Chi. & N. W. Ry. Co. v. R.R. Comm'n of Wis.

• Decision Date: 11 January 1916
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
• Parties: CHICAGO & N. W. RY. CO. v. RAILROAD COMMISSION OF WISCONSIN.

162 Wis. 91

155 N.W. 941

CHICAGO & N. W. RY. CO.

v.RAILROAD COMMISSION OF WISCONSIN.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Jan. 11, 1916.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Dane County; E. Ray Stevens, Judge.

Complaint by the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company against the Railroad Commission of Wisconsin. From an order overruling a demurrer, defendant appeals. Affirmed.Walter C. Owen, Atty. Gen., and Walter Drew, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Edward M. Smart, of Milwaukee, for respondent.

TIMLIN, J.

The appellant demurred to the respondent's complaint in a statutory action to set aside an order of the appellant purporting to enforce compliance with section 1388b, Stats. 1913. The demurrer was overruled, appellant declined to answer, whereupon respondent had judgment vacating the order on the ground that said order went beyond the requirements of section 1388b, but assuming that appellant had jurisdiction to enforce the duty specified in said section. The learned circuit court concluded that the general words, “as well as all other laws relating to railroads,” found in section 1797--31, Stats. 1913, must, under the rule of interpretation which requires that effect be given to all words in a statute, confer power on the Railroad Commission to enforce the requirements of section 1388b as against railroads because the latter is a law relating to railroads. He therefore, in effect, ruled that these general words covered, not only all laws relative to railroads, regardless of other characteristics of such laws in force in A. D. 1905, when section 1797--31 was enacted, but also all laws relating to railroads which might ever afterwards be enacted. This is quite an ambitious program for an administrative tribunal without legislative or judicial power within the historical and legal meaning of the words “judicial and legislative.”

[1][2][3] In this connection legislative power does not include rules, regulations, by-laws, or ordinances; and judicial power does not include those decisions of administrative officers or tribunals known as quasi judicial. In the doings, rather than in the sayings, of courts will this necessary distinction be observed. Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U. S. 470, 24 Sup. Ct. 349, 48 L. Ed. 525, and cases in Rose's Notes, Dec. Dig. §§ 59 to 75.

This court has shown no disposition to curtail the jurisdiction of the appellant, but has as far as possible upheld such jurisdiction and exalted the dignity and importance of that tribunal. Minneapolis, St. P. & S. M. Ry. Co. v. Railroad Commission, 136 Wis. 146, 116 N. W. 905, 17 L. R. A. (N. S.) 821, and subsequent citations. The commission is not, so far as we have observed, suffering from restrictions on its jurisdiction. We should but illy uphold the trust confided to us if we upheld the commission in the exercise of judicial or legislative power within the legal meaning of these terms. The enforcement of laws in the sense of ascertaining their meaning and application to the case in hand and pronouncing judgment therein is a judicial function. The making of laws which are of a higher grade than mere regulations, rules, or by-laws, or administrative aids to the more general provisions of statute, is a strictly legislative function. It is no impeachment of the rule that all the words of a statute should be given effect whenever possible to give such words effect according to recognized legal rules. These rules require us, when we find in a statute words relating to a particular or specific subject, followed by general words, to restrain these general words to persons or subjects of the same genus or family to which the particular persons or subjects belong. Jensen v. State, 60 Wis, 577, 19 N. W. 374;State v. Goodrich, 84 Wis. 359, 54 N. W. 577;State v. I. I. Co., 88 Wis. 512, 60 N. W. 796, 43 Am. St. Rep. 920;O'Sullivan v. J. S. Stearns L. Co., 154 Wis. 467, 143 N. W. 160;Lusk v. Stoughton...