North Carolina Corp. Commission v. Southern Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 11 April 1923
• Docket Number: 254,255.
• Citation: 117 S.E. 563,185 N.C. 435
• Parties: NORTH CAROLINA CORPORATION COMMISSION v. SOUTHERN RY. CO. ET AL. SELMA STATION CASE.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

117 S.E. 563

185 N.C. 435

NORTH CAROLINA CORPORATION COMMISSION v. SOUTHERN RY. CO. ET AL.

SELMA STATION CASE.

Nos. 254, 255.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

April 11, 1923

Appeal from Superior Court, Wake County; Cranmer, Judge.

Petition by the Corporation Commission for a writ of mandamus directed against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company and the Southern Railway Company, and a counter petition by the Southern Railway Company for certiorari in the superior court of Wake county. The petition for a maintenance was directed to be issued and the petition for a certiorari was denied and the Southern Railway Company excepts and appeals. Peremptory mandamus issued from Supreme Court and application for certiorari denied, and cause retained for further orders and directions as may be required.for Passengers.

Railroad cannot escape the obligation to carry out an order of the Corporation Commission directing it together with another railroad to construct a suitable station at a junction point in their lines merely because it has been, as a tenant, using a station at that point belonging to the other road.

As a general rule, enactments of Legislature will not be construed so as to make them operate retrospectively unless such a legislative intent is explicitly declared or appears by necessary implication so clearly as to leave no room for reasonable doubt.

It appears from the record that on September 11, 1914, the Corporation Commission of this state made an order requiring the Southern Railway Company and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company to jointly construct and maintain a depot or station at Selma, N. C., for the use and accommodation of the public entitled to use the same and enjoy the facilities thereof. It appears, and is also admitted, that this order the exact terms of which will hereafter appear, was not appealed from or in any way reversed or modified, though its enforcement, under the statute, was stayed or postponed, for the reason appearing in the record, and as a matter of favor to the respondents, the railroads, until its enforcement was required by the Corporation Commission, when the reason for the stay no longer existed.

In order to clearly understand the successive steps taken in the course of this proceeding from and including September 10 1914, to the present time, it will be well to state, at least substantially, the proceedings in the matter, as they will hereafter appear, and which are extracted from the record (pages 6 to 18, both inclusive):

"Town Officers and Citizens of Selma v. Southern Railway Company and Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company. Better Depot Facilities. Ordered that the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company and the Southern Railway Company proceed with the construction of a union passenger station at Selma, N. C., in accordance with plans submitted by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company January 9, 1917, and substantially on the site of the present passenger depot at Selma, and that the construction of same be completed within six months from this date."

"In re Passenger Stations for Kinston, Selma, Newton and Plymouth, N. C., Commissioner's Order of April 11, 1922. Order Overruling Exceptions. Upon consideration of the exceptions filed in the above cause by the Carolina & Northwestern Railway Company, as to Newton, the Southern Railway Company, as to Newton and Selma, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, as to Kinston and Plymouth, and the Norfolk-Southern Railroad Company as to Kinston and Plymouth, it is ordered that the exceptions in each case be, and they are hereby, overruled.

By order of the Commission, this 20th day of May, 1922.

R. O. Self, Clerk."

"Citizens of Selma, North Carolina, v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company and Southern Railway Company. In re Union Passenger Depot. By the Commission: Upon consideration of the record in this cause, we find that formal petition was filed with the Corporation Commission July 1, 1913, alleging inadequacy of passenger depot accommodations maintained by Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company and Southern Railway Company at Selma, N. C.; that after due notice to defendant railroad companies formal hearing was held by the Corporation Commission at Selma, N. C., on the 9th day of April, 1914, at which hearing both of the defendant railroad companies were represented by counsel, and that, based upon the evidence produced at said hearing, the Commission made its order of September 10, 1914, directed to the Southern Railway Company and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, finding that the said passenger depot accommodations were inadequate, and ordering that the defendant railroad companies erect at Selma, at the junction point, a station adequate for their future needs, and that the plans for the proposed station be submitted to the Corporation Commission by October 15, 1914, for its approval."

Copies of said order were served upon each of the defendant railroad companies, and no exceptions to the said order were filed by either of them, but on the 6th day of October, 1914, nine days before expiration of the term for filing the said plans, an officer of the Southern Railroad Company appeared before the Corporation Commission and presented the extraordinary financial difficulties confronting the carriers at that time, by reason of conditions produced by the European War, and presented the plea that because of such conditions the carriers be granted indulgence with respect to expenditures for improved facilities until such time as their financial conditions should improve. The following response was made to this plea for indulgence:

"North Carolina Corporation Commission. Raleigh, N. C., Oct. 7, 1914. Dear Sir: The Corporation Commission has given very careful consideration to your request, made on behalf of the Southern Railway Company, that this Commission extend to the company such consideration and leniency as it properly could during the continuance of the present depressed conditions, and especially that your company be relieved as far as possible from making improvements in facilities, stations, etc., until its greatly decreased earnings again become normal.

We are convinced from the full and frank statements made to use of your financial condition and your earnings for the last three months, which show increased losses from week to week, that the earnings of the company are not more than enough to meet its actual operation expenses, and that in order to do this the company will have to practice economy and retrenchment.

Under these circumstances, it appears to us that it would be unreasonable, and not expected by the public, that you should be required to make improvements which could reasonably be postponed.

We therefore advise that, until there is an improvement in conditions, we will not require the company to make improvements in facilities, stations, etc., except where there is some peculiar necessity for immediate action.

In respect to applications for improved service and facilities pending before us, we will probably proceed to hear them and determine what improvements will be ultimately required so that the public may know what to expect, but these improvements will not be required to be made until there is an improvement in present conditions, except in cases of urgent necessity."

The foregoing letter was not in any sense a revocation of the order of September 10, 1914, but merely a concession that further time would be permitted for its observance.

The indulgent policy of co-operation with the carriers indicated in this letter was continued until after the war period, when from time to time the matter of urgent need for better passenger depot accommodations at Selma was urged upon these defendant companies without adequate response, and on March 2, 1922, notice was given each of these defendant companies that the matter of station facilities at Selma would be further heard. The Southern Railway Company was not represented at that hearing, and after the said hearing the Commission made its order of April 11, 1922, reviewing conditions under which there had been delay in compliance with the Commission's order of September 10, 1914, and an order was made that the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company and the Southern Railway Company proceed with the construction of the union passenger station at Selma in accordance with plans which have been submitted and approved, and that the construction of same be completed within six months from the 11th day of April, 1922. No exception to this order was filed by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, and that company announced its readiness to proceed with its part of compliance with the said order.

The defendant Southern Railway Company did on the 8th day of May, 1922, file exceptions to the said order, which said exceptions were overruled, whereupon the Southern Railway Company filed notice of appeal, without bond for cost, and requested that the record and exceptions thereto be transmitted to the superior court in term of the county as authorized by law.

The said exceptions of the Southern Railway Company were overruled, and its application to have the record in this case certified on appeal has not been granted for that:

First. The said order of April 11, 1922, was not an order affecting the legal rights of the Southern Railway Company, and was not therefore an order from which it would have a right of appeal. The legal obligation of these companies to construct an adequate passenger station at Selma became fixed under the order of September 10, 1914, to which no exceptions were filed. The order of April 11, 1922, imposed no additional obligation upon the Southern Railway Company, but merely ordered the defendant...