Chicago Ry Co v. Wellman
Decision Date | 29 February 1892 |
Parties | CHICAGO & G. T. RY. CO. v. WELLMAN |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Action by Thomas Wellman against the Chicago & Grand Trunk Railway Company to recover damages for a refusal to carry him as a passenger. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff, which was affirmed by the state supreme court. 47 N. W. Rep. 489. Defendant brings error. Affirmed.
STATEMENT BY MR. JUSTICE BREWER.
In 1889 the legislature of the state of Michigan passed an act, No. 202 of the Public Acts of that year, pages 282 and 283, by which, among other things, section 3323 of Howell's Statutes, being a part of the railroad law of that state, was amended. So far as affects the matters in controversy here, it is enough to quote from the ninth paragraph, referring to the powers and liabilities of railroad companies. That is as follows:
Prior thereto the regular fare charged on plaintiff in error's road from Port Huron to Battle Creek was $4.80, the distance being 159 3/4 miles. On the very day on which the law took affect, to-wit, October 2, 1889, the defendant in error, plaintiff below, went to the defendant's office in Port Huron, and tendered $3.20 for a ticket from that place to Battle Creek, which was refused. Thereupon he brought this action in damages, to which the railroad company promptly answered and on November 22, 1889, less than two months from the time the law went into effect, the case was tried, and a verdict and a judgment entered in favor of the defendant in error for the sum of $101, an a mount sufficient to take the case to the higher court. On the trial it was agreed that the railroad company's earnings on its passenger trains for the year 1888 exceeded $3,000 per mile; that its capital stock was $6,600,000, and had been fully paid in; that its bonded debt was $12,000,000, one-helf bearing 6 per cent. and the other half per 5 cent. interest, payable semiannually; that the capital stock and mortgage debt represented an actual amount paid into the corporation; that the railroad property was at the time worth more than the capital stock and mortgage debt; and that, in addition to the mortgage debt, there was a floating debt of the amount of $896,906.40. Further, the following tabulated statement of the earnings and expeuses for the year 1888 was admitted to be correct:
defendant paid during the
year 1888 from its earnings, on account
of interest on bonds not paid in previous years 12,257 94
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In addition to this agreed statement of facts, two witnesses were called, one the traffic manager and the other the treasurer of the plaintiff in error. Their testimony was substantially that, in view of the competition prevailing at Chicago for through business, it was impossible to increase the freight rates then charged by the company, because it would throw the volume of business into the hands of competing roads. Upon such agreed statement and testimony, and that alone, the railroad company asked an instruction that the act of 1889, referred to, was unconstitutiona. The court refused this instruction, and an exception to the refusal to give this instruction was the solitary one taken on the trial. The court proceeded to charge the jury that the act in question was valid, and that the plaintiff was entitled to a verdict and judgment by reason of the failure of the defendant to comply with its provisions. To this charge no exceptions were taken, and the case went to the supreme court of the state on the single exception above stated. That court sustained the ruling of the trial court, and affirmed its judgment, (83 Mich. 592, 47 N. W. Rep. 489;) to reveise which judgment the railroad company sued out a writ of error from this court.
E. W. Meddaugh and Geo. F. Edmunds, for plaintiff in error.
Wm. T. Mitchell, for Wellman.
A. A. Ellis, Atty. Gen., for State of Michigan.
Mr. Justice BREWER, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.
The single question presented on the record is whether the trial court, on the facts presented, erred in refusing to instruct, as a matter of law, that the act of 1889 was unconstitutional. It will be noticed that that act does not interfere with the rates of freight; it simply regulates passenger fares; also that there was no agreement that the freight tates could not be so changed as to increase the revenues therefrom. There was in evidence the opinion of two gentlemen, doubtless well informed and worthy of credit, that an increase of freight rates was inexpedient and futile, and would tend to diminish, rather than increase, the income from freight. But the question was not submitted to the jury as to whether they believed that an increase of freight rates would work a reduction of the income from freight, nor even whether they believed that a reduction of the passenger tariff between Battle Creek and Port Huron would not so increase the travel as to increase the earnings therefrom; but the court was...
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