Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Mottley

• Decision Date: 04 May 1909
• Citation: 118 S.W. 982,133 Ky. 652
• Parties: LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO. v. MOTTLEY et ux.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

118 S.W. 982

133 Ky. 652

LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO. v. MOTTLEY et ux.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

May 4, 1909

Appeal from Circuit Court, Warren County.

"To be officially reported."

Action by Erasmus L. Mottley and wife against the Louisville &amp Nashville Railroad Company to compel specific performance of a contract of carriage. From a judgment for plaintiffs defendant appeals. Affirmed.

See also, 150 F. 406; 211 U.S. 149, 29 S.Ct. 42, 53 L.Ed. 126.

Henry L. Stone and Sims, Du Bose & Rodes, for appellant.

Clarence U. McElroy, Wright & McElroy, and G. Duncan Milliken, for appellees.

BARKER J.

In 1871 the appellees, Erasmus L. Mottley and Annie E. Mottley, his wife, were seriously injured in an accident occurring to one of appellant's passenger trains while they were being transported as passengers from their home, in Bowling Green, to Louisville, Ky. In full settlement of all claims for damages on the part of the appellees, the appellant agreed, in writing, to furnish them free transportation over its line for the remainder of their lives. The contract is as follows: "Louisville, Ky. Oct. 2, 1871. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, in consideration that E. L. Mottley and wife, Annie E. Mottley, have this day released said company from all damages or claims for damages for injuries received by them on the 7th of September, 1871, in consequence of a collision of trains on the road of said company at Randolph's Station, Jefferson county, Ky. hereby agrees to issue free passes on said railroad and branches, now existing or to exist, to said E. L. Mottley and wife, Annie E. Mottley, for the remainder of the present year and thereafter to renew said passes annually during the lives of said Mottley and wife, or either of them. Thos. J. Martin, Vice President Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company. Willis Raney, Secretary. [Seal.]" This contract was faithfully carried out by the appellant until after the enactment by the Congress of the United States, on June 29, 1906, of "An act to amend an act, entitled an act to regulate commerce, approved February 4, 1887" (Act June 29, 1906, c. 3591, 34 Stat. 584 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1907, p. 892]), When, becoming apprehensive lest the further issuance of passes to appellees under the contract was within the prohibition of the act of Congress, it declined to carry out its agreement any further, whereupon the appellees first instituted an action for the specific enforcement of the contract in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Kentucky, where a judgment was rendered as prayed for in the petition. Mottley v. L. & N. R. R. Co. (C. C.) 150 F. 406. But upon appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States this judgment was reversed upon the ground of want of jurisdiction in the federal court to entertain the cause of action. See L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149, 29 S.Ct. 42, 53 L.Ed. 126. Whereupon the appellees instituted this action in the Warren circuit court, with the result that a judgment was rendered requiring the appellant to perform the contract. To review this judgment this appeal has been prosecuted.

The Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company is a common carrier engaged in the business of interstate and intrastate commerce, and the specific performance of the contract in question involves both interstate and interstate commerce. Therefore one of the questions arising upon this record is whether or not the contract is specifically enforceable under the provisions of the act of Congress before referred to, and which is fully pleaded and relied upon by the appellant as a bar to appellees' cause of action. So much of the federal statute pleaded by the appellant as is deemed necessary to be herein set forth is as follows:

"Section 1. *** No common carrier subject to the provisions of this act shall, after January 1, 1907, directly or indirectly, issue or give any interstate free ticket, free pass, or free transportation for passengers, except to its employés.

"Sec. 2. *** No carrier, unless otherwise provided by this act, shall engage or participate in the transportation of passengers, or property, as defined in this act, unless the rates, fares and charges upon which the same are transported by said carrier have been filed and published in accordance with the provisions of the act; nor shall any carrier charge, or demand, or collect, or receive a greater or less or different compensation for such transportation of passengers or property, or for any service in connection therewith, between the points named in such tariffs, than the rates, fares and charges which are specified in the tariff filed and in effect at the time; nor shall any carrier refund or remit in any manner, or by any device, any portion of the fares, rates and charges so specified, nor extend to any shipper or person any privileges or facilities in the transportation of passengers or property, except such as are specified in such tariffs. ***"

The violation of these sections of the statute is punishable by heavy fine.

No question of the good faith of the parties in making the contract is raised, and the length of time it has existed prior to the enactment of the federal statute precludes the possibility of any intent to evade its provisions. The first question, then, arising upon the record is whether or not the Congress, in the enactment of the statute, intended to abrogate existing contracts such as the one in question--in other words, whether the statute was intended to be retroactive in its effect on pre-existing contracts, or whether it was intended to be prospective in its effect--and, second, whether or not the contract in question is within the purview of the federal statute at all.

The rule is well settled that statutes will always be construed to be prospective, and not retrospective in their effect unless the language so plainly expresses a retrospective intent as to preclude a reasonable doubt that the Legislature meant it to be prospective. Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Limitations, in speaking of this rule of construction (page 529), says: "Nevertheless, legislation of this character is exceedingly liable to abuse; and it is a sound rule of construction that a statute should have a prospective operation only, unless its terms show clearly a legislative intention that it should operate retrospectively." And Endlich, in his work on the Interpretation of Statutes (section 271), uses this language: "Upon the presumption that the Legislature does not intend what is unjust rests the leaning against giving certain statutes a retrospective operation. *** They are construed as operating only on cases or facts which come into existence after the statutes were passed, unless a retrospective effect be clearly intended." There is nothing in the language of the enactment by Congress, under discussion, which purports to give a retrospective effect to its operation; on the contrary, the intent that the statute should have a prospective effect only appears from a most cursory reading of the language used, unless it is applied to the actual issuance of the passes and not to the contract under which they are issued. We do not think it admissible to so construe the language of the statute as to hold that it applies simply to the issuance of a pass or ticket for transportation, rather than the contract under which the pass is issued. It is true that, in the execution of the contract made in 1871, it has been the custom of the railroad company to...