Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Groesbeck & Armstrong

• Decision Date: 16 January 1912
• Citation: 175 Ala. 189,57 So. 380
• Parties: CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. GROESBECK & ARMSTRONG.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

57 So. 380

175 Ala. 189

CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. GROESBECK & ARMSTRONG.

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 16, 1912

Certified Question from Court of Appeals.

Action by Groesbeck & Armstrong against the Central of Georgia Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals, which certified a question to the Supreme Court. Question answered.

See also, 57 So. 382.

Steiner Crum & Weil, for appellant.

R. D Crawford, for appellee.

MAYFIELD J.

The Court of Appeals have submitted or referred to us the following constitutional question:

"Under the provisions of the statute (Act approved April 18, 1911 [Acts 1911, p. 449] § 1), the following question is hereby submitted to the Supreme Court for determination:

"Are the provisions of the act of the Legislature of Alabama approved February 28, 1907 (Acts 1907, p. 225), providing a penalty to be imposed on railroad companies for failure to deliver freight cars to prospective shippers within a specified time after demand made, violative of or in conflict with that clause of the Constitution of the United States which provides that 'Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states,' etc. (Const. U.S. § 8, art. 1), or that provision of the Constitution of the United States which provides that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law (Const. U.S. art. 14 [[fourteenth amendment] § 1)?"

We answer that so much of the provisions of the act in question as imposes a penalty on railroad companies for failure to deliver freight cars to prospective shippers within a specified time after demand made is, under the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States (which, of course, control us in this decision), violative of section 8, art. 1, of the Constitution of the United States.

The states possess the power to protect the public health, the public morals, and public safety by any legislation, appropriate to those ends, which does not encroach upon any rights guaranteed by the national and state Constitutions. The mere grant to Congress of the power to regulate interstate commerce did not, of itself and without legislation on the part of Congress, impair the right or authority of the states to establish such reasonable regulations as were appropriate for the protection of the health, the lives, and the safety of the people. The police powers of the state, as great and broad as they are, cannot be exercised, as the Supreme Court of the United States has often decided, in regard to a subject which has been exclusively confided to Congress by the Constitution of the United States. If a state statute invades the domain of legislation which thus belongs by virtue of the national Constitution to Congress, it is void, no matter under what class of powers it may fall, nor how closely allied it may be to powers conceded to belong to the states. Henderson v. New York, 92 U.S. 271, 23 L.Ed. 543; Smith v. Turner, 7 How. 408, 12 L.Ed. 702; Hannibal v. Husen, 95 U.S. 473, 24 L.Ed. 527; Brennan v. Titusville, 153 U.S. 299, 14 S.Ct. 829, 38 L.Ed. 719.

And what is and what is not an interference with or regulation of interstate commerce is a question for the final decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and as to which state courts must yield. The Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Houston & Texas Central Railroad Co. v. Mayes, 201 U.S. 321, 26 S.Ct. 491, 50 L.Ed. 772, has construed a Texas statute very much like the one in question, and held that it was void, because in violation of the commerce clause of the federal Constitution. The headnotes to that case read as follows:

"An absolute requirement that a railroad engaged in interstate commerce shall furnish a certain number of cars on a specified day to transport merchandise to another state, regardless of every other consideration except strikes and other public calamities, transcends the police power of the states and amounts to a burden upon interstate commerce; and articles 4497-5000, Rev. Stat. Texas, being such a requirement, are, when applied to interstate commerce shipments, void as a violation of the commerce clause of the federal

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