New York Co v. People of the State of New York

Decision Date01 March 1897
Docket NumberNo. 128,128
PartiesNEW YORK, N. H. & H. R. CO. v. PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

John M. Bowers, for plaintiff in error.

Theodore E. Hancock and Wm. Henry Dennis, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.

A statute of New York passed June 18, 1887, regulating the heating of steam passenger cars and directing guards and guard posts to be placed on railroad bridges and trestles and the approaches thereto (Laws N. Y. 1887, c. 616, p. 828), provides: 'Section 1. It shall not be lawful for any steam railroad doing business in this state, after the first day of May, eighteen hundred and eighty-eight, to heat its passenger cars, on other than mixed trains, by any stove or furnace kept inside of the car or suspended therefrom, except it may be lawful, in case of accident or other emergency, to temporarily use such stove or furnace with necessary fuel. Provided, that in cars which have been equipped with apparatus to heat by steam, hot water or hot air from the locomotive, or from a special car, the present stove may be retained, to be used only when the car is standing still. And provided also that this act shall not apply to railroads less than fifty miles in length, nor to the use of stoves, of a pattern and kind to be approved by the railroad commissioners, for cooking purposes in dining cars. Sec. 2. After November first, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, guard posts shall be placed in the prolongation of the line of bridge trusses so that in case of derailment the posts and not the bridge trusses shall receive the blow of the derailed locomotive or car. Sec. 3. Any person or corporation violating any of the provisions of this act shall be liable to a penalty of one thousand dollars, and to the further penalty of hundred dollars for each and every day during which such a violation shall continue. Sec. 4. Upon the application of any railroad covered by the provisions of this act, the board of railroad commissioners may approve of any proposed safeguard or device to be used under the provisions of this act, and thereafter the railroad using such safeguard or device so approved shall not be liable to any of the penalties prescribed by this act for a violation thereof in regard to any such safe- guard or device. Sec. 5. The violation of any of the provisions of this act will be deemed a misdemeanor. Sec. 6. This act shall take effect immediately.'

A subsequent statute, passed April 27, 1888 (Laws N. Y. 1889, c. 189, p. 250), so amended the first section of the act of 1887 that the heating of passenger cars, on other than mixed trains, by a stove or furnace kept inside the car or suspended therefrom, did not become unlawful until after November 1, 1888. The amendatory act further provided that in special cases the board of railroad commissioners could extend the time for a period not exceeding one year from November 1, 1888, for any steam railroad doing business in New York to heat its passenger cars by stoves or furnaces kept inside the car or suspended therefrom.

The present action was brought to recover penalties imposed for the violation of the above statutes.

The complaint filed in behalf of the people of New York charged the defendant, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, a corporation of Connecticut, with having, in the operation of its railroad, on the 2d day of November, 1888, and on every subsequent day down to and including December 31, 1888, run trains of passenger cars over its route from the city of New York to Hartford and from Hartford to that city, and heated said cars, both on through trains and over that part of its road in New York on other than mixed trains, by stoves and furnaces kept within such cars, 'as the regular and usual method of heating said cars, and in cases other than those of accident and other emergency'; and that the board of railroad commissioners of New York had not extended the time of the defendant to heat its passenger cars by any stove or furnace kept inside its cars.

There was a verdict and judgment against the railroad company for the sum of $7,000, and $479.81 costs, disbursements, and allowance; in all, $7,479.81; that judgment having been affirmed by the court of appeals of New York, 142 N. Y. 646, 37 N. E. 568.

It is contended that the above statute of New York is repugnant to section 8 of article 1 of the constitution of the United States, providing that congress shall have power to regulate commerce among the several states, and to make all laws necessary and proper to carry such power into execution, and also to the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, declaring that no state shall deprive any one of property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

As these questions were properly raised in the state court, there is no doubt of our jurisdiction to re-examine the final judgment against the railroad company. Rev. St. § 709.

According to numerous decisions of this court (some of which are cited in the margin1), sustaining the validity of state regulations enacted under the police powers of the state, and which incidentally affected commerce among the states and with foreign nations, it was clearly competent for the state of New York, in the absence of national legislation covering the subject, to forbid under penalties the heating of passenger cars in that state by stoves or furnaces kept inside the cars or suspended therefrom, although such cars may be employed in interstate commerce. While the laws of the states must yield to acts of congress passed in execution of the powers conferred upon it by the constitution (Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 211), the mere grant to congress of the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states did not, of...

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