Comm'rs v. R.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 28 April 1885
• Citation: 22 S.C. 220
• Parties: RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS v. RAILROAD COMPANY.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

22 S.C. 220

RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS

v.RAILROAD COMPANY.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Apr. 28, 1885.

1. This court can make no original decision upon a point not ruled upon below.

2. Whether the statutes gave to the Railroad Commissioners the right to regulate charges to points outside of this state, is a question of jurisdiction which may be raised at any time.

3. The general railroad law of this state was intended to confer upon the Railroad Commissioners the right to regulate freight upon all railroads where any part thereof was within this state, and to all stations on those roads, including stations outside of the state.

4. The power to regulate commerce among the states is given exclusively to Congress; the transportation of freight, or of the subject of commerce, is a constituent part of commerce itself; the transportation of passengers or merchandise through a state, or from one state to another, is commerce among the states, and exclusively within the control of Congress; but, as a general rule, each state may control, as a matter of domestic concern, all the railroads and other things, proper subjects of public control, which are located entirely within the borders of the state, although such regulating control may affect incidentally general inter-state commerce, with which the subject may connect.

5. Transportation of merchandise through a state, or from one state to another, although the carriage may be continuous, is inter-state commerce, and beyond the control of the state, even where Congress has taken no action upon the subject.

6. Any regulation of freights for the transportation from Columbia in this state to points in the State of North Carolina, by the statutes of this state, is beyond the power of the state, because of its being an invasion of the power exclusively vested in Congress by the constitution of the United States.

Before KERSHAW, J., Richland, May, 1884.

The decision of the Circuit judge was as follows:

This is an appeal from the decision of the Railroad Commissioners under the recent amendments of the general railroad law, heard May 24, 1884. There are serious questions as to the jurisdiction of the judge to whom is committed the hearing of these appeals which suggest themselves, but as no objection has been made to the hearing upon that ground, I will proceed to determine the matters submitted upon their merits. This decision is required to be filed within ten days after the hearing; and as the cases referred to and the statutes to be considered are so numerous that they could scarcely all of them be carefully read in the time at my disposal, but little more than a bare decision can be expected, without the support of that mature consideration which questions of such magnitude and importance ought to receive.

This first appeal is from the decision of the Commissioners against a charge made by appellants in their rates of freight on merchandise shipped by their road from Columbia, South Carolina, to various points in North Carolina on the Chester & Lenoir Railroad, being one of the roads consolidated with and controlled by the appellants' company. Several grounds are urged by the appellants against the authority of the Commissioners to require them to amend their rates in conformity with the decision of the Commissioners. I shall notice, first, the objection that this decision is an invasion of the domain of inter-state commerce, a subject exclusively within the control of Congress, under the constitution of the United States, article 1, § 8.

As this is a question affecting the constitution of the United States, if we can find that it has been settled by the decisions of the federal courts, they would be of controlling authority and binding upon the courts of this state. It has been established by decisions in those courts that “the transportation of merchandise from a place in one state to a place in another is commerce among the states,” and “to fix or limit the charges for such transportation is to regulate commerce,” and “a statute fixing or limiting such charges for transportation from places in one state to places in another state is a regulation of commerce among the states,” and “the power to regulate such commerce is vested by the constitution in Congress,” and “this power of Congress is exclusive, at least in all cases where the subjects over which the power is exercised are in their nature material, or admit of one uniform system or plan of regulation.” This is an extract from the summary of what is laid down as settled in the federal courts, by McCrary, J., in one of the most recent cases on the subject, Koeiser v. Illinois Central R. R. Co., 18 Fed. Rep., 153. To sustain this summary, he cites Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall., 35;Passenger Cases, 7 How., 283;Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., 1;Case of State Freight Tax, 15 Wall., 232;Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S., 279;Hall v. DeCuir, 95 U. S., 497;Railroad Co. v. Husen, Id., 469;Pensacola Tel. Co. v. W. U. Tel. Co., 96 U. S., 9, &c.

In Hall v. DeCuir, Chief Justice Waite says: “There can be no doubt but that exclusive power has been conferred upon Congress in respect to the regulation of commerce among the several states.” In Railroad Co. v. Husen, Mr. Justice Strong, delivering the opinion of the court, says: “Whatever may be the power of a state over commerce that is completely internal, it can no more prohibit or regulate that which is inter-state than it can that which is with foreign nations. Power over one is given by the constitution of the United States to Congress, in the same words in which it is given over the other, and in both cases it is necessarily exclusive.” In the same opinion it is said: “Transportation is essential to commerce, or rather it is commerce itself; and every obstacle to it or burden laid upon it by legislative authority is regulation.” In the case of the State Freight Tax, it was held that “the transportation of freights, or the subject of commerce, is a constituent part of commerce itself. *** That transportation of passengers or merchandise through a state, or from one state to another, is commerce among the states, and exclusively within the regulating control of Congress.”

If these propositions of law be correct, it follows that any regulation of freights for the transportation of merchandise from Columbia in this state to points in the State of North Carolina by the statutes of this state, would be beyond the power of the state, because of its being an invasion of the powers exclusively vested in Congress by the constitution of the United States, and hence would not be binding upon the appellants in this case. As these decisions have been pronounced by the highest judicial authority of the United States, in courts of the last resort, and affect a question of the limits imposed upon state legislation by the constitution of the United States, they are binding upon me.

But does the statute under which the Commissioners are acting here undertake to regulate or limit the rates of freight beyond the limits of the state? I think it does not. It is entitled “An act to provide a general railroad law for the management and regulation of railroads in this state,” &c. [Here the learned judge quotes the language of the General Statutes, as found in sections 1440, 1441, 1442, 1443, and 1446.] I can find nothing in the sections quoted (which are those affecting the subject now under consideration) which necessarily requires to be construed as an attempt on the part of the state to do more than establish regulations of commerce by railroads within the limits of this state, which it has the clear and unquestioned right to do. I therefore hold that the act does not authorize the Commissioners to regulate freights upon merchandise committed to railroads for transportation from a point in this state to a point beyond the limits of the state.

The argument of the learned attorney general to the contrary of this is based to a large extent upon the similarity of these provisions to those in the act of Illinois on the same subject, and the construction of that act by the courts of that state. But it is quite as fair to assume that the legislature of this state was moved to employ the language they did by a knowledge of the cases in the United States Court, which held that they had no power to legislate upon this subject so as to affect commerce beyond the limits of this state.

The case of Peik v. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co., 94 U. S., 164, also relied upon by the attorney general, is a very peculiar case, and can hardly be authority upon the general subject, because of the very unusual circumstances there existing. The decision is placed distinctly upon the peculiar contractual effect of the consolidated charters, and so far as the feature of inter-state commerce is concerned, it is considered by Chief Justice Waite that the regulation in question was one confined to “state commerce, or such inter-state commerce as directly affects the people.” He says: “Until Congress acts in reference to the relation of this company to inter-state commerce, it is certainly within the power of Wisconsin to regulate its fares, &c., so far as they are of domestic concern.”

In relation to this case, I will add a few remarks from the decision of Judge Hill, in the Circuit Court, Southern District of Mississippi, in the case of the Illinois Central Railroad Company v. John M. Stone and others, Commissioners. Speaking of Peik v. Chicago, he says: “The last case, at first view, would seem to sustain the position assumed by counsel. But it cannot fairly be supposed that the court intended to declare that inter-state commerce might be regulated by the states until Congress chose to regulate it, for the same court has often said that inaction by Congress in this respect is no warrant for state interference. *** It was a peculiar case. A corporation of Illinois was, by the consent of that state, merged into a...