Kansas City Southern Railway Co. v. Brooks

• Decision Date: 28 October 1907
• Parties: KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY v. BROOKS
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

105 S.W. 93

84 Ark. 233

KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY v. BROOKS

Supreme Court of Arkansas

October 28, 1907

Appeal from Miller Circuit Court; Jacob M. Carter, judge; reversed.

STATEMENT BY THE COURT.

Appellees seek to recover of appellant penalty for overcharge in passenger fare by appellant between the stations of Ashdown in Arkansas and Texarkana, Texas, on appellant's road.

The complaints allege that the distance between Ashdown and Texarkana is twenty miles, and that the regular fare for transportation between said stations is sixty cents, but that appellant, through its agent, wilfully demanded and received for the transportation of plaintiffs from Ashdown in Arkansas to the station of Texarkana, Texas, the sum of eighty cents the same being an excessive charge of twenty cents over the regular fare between said stations, and overcharge of ten cents on the combined local rates in Arkansas and Texas, and that said sum was a greater compensation than the law allowed.

The prayer was for three hundred dollars and a reasonable attorney's fee.

The appellant denied all the material allegations of the complaint, and set up affirmatively that the act (sections 6611 to 6620 of Kirby's Digest) under which appellees seek to recover, if held to apply to continuous transportation of passengers between Ashdown, Arkansas, and Texarkana, Texas, is in violation of the Interstate Commerce Act of February 4, 1887, and also of June 29, 1906 amendatory of the act of February 24, 1887.

The suits were separate, but by order of the court and consent of parties were consolidated and tried as one; separate verdicts, however, being rendered in each case.

The appellant, over the objection and protest of appellees exacted and received from appellee the sum of eighty cents for their transportation as passenger from the station of Ashdown in Arkansas to Texarkana, Texas. In the case of Brooks, he did not offer to pay his fare to Ogden a station in Arkansas, where the train stopped, and where passengers could purchase tickets from that station to Texarkana. He testified that he did not have time to get a ticket at Ashdown, so he paid his fare on the train from Ashdown to Texarkana where he intended to go.

In the case of Armstrong he asked to be allowed to pay his fare to Ogden in Arkansas, and to be allowed to purchase his ticket from there to Texarkana. This request was refused appellant's auditor giving as a reason that appellee would not have time to get his ticket at Ogden, that the train did not stop long enough there. Ogden was a regular stopping place for the train, and the train stopped there on this occasion. It was shown that the ticket rate from Ashdown to Texarkana was sixty cents. The train rate, without a ticket, was eighty cents.

Appellant offered to show that four cents per mile train rate from Ashdown, Arkansas, to Texarkana, Texas, was the regularly established, printed and published rate in existence on November 8, 1906, but the court would not admit the evidence to which ruling appellant excepted.

The court, over the objection of appellant, gave the following instructions:

"1. If the jury find from the evidence that the plaintiff, W. S. Brooks, boarded the train of the defendant as a passenger at Ashdown, and was required to pay eighty cents for passage from Ashdown to Texarkana, you are instructed that the same is under the law an overcharge, and subjects the defendant to a penalty of not less than $ 50, nor more than $ 300, as you may find under the evidence.

"2. If the jury find from the evidence that the plaintiff, M. B. Armstrong, boarded the train of the defendant as a passenger at Ashdown, and was required to pay eighty cents for passage from Ashdown to Texarkana, you are instructed that the same is under the law an overcharge, and subjects the defendant to a penalty of not less than $ 50, nor more than $ 300, as you may find under the evidence.

"3. If you find from the evidence that M. B. Armstrong offered to pay his fare to Ogden, Arkansas, and then to buy a ticket from Ogden to Texarkana, and that he was refused permission so to do by the agent of defendant in charge of defendant's train, you are instructed that said defendant could not force the payment of fare from Ashdown to Texarkana as interstate commerce; and if defendant or his agent charged said Armstrong eighty cents, the same is an overcharge, and he is entitled to recover from the defendant a penalty of from $ 50 to $ 300, in whatever amount you may agree upon."

To which ruling appellant excepted.

The jury returned a verdict in each case for $ 150.

Motion for new trial, reserving the exceptions saved, was overruled, judgments entered in accordance with the verdict, and this appeal prosecuted.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded for new trial.

Read & McDonough, for appellant.

1. Section 6620, Kirby's Digest, does not and can not apply to interstate commerce. Carrying passengers from a point in Arkansas to a point in Texas is made interstate commerce. Acts 59 Congress, p. 584, § 1; 17 Am. & Eng. Enc. of L. (2 Ed.), p. 61-2; 187 U.S. 617; 158 Id. 98; 76 Ark. 82; 202 U.S. 242; 78 Ark. 182; 80 Ark. 536; Acts of Congress June, 1906, § 6; 158 U.S. 98.

2. The four cent rate was established by act 1887 as amended and remained in force under act June, 1906. To have charged plaintiffs three cents a mile would have subjected both railway and passenger to fine and railway's agent to a term in the penitentiary. There is a conflict between the State law and both Interstate Commerce Acts. Interstate Commerce Acts 1887, 1889 and 1906. The State law must give way. 158 U.S. 98.

Webber & Webber, for appellees.

The maximum rate in Texas is four cents for passengers without a ticket. In Arkansas three cents. Kirby's Digest, § 6611,...