Efland v. Southern Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 November 1907
• Citation: 59 S.E. 355,146 N.C. 135
• Parties: EFLAND et al. v. SOUTHERN RY. CO.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

59 S.E. 355

146 N.C. 135

EFLAND et al. v. SOUTHERN RY. CO.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

November 20, 1907

Appeal from Superior Court, Orange County; Councill, Judge.

Action by John L. and M. P. Efland against the Southern Railway Company to recover an overcharge and the penalty for not returning the same within the time required by law. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

The word "company" may be construed to include all corporations, companies, firms, or individuals in statutes passed in promotion of the public good, such as the enforcement of the collection of revenue, regulation of the exercise of quasi public franchises, and in other similar matters.

The demand was for the amount of an overcharge paid by plaintiffs on a shipment from Efland, in North Carolina, to Lexington N. C., and for a penalty for failure to adjust same imposed by section 2644, Revisal 1905. There was evidence on part of plaintiffs tending to establish the claim and formal demand therefor as required by the statute. The judge charged the jury as follows: "That if they should find from the evidence that the plaintiffs had paid an overcharge of $7.96 as alleged by plaintiffs, and that plaintiffs had filed claim, as alleged, on the 20th day of September, 1906 accompanied with paid freight receipt and bill of lading, with freight claim agent of the defendant company, and the same was not refunded within 60 days after the filing of said claim, then the plaintiffs would be entitled to recover $100 as penalty for such failure to settle the demand, it being admitted that more than 60 days had lapsed since the claim was filed." On the testimony and under the charge, the jury rendered the following verdict: "Is defendant indebted to plaintiff, and, if so, in what amount? Ans. Yes; (1) by way of overcharge, $7.96; (2) by way of penalty, $100." Defendant by exception, duly noted, objected to the validity of the judgment and appealed, assigning for error that the statute imposing the penalty is in violation of section 1 of the fourteenth amendment to the national Constitution and denies to the defendant the equal protection of the law.

F. H. Busbee & Son and S. M. Gattis, for appellant.

Frank Nash, for appellee.

HOKE J.

Our statute applicable to the questions involved in this appeal (Revisal 1905, c. 61, § 2642) directs: "That no railroad, steamboat, express or other transportation company engaged in the carriage of freight, and no telegraph company or telephone company shall demand, collect or receive for any service rendered or to be rendered in the transportation of property or transmission of messages, more than the rates appearing in the printed tariff of such company in force at the time such service is rendered, or more than is allowed by law." In section 2643 a method is established by which formal demand for return of an overcharge shall be made, and allows a maximum period of 60 days within which to return the same; and section 2644, the section objected to, provides as follows: "Any company failing to return such overcharge, within the time allowed, shall forfeit to the party aggrieved the sum of twenty-five dollars for the first day and five dollars per day for each day's delay thereafter until said overcharge is paid, together with all costs incurred by the aggrieved: provided, the total forfeiture shall not exceed one hundred dollars." Under the charge of the court and the admissions therein referred to, the facts are necessarily established that there has been an overcharge for freight collected from plaintiffs by defendant, that demand for its return has been formally made, as required by the statute, and that there has been a failure to return the amount to plaintiffs for a period greater than the 60 days declared to be the maximum period allowed, and for a time more than sufficient to make the maximum penalty of $100. On the facts, therefore, the plaintiffs' claim comes directly within the provisions of the statute, and, unless the law is invalid, the judgment in his favor must be upheld. This being a domestic or intrastate shipment, the commerce clause of the federal Constitution, and the various decisions construing it, do not affect the case, and the question presented, and which the defendant desired, and intended to present, is whether this legislation is in conflict with the provisions of the fourteenth amendment, guaranteeing to every citizen of the United States equal protection of the law. The statute has been passed upon by direct adjudication of this court in Cottrell v. Railroad, 141 N.C. 383, 54 S.E. 288, and we might well refer to that decision as conclusive of the matter without more. It was, however, earnestly urged on the argument of the present appeal that the law in question is in violation of the section of the Constitution referred to. And as the constitutionality of the statute was accepted, without debate, in Cottrell's Case, supra, we have deemed it well that the positions contended for by defendant should be more fully considered.

The right of the state to establish regulations for these public service corporations, and over business enterprises in which the owners, corporate or individual, have devoted their property to a public use, and to enforce these regulations by appropriate penalties, is now and has long been too firmly established to require or permit discussion. Harrill's Case, 144 N.C. 532, 57 S.E. 383; Stone's Case, 144 N.C. 220, 56 S.E. 932; Walker's Case, 137 N.C. 168, 49 S.E. 84; McGowan's Case, 95 N.C. 417; Branch's Case, 77 N.C. 347; Railway v. State of Florida, 203 U.S. 261, 27 S.Ct. 109, 51 L.Ed. 175; Railway v. Humes, 115 U.S. 513, 6 S.Ct. 110, 29 L.Ed. 463; Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U.S. 691, 26 L.Ed. 238; Munn v. Ill., 94 U.S. 113, 24 L.Ed. 77. As said by Associate Justice Fields in Humes' Case, supra: "The power of the state to impose fines and penalties for a violation of its statutory requirements is coeval with government; and the mode in which they shall be enforced, whether at the suit of a private party or at the suit of the public, and what disposition shall be made of the amounts collected, are merely matters of legislative discretion. The statutes of nearly every state of the Union provide for the increase of damages where the injury complained of results from the neglect of duties imposed for the better security of life and property, and make that increase in many cases double, in some cases treble, and even quadruple, the actual damages. And experience favors this legislation as the most efficient mode of preventing, with the least inconvenience, the commission of injuries. The decisions of the highest courts have affirmed the validity of such legislation. The injury actually received is often so small that in many cases no effort would be made by the sufferer to obtain redress, if the private interest were not supported by the imposition of punitive damages." And the right to establish such regulations for certain classes of pursuits and occupations imposing these requirements equally on all members of a given class has been made to rest very largely in the discretion of the Legislature. Tullis v. Railway, 175 U.S. 348, 20 S.Ct. 136, 44 L.Ed. 192; Insurance Co. v. Daggs, 172 U.S. 562, 19 S.Ct. 281, 43 L.Ed. 552; Magoun v. Savings Bank; 170 U.S. 286, 18 S.Ct. 594, 42 L.Ed. 1037. In Tullis' Case, just referred to, Chief Justice Fuller, quoting with approval from the decision in Dagg's Case, supra, said: "The power of the state to distinguish, select, and classify objects of legislation necessarily has a wide range of discretion that it was sufficient to satisfy the demands of the Constitution, if the classifications were practical and not palpably arbitrary." There are limitations on the right of a State Legislature to impose these regulations, as indicated in Smyth v. Ames, 169 U.S. 466, 18 S.Ct. 418, 42 L.Ed. 819, and other cases of a like import, the exact nature and extent of which are not as yet fully or clearly defined. As said by Mr. Freunde in his work on the Police Power, § 550: "It has been shown that after some hesitation the courts have asserted and now fully exercise the power to control the legislative determination that a rate is reasonable. It has therefore become incumbent upon the courts to lay down the principles by which the question of reasonableness must be judged, and the federal Supreme Court alone can conclusively establish these principles in an affirmative manner. However, this important problem has not yet been finally solved." From the very nature of the case it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to lay down a general rule so plain and precise that different cases could be readily referred to the one side or the other; and the United States Supreme Court has very wisely determined that the line shall be marked and the doctrine explained and applied by their decisions on the varying cases as they may arise.

This phase of the matter is not pursued further for the reason that the defendant does not assail the law, because the regulations thereby imposed are unreasonable in themselves but because it establishes an unreasonable and arbitrary classification: (1) In imposing the regulation therein specified on corporations and companies engaged in the transportation of freight, while individuals engaged in...