Contract Cartage Co. v. Morris

• Decision Date: 14 June 1932
• Docket Number: No. 317-D.,317-D.
• Citation: 59 F.2d 437
• Parties: CONTRACT CARTAGE CO. v. MORRIS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Illinois

59 F.2d 437 (1932)

CONTRACT CARTAGE CO. v. MORRIS et al.

No. 317-D.

District Court, E. D. Illinois.

June 14, 1932.

Allen & Dalbey, of Danville, Ill., for plaintiff.

Oscar Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., B. L. Catron, Asst. Atty. Gen., and W. E. Sampson, of Springfield, Ill., for defendants.

Before ALSCHULER, Circuit Judge, and LINDLEY and WOODWARD, District Judges.

WOODWARD, District Judge.

Plaintiff, by its bill, seeks to enjoin state officers from enforcing subsection 5 of section 3 of the Motor Vehicle Act of Illinois, as amended by act in force July 1, 1931, which reads as follows:

"The length of any single vehicle or combination of tractor and semi-trailer shall not exceed thirty-five feet. Where trailers are used the length of any vehicle, or vehicles, combined with their trailers, shall not exceed sixty-five feet until January 1, 1933 and after that date forty feet. Nor shall the length of any unit of the combination exceed thirty-five feet. But such limits in length shall not apply to fire apparatus nor to the transportation of poles, piling, beams or other like structural units incapable of dismemberment and one unit of electrical machinery. Provided further, that no poles, piling, beams of like structural units incapable of dismemberment shall be transported over the highways of the State between sunset and sunrise, except where needed for emergency repair of telegraph, telephone, electric railway, and electric power and light lines.

"Upon application the highway or street officials having proper jurisdiction over a particular highway may grant special permits in writing for the operation of vehicles or combinations of vehicles and trailers or semi-trailers exceeding the foregoing weights and dimensions. Such permits may be granted in the discretion of the highway or street officials when in their opinion an emergency exists warranting the granting of the permit. The permit shall be granted only for limited periods and for trips over designated highways and streets, at specified times and subject to such other conditions as such highway or street officials may prescribe, but in no case shall such permit exceed a period of ten days."

Illinois Session Laws 1931, pages 793, 794.

The validity of this legislation is challenged on the grounds:

(1) That it is violative of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution in that:

(a) It takes plaintiff's property without due process of law;

(b) It denies to plaintiff the equal protection of the law;

(2) That it is violative of the Commerce Clause of the Federal Constitution, in that it imposes an unreasonable burden on Interstate Commerce;

(3) That the proviso denies to citizens of states other than Illinois the privileges and immunities of citizens of the state of Illinois;

(4) That it contains an unauthorized delegation of legislative power.

Several other corporations, in like situation with plaintiff, by leave of court, intervened and prayed the same relief.

A court of three judges convened pursuant to 28 USCA § 380, granted a temporary restraining order, and later a preliminary injunction. The matter came on for final hearing on bill, answer, affidavits filed by the respective parties, and testimony of witnesses taken in open court.

The plaintiff is a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Michigan. It has a capital investment of more than $100,000 in trucks and semitrailers. It is engaged in transporting newly manufactured automobiles and motortrucks from various manufacturing plants in Michigan and Wisconsin over the public streets and highways into and through the states of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa. It owns and operates more than 100 vehicles of the tractor and semitrailer type. During the year 1930 it had contracts with more than 400 dealers and distributors in the states mentioned for the transportation of automobiles, 10,323 of which automobiles were transported into or through the state of Illinois, such transportation into or through Illinois yielding a gross income of upwards $207,000. It has outstanding long-term contracts with manufacturers and distributors of automobiles in Flint, Pontiac, and Detroit, Mich., Toledo, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, Ohio, South Bend, Ind., St. Louis, Mo., and Kenosha, Wis., for the transportation, by its trucks and semitrailers, of automobiles over the streets and highways of Illinois.

The motor vehicles used by the plaintiff in the transportation of automobiles on the streets and highways of the state of Illinois, and of the other states mentioned, are each made up of a motortruck operated by gasoline and a semitrailer. The semitrailer is a dependent transporting unit consisting of a loading platform approximately 50 feet in length, the front 10 feet of which is carried upon the rear platform of the motortruck and securely and permanently fastened thereto by a king bolt, and a single axle equipped with a pair of wheels which carry the rear portion of the loading platform. The entire length of combined motortruck and semitrailer is approximately 60 feet. The loading platform contains two 7-inch I-beams running lengthwise of the platform and so located thereon that when the vehicle to be transported is loaded onto the platform, the inside surfaces of the wheels of the loaded vehicle rests against the outside surface of one of the beams and the wheels themselves rest upon the platform. Four automobiles of a wheel base of 116 inches or three automobiles of a greater wheel base than 116 inches are loaded on the platform and transported.

The greater portion of automobile factories are located in the state of Michigan. Prior to 1917 the customary method of delivery of automobiles from factory to dealer or distributor was by rail freight transportation. During the World War, due primarily to a shortage of box cars available therefor, and due also to the rail congestion during such period, transportation of automobiles by rail freight declined very markedly. During the World War and about 1917 the "Drive Away Method" came into general use. Under the "Drive Away Method" an individual driver was assigned to each motor vehicle to be delivered. This method had its disadvantages, in that frequently the bodies of the motor vehicles, both inside and out, suffered damages. Constant complaints were received from customers also that due to the incompetence, inexperience, or carelessness of the drivers, the motors themselves were seriously damaged. During the last two years the present method of transporting motor vehicles from factor to dealer or distributor by means of a truck and semitrailer has come into use. In fact, it has practically supplanted the "Drive Away Method," particularly in the states of the Central West. The method of delivery by truck and semitrailer is claimed to have advantages superior to the methods theretofore used, in that, among other things, the automobiles are delivered without damage to their bodies, the cost of transportation is less, and the ability to insure quick delivery by the dealer is increased.

During the last two years complaints against the use of the truck and the rigid semitrailer with lengths varying from 35 to 75, and perhaps 80 feet, were made to the state highway division of the department of public works and buildings. These complaints were predicated largely upon the use of vehicles of such length and rigidity on the type of improved highways in the state of Illinois. Under the State Bond Issue Acts of 1917 (page 696) and 1923 (page 512) and other legislation, the state of Illinois has constructed an extensive system of improved and hard-surfaced roads, at an approximate cost of $341,000,000. This system includes 10,560 miles of improved roads, of which 8,412 miles were state work and 2,148 miles were state-aid work. This system intersects the state of Illinois in all directions reaching all of the cities and most of the villages of any size or consequence. On the state roads approximately 425 miles are constructed with pavements 16 feet wide, 7,000 miles with pavements 18 feet wide, 687 miles with pavements 20 feet wide, and 300 miles with pavements more than 20 feet wide. On the State Bond Issue Routes are located many curves with radii varying from 36.4 feet to 1,000 feet. There are many curves of a radius of 100 feet or less, many others with a radius of 200 feet or less and more than 100 feet, many with a radius of 300 feet or less and more than 200 feet. There are also a large number of solid paved intersections where state routes meet or intersect one another in the metropolitan area near Chicago and at other places, constructed with a turning radius of from 20 to 75 feet. At most of these places there is heavy traffic almost continuously and close traffic control is necessary.

Due to the type of construction of the Illinois improved road system, particularly with reference to the curves with the radii above referred to, the operation of the truck and semitrailer has given rise to dangers and inconveniences. These dangers and inconveniences are summarized in the affidavit of Frank T. Sheets, now and for many years last past the chief highway engineer of the state of Illinois in the department of public works and building, division of highways, as follows: "That when said automobile transports proceed around a curve of a radius of 200 feet or less, they do not and cannot keep on their own side of the road on pavements 18 feet and less in width, for the reason that because of the great distance between the rear wheels of the truck or tractor and the wheels of the semi-trailer, the wheels of the semi-trailer cut inside the track of the wheels of the truck or tractor, so great a distance that the width of one-half of the pavement is not sufficient for the course of the wheels and the body or frame of the transport, and a part of it necessarily gets over the center line of the pavement and interferes with vehicles proceeding in the...