Chesapeake Ohio Railway Company v. William Conley

• Decision Date: 16 June 1913
• Docket Number: No. 111,111
• Citation: 33 S.Ct. 985,230 U.S. 513,57 L.Ed. 1597
• Parties: CHESAPEAKE & OHIO RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. WILLIAM G. CONLEY, Attorney General of the State of West Virginia, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

230 U.S. 513

33 S.Ct. 985

57 L.Ed. 1597

CHESAPEAKE & OHIO RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v WILLIAM G. CONLEY, Attorney General of the State of West Virginia, et al.

No. 111.

Argued April 8, 1912.

Decided June 16, 1913.

Messrs. F. B. Enslow, H. Fitzpatrick, H. T. Wickham, and W. E. Chilton for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 514-519 intentionally omitted] Mr. William G. Conley, Attorney General of West Virginia, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Hughes delivered the opinion of the court:

The suit was brought by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company in the circuit court for Kanawha county, West Virginia, against William G. Conley, attorney general of the state of West Virginia, and the prosecuting attorneys of several counties in the state, to enjoin the enforcement of the act of the legislature of West Virginia, passed February 21, 1907 (Acts 1907, chap. 41), fixing the maximum fare for passengers on railroads, as described, at 2 cents a mile.

The state court sustained the act and this writ of error is brought.

The act provides:

'Sec. 1. That all railroad corporations organized or doing business in this state under the laws or authority thereof shall be limited in their charges for the transporting of any person with ordinary baggage, not exceeding 100 pounds in weight, to the sum of 2 cents per mile, or fractional part of a mile, but the fare shall always be made the multiple of five nearest reached by multiplying the rate by the distance, and if for any one passenger the rates herein provided shall be less than 5 cents, the said sum of 5 cents may be charged as a minimum; children under twelve years of age shall be carried for one-half fare above prescribed; provided, that any passenger boarding a train at a station where tickets are sold, without having procured a ticket, may be charged an additional fare of 10 cents, for which sum a rebate slip, redeemable in money, upon presentation to any ticket agent of the company, shall be issued and delivered to such passenger; and provided, further, that nothing in this act shall apply to any railroad in this state under 50 miles in length, and not a part of, or under the control, management, or operation of, any other railroad, over 50 miles in length, operated wholly or in part in the state.

'Sec. 2. Any railroad company which shall charge, demand, or receive any greater compensation for the transportation of any passenger than is authorized by this act shall be fined for each offense not less than $50 nor more than $500; provided, that nothing contained in this act shall apply to electric lines and street railways owned or operated in this state.'

The questions presented are thus stated by the plaintiff in error:

'First: The statute in question is unconstitutional because of the fact that the penalties pronounced by the statute against any railway which shall fail to comply with the same are so excessive as to bring the act within the inhibition of article 8 of the Constitution of the United States and under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States deprives the plaintiff of its property without due process of law, and denies to it the equal protection of the law.

'Second: The entire act is unconstitutional, because the classification thereby made of the railways makes the act applicable to certain railroads of a certain class, and such classification as set out is unfair and unjust, and a mere arbitrary selection imposed by the legislature without any relation to the alleged purpose of the act, and not based on any reasonable grounds.

'Third: Because the act necessarily imposes a burden upon the plaintiff as an interstate carrier, and denies it the right to transact and carry on interstate commerce free from the burdens and restrictions imposed by the West Virginia 2-cent rate act.'

While the plaintiff in error was entitled to a fair opportunity to test the constitutional validity of the prescribed rate, and penal provisions operating to preclude such an opportunity would be invalid (Ex parte Youg, 209 U. S. 123, 52 L. ed. 714, 13 L.R.A.(N.S.) 932, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 441, 14 Ann Cas. 764), it is clear that the provisions for penalties of the statute in euqestion, aside from their separable character, are not open to this objection, in the light of the construction placed upon them by the state court. In construing the act, the supreme court of appeals of West Virginia held:

'By the institution of a suit to determine whether such a statute is confiscatory in its operation in a particular case, such corporation alters its status from that of a mere corporation engaged in the public service, to that of a contestant of the legislative claim of right to take its property without due process of law; and, in the absence of expression of intent to the contrary, it is presumed the legislature did not intend to affect, or interfere with, the assumption or maintenance of such status, nor to legislate upon the subject of such remedy; and the penal clause of such a statute, silent on the subject of remedy, has no application while a suit is pending in good faith, for the determination of such question. . . . By the application of these rules and principles, a railroad company is excepted from the operation of the penalty clause of chapter 41 of the Acts of 1907, during the prosecution by it, in good faith, of a suit to determine whether said statute is confiscatory in its operation Coal & Coke R. Co. v. Conley, 67 W. Va. Coal p Coke R. Co. v. Conley, 67 Conley, 67 W. Va. 129, 133, 134, 67 S. E. 613.

Under this ruling, it does not appear that the company is in a position to attack the validity of the act by reason of its penal provisions. It has had its opportunity in cou...