners along the street, and they entered their appearance as objectors. Upon hearing, the evidence an order was entered by the commission granting the extension for the operation of motor busses between the points named. The objectors prosecuted an appeal to the circuit court of Cook county for a review of the proceedings and the order of the commission, and the order was approved and confirmed. From the judgment of the circuit court the objectors have appealed to this court for further review.

Evanston has a population of about 50,000. In extent it is three and a half miles north and south and two and a half miles east and west at the point immediately involved, but is more narrow beginning three blocks south of Grant street. Aside from the transportation facility of the bus company for the immediate need of the points involved, the Evanston Street Railway Company furnishes the only public transportation near the points served by the bus company in the north and west parts of the city. The street cars run east and west on Central street, four blocks north of Grant street and four blocks south of the north boundary of the city. They connect in the eastern part of the city with the line extending south. From Hartrey avenue the bus line extends east and southeast across the Sanitary District canal, then south to the Evanston high school, on the west side of the city, accommodating 1,500 students. The proposed extension of the bus line on Grant street from Hartrey west to Ridgeway will make a direct route from the high school to the territory adjacent to Grant street. That territory is directly served by no other means of public travel, and, at the time of the hearing, contained 390 homes, was rapidly developing, and the population increasing. The principal business center, lying in the eastern part of the city, is most readily reached by the residents on the adjacent blocks and lots north of Grant street, and by those south of it, over the extension. Two homes for old people are located on the extension, and the bus line is used by many visitors to and from the homes. Transfers from one line to another are given to passengers.

[1] It is contended that the evidence is not sufficient to support the order entered by the commission. The circuit court found the evidence sufficient to support the findings and order and approved them. ‘The right to review the findings of the Commerce Commission in a proceeding such as this is limited to the questions whether the commission acted within the scope of its authority, whether the finding is without any foundation in the evidence, or whether a constitutional right has been infringed by such finding. (Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Public Utilities Com., 268 Ill. 49 ;Interstate Commerce Com. v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 222 U. S. 541 [32 S. Ct. 108, 56 L. Ed. 308].) Orders of the commission are entitled to great weight, and can be set aside only if arbitrary or unreasonable or in clear violation of a rule of law. Courts should review or interfere with them only so far as necessary to keep them within their jurisdiction and protect constitutional rights. (People [ex rel. New York & Queens Gas Co.] v. McCall, 219 N. Y. 84 [113 N. E. 795, Ann. Cas. 1916E, 1042].) The law does not authorize the court to put itself in the...