People ex rel. Steward v. Bd. of R.R. Com'rs of New York

• Decision Date: 03 October 1899
• Citation: 160 N.Y. 202,54 N.E. 697
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. STEWARD et al. v. BOARD OF RAILROAD COM'RS OF STATE OF NEW YORK et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

160 N.Y. 202

54 N.E. 697

PEOPLE ex rel. STEWARD et al.

v.BOARD OF RAILROAD COM'RS OF STATE OF NEW YORK et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 3, 1899.

Appeal from supreme court, appellate division, Third department.

Certiorari in the name of the people, on the relation of Mary A. Steward and others, against the board of railroad commissioners of the state of New York and others. From a judgment of the appellate division (58 N. Y. Supp. 94) reversing a decision of said board, the defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Haight, Bartlett, and Martin, JJ., dissenting.

Adelbert Moot and John H. Coyne, for appellants.

Howard A. Taylor, for respondents.

PARKER, C. J.

The Goshen Railroad Company, having performed the preliminary requirements of the statute, applied to the railroad commissioners for the certificate authorized by section 59 of the railroad law; the railroad commissioners inspected the location of the proposed new road; and, in pursuance of notice duly given, a public hearing was granted, to enable those of the public who were opposed to the granting of the certificate to appear and present their reasons for their opposition. Upon said hearing, the relators appeared in person and by counsel, and produced witnesses, who were duly sworn by the railroad commissioners, and thereupon gave testimony in opposition to the claim of the railroad company that the building of the railroad was a work of public convenience and necessity. Later on the railroad commissioners issued the certificate prayed for; whereupon the relators applied for a writ of certiorari to review such determination on the part of the railroad commissioners, and, the same having been allowed by the special term, and the Goshen Railroad Company brought in as a party, a hearing was had in due course in the appellate division, which resulted in a decision by that court reversing and annulling the determination of the railroad commissioners. The Goshen Railroad Company, on this appeal taken from the order, urges that this court should hold that the appellate division was without authority to review such determination,-that the statute confers upon the railroad commissioners an important duty, which it prefers to call administrative rather than judicial, and which, it insists, is subject to no review by the courts. The issuing of a common-law writ of certiorari to review the judicial determinations of inferior judicial tribunals and officers acting judicially under authority of statute, to correct errors of law affecting property rights of the parties, has for a long time formed a part of our judicial procedure. Starr v. Trustees, 6 Wend. 564;People ex rel. Loughran v. Board of Railroad Com'rs, 158 N. Y. 421, 53 N. E. 163, and cases cited. Counsel has therefore found it necessary to call the duty enjoined upon the railroad commissioners by section 59 of the railroad law something else than a judicial duty, in order to obtain even the suggestion of a foundation upon which to construct an argument intended to convince the mind that such a determination as this is not reviewable by certiorari. But it is clear that, if the duty enjoined upon the board of railroad commissioners by this section calls upon them to decide some question of fact every time there is an application made to them for the issuing of the certificate authorized by it, then, in the making of that decision, it acts judicially, notwithstanding there may be closely interwoven with it certain administrative or ministerial functions that must also be exercised. People v. Board of Railroad Com'rs, 32 App. Div. 179,52 N. Y. Supp. 908;Id. 158 N. Y. 711, 53 N. E. 1129. In that case the certiorari was issued for the purpose of reviewing the action of the board of railroad commissioners in authorizing a change of motive power, under section 100 of the railroad law, and in the course of the opinion by Mr. Justice Landon, which expressed the views of both appellate tribunals, it was said: ‘It is a part of our state system to commit many governmental powers, involving judicial, executive, and ministerial functions, to a single officer, or a board or commission, the exercise of the executive or ministerial duty being in some cases dependent upon the exercise of the judicial function. Our constitution, unlike that of the United States, does not commit the whole judicial power to the courts in the first instance; hence our system of review by certiorari of the determination of a body or officer.’ Now, the section before us prohibits a railroad corporation from exercising any of the powers conferred by law upon such a corporation until the board of railroad commissioners shall certify that certain specific conditions have been complied with, and also that ‘public convenience and necessity’ require the construction of such railroad as proposed in said articles of association. The granting of such a certificate cannot be treated as an idle ceremony, required by the legislature as a mere matter of form; for the board of railroad commissioners, in order to certify, must first determine what the fact is, and it must decide that the public convenience and necessity require the construction of the proposed railroad before it can certify that such is the fact. To enable it to pass upon that question of fact, it must be in possession of the necessary evidence upon which to base a decision; and, in order that the people may have an opportunity to be heard and be permittedto produce evidence in opposition to the railroad's claim of a necessity, the statute requires the publication of the articles of association for three weeks in each county in which the road is proposed to be located, and further requires that the application for the certificate shall be applied for within six months after the completion of such publication. Upon such hearing the commissioners have the right to administer oaths to witnesses, to authorize their examination and cross-examination by counsel, and, while not bound by the technical rules governing the admission of evidence in actions and proceedings pending before the courts, the commissioners are authorized to, and do, receive oral testimony, written and printed documents, and affidavits which, in their opinion, tend to throw light upon the question which in the end they are to pass upon, namely, whether ‘public convenience and necessity’ require the construction of the proposed railroad. This determination is one of great importance from a public point of view, and so the statute requires that it shall be passed upon at the very threshold of the corporation's existence, for thus is prevented, if the railroad ought not to be built, a waste of the money contributed by the stockholders in proceedings which may come to naught should some owner of land through which the railroad is intended to pass succeed in establishing, in condemnation proceedings, that there is no necessity for the building of the railroad, as in Re Niagara Falls & W. Ry. Co., 108 N. Y. 375, 15 N. E. 429. It is not my purpose to attempt to present all of the arguments that can readily be marshaled to establish that the determination made by the railroad commissioners that a certificate shall issue as called for by section 59 constitutes a judicial determination of great importance; for, as I view it, that question was settled in this court in People ex rel. Loughran v. Board of Railroad Com'rs, supra. It is true that in that case another section of the railroad law was involved, but every argument presented by the opinion to prove that the power under consideration in that case was a judicial power is alike applicable to the power conferred upon the commissioners by section 59. In that case the statute provided that no railroad station ‘shall be discontinued without the consent of the board of railroad commissioners first had and obtained.’ In this case it provides that no railroad corporation shall exercise the powers conferred by law ‘until the board of railroad commissioners shall certify * * * that public convenience and necessity require the construction of said railroad as proposed in the said articles of association.’ The reasoning which we deemed conclusive in that case is equally applicable to this one, and need not be repeated here. The attempt that has been made to distinguish the two cases is not rested upon the claim that there is any difference in the character of the power exercised by the railroad commissioners, nor that in the one case, any more than in the other, the determination is not the final determination in that proceeding; but it is urged that in the Loughran Case the relator residents had no other remedy than a review by certiorari, while in this case the relator residents will have a further remedy when proceedings shall have been instituted to acquire their lands by condemnation. But it will be observed that this claim relates to the parties, and not to the remedy. That argument does not deny that such a determination by the railroad commissioners is reviewable by certiorari, but challenges merely the right of the owners of lands affected to sue out the writ, because, it is said, they have another remedy.

The right of the appellate division, therefore, to review such a determination by the railroad commissioners as is involved in this case, seems to be settled in terms by the Loughran Case, as it is in principle by a long line of earlier cases; and this brings us to a consideration of the claim that these relators are not in a position to invoke a review of the determination by the courts. It is true that they are residents of Goshen, as the relators in the Loughran Case were residents of Kingston; but it is urged that the particular residents who are relators in this case also happen to own land through which the railroad will pass, if constructed, and, therefore, will have an opportunity in that proceeding to try out the question of public convenience and necessity,...