Consumers' League of Colorado v. Colorado & S. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 06 May 1912
• Citation: 125 P. 577,53 Colo. 54
• Parties: CONSUMERS' LEAGUE OF COLORADO v. COLORADO & S. RY. CO. et al.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

125 P. 577

53 Colo. 54

CONSUMERS' LEAGUE OF COLORADO v. COLORADO & S. RY. CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Colorado

May 6, 1912

Rehearing Denied July 1, 1912.

Error to District Court, City and County of Denver; Greeley W Whitford, Judge.

Proceeding by the Consumers' League of Colorado against the Colorado & Southern Railway Company and others, brought before the State Railroad Commission, and appealed to the district court. Judgment was rendered reversing the order of the Commission the dismissing the complaint, and the plaintiff brings error. Reversed and remanded.

Benjamin Griffith, Atty. Gen., Theodore M. Stuart Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., John T. Barnett, Atty. Gen., James H Teller, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Vogl & Whitehead, of Denver (Horace Phelps, of Denver, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

E. E Whitted and J. M. Cates, both of Denver, for defendants in error Colorado & S. Ry. Co. and another.

Hughes & Dorsey and E. I. Thayer, both of Denver, for defendant in error Union P. R. Co.

MUSSER J.

The plaintiff in error, a domestic corporation, began a proceeding before the State Railroad Commission relating to freight rates on coal from the northern Colorado coal fields to Denver. From the order made by the Commission, the defendants in error appealed to the district court. There the companies concerned filed a motion to reverse the order of the Commission and to dismiss the complaint. The court sustained the motion, and dismissed the complaint upon the ground that the law under which the order of the Commission was made was unconstitutional and void, and adjudged that all acts and orders of the Commission were without authority of law. The matter was brought here for review on error, and came on for final hearing as soon as the parties had framed the issues in this court. The Sixteenth General Assembly passed an act approved March 22, 1907, (Laws 1907, p. 531), to regulate common carriers in this state, creating a State Railroad Commission and prescribing its powers and duties and the mode of procedure to be followed in matters brought to its attention. The defendants in error contend, first, that the act aforesaid is unconstitutional; second, that, though the act is constitutional, the Commission had no power under it to fix rates, and for that reason the judgment should be sustained. The constitutional question will first be considered. Section 1 of the act is as follows: 'That the provisions of this act shall apply to common carriers and to any corporation or any person or persons engaged in the transportation of passengers or property, or the receiving, delivering, storing or handling of property shipped or carried from one point or place within this state to any other point or place within this state: Provided, however, that this act shall not apply to mountain railroads operating less than twenty miles of road, the principal traffic of which is the hauling of mineral from and supplies to mines. This act shall not apply to the ownership, or operation, of street railways conducted solely as common carriers in the transportation of passengers, within the limits of cities and towns, nor to the ownership or operation of private railways not used in the business of any common carriers.' It is claimed that the provision in the act that it 'shall not apply to mountain railroads operating less than twenty miles of road, the principal traffic of which is the hauling of mineral from the supplies to mines,' is class legislation, and denies to the defendants in error due process and equal protection of the law, contrary to the Colorado and federal Constitutions.

At this day it is unnecessary to discuss the question of the existence of the power of the General Assembly, exercised within constitutional limits, to create a State Railroad Commission, and to authorize it to regulate and control the service of common carriers in this state and the rates charged the public for such service. This must be taken as an established and acknowledged power of the General Assembly. Granger Cases, 94 U.S. 113, 24 L.Ed. 77; Railroad Commission Cases, 116 U.S. 307, 6 S.Ct. 334, 388, 1191, 29 L.Ed. 636.

The objects and provisions of the act in question being within the acknowledged power of the General Assembly that enacted it, it is well to refer to a well-established rule that should govern this court in its consideration of the constitutional question presented. The presumption is that every statute is valid and constitutional, and such presumption is to be overcome only by clear demonstration. In case of doubt every possible presumption and intendment should be made in favor of the constitutionality of the act, and it is to be overthrown only when it is clear and unquestioned that it violates the fundamental law. People, etc., v. Rucker, 5 Colo. 455, at 458 (quoting from and approving Sedgwick Stat. and Com. Law, 409). 'To declare an act of the Legislature unconstitutional is always a delicate duty, and one which courts do not feel authorized to perform unless the conflict between the law and the Constitution is clear and unmistakable.' People v. Goddard, 8 Colo. 432, 437, 7 P. 301, 304. 'The doctrine is elementary that no act of the General Assembly should be declared unconstitutional unless it is clearly and palpably so.' People v. Commissioners, 12 Colo. 89, 93, 19 P. 892, 894. 'A fundamental principle of construction requires those who seek to overthrow a statute on account of its repugnance to a constitutional provision to show the unconstitutionality of the act beyond all reasonable doubt.' Denver City v. Knowles, 17 Colo. 204, 211, 30 P. 1041, 1044 (17 L.R.A. 135). 'When an act of the Legislature is attacked as in violation of the Constitution of the United States or of the state, by familiar rule, we are required to uphold the legislation, unless its unconstitutionality appears beyond all reasonable doubt.' Ind. Ditch Co. v. Agr. Ditch Co., 22 Colo. 513, 528, 45 P. 444, 450 (55 Am.St.Rep. 149). 'Every statute is presumed to be constitutional. The courts ought not to declare one to be unconstitutional unless it is clearly so. If there is doubt, the expressed will of the Legislature should be sustained.' Munn v. People, 94 U.S. 113, 24 L.Ed. 77. It is evident from the foregoing judicial declarations that the burden is upon the defendants in error to demonstrate clearly and beyond all reasonable doubt that the statute in question is repugnant to a provision of either the state or federal Constitution.

They do not deny, and in fact their argument and the authorities cited by them show, that the General Assembly has the power to classify subjects for legislation. If this classification is not wholly unreasonable and arbitrary, so that the statute is uniform in its operation upon all the members of the class to which it is made applicable, no one is denied the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the federal Constitution. N.Y., etc., R. Co. v. New York, 165 U.S. 628, 17 S.Ct. 418, 41 L.Ed. 853; Dow v. Beidelman, 125 U.S. 680, 691, 8 S.Ct. 1028, 31 L.Ed. 841; C., R.I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Ark., 219 U.S. 453, 31 S.Ct. 275, 55 L.Ed. 290.

The contention is that the exemption of mountain roads less than 20 miles in length, whose principal traffic is the hauling of minerals from and supplies to mines, is an arbitrary classification without any reasonable basis. It seems to us that there is a substantial difference between the inconsequential roads exempted from and the roads embraced within the operation of the act. That distinction is based upon location, length, and character of traffic. A difference in either one of these things is a real difference. We are not called upon, however, to determine whether a classification, based upon one of these differences, would be arbitrary or not, for the exempted roads must possess every one of the three distinguishing elements. That is certainly a grouping together of roads in a class based upon a real and substantial difference. The exempted roads are really and clearly different from the others. They form a distinct and real class by themselves, possessing clear and well-defined differences. There is no arbitrary selection in such a classification as this. It is not a lifting of one road from among others that to all intents and purposes are clearly surrounded by substantially the same conditions and circumstances, nor does it clearly appear that there is no reasonable basis for this classification. There is a difference in the cost of construction, and it may be said of operation in the mountains and on the plains. The very character of the traffic of these short roads implies that they are constructed in the most mountainous and rugged portions of the state. Their traffic is subject to the interruptions occasioned by mountain snows and slides. It cannot be said that such short roads built as they are in the mountains for a short distance, for the sole purpose, as it were, of tramming ore from the mines to the principal lines of general transportation of the state or to a mill, enter very largely or at all into the general commerce of the state, which it was the evident purpose of the act to regulate as far as transportation is concerned. The ore transported by them is not a subject of merchandise to be sold in the market to the general public for use at prices affected by the cost of transportation like coal, lumber, and other necessities or commodities or even logs that are made into lumber and sold in the general market. There is no permanency in these exempted roads. There is no enduring scenery or fertile valleys along their route to attract people. The very character of their location and business has a temporary promise only. Every car of ore hauled over them lessens their span...