Public Service Commission v. New York Cent. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 19 May 1966
• Docket Number: No. 30733,30733
• Citation: 216 N.E.2d 716,247 Ind. 411
• Parties: PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION of Indiana et al., Appellants, v. The NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY et al., Appellees.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 716

216 N.E.2d 716

247 Ind. 411

PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION of Indiana et al., Appellants, v. The NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY et al., Appellees.

No. 30733.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

May 19, 1966.

Hilgedag, Noland & Johnson, James F. Noland, Indianapolis, for appellants, The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen and Order of Ry. Conductors and Brakemen.

John J. Dillon, Atty. Gen., and Lloyd C. Hutchinson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellants Public Service Commission, its members and other State officers.

Karl J. Stipher, Daniel E. Johnson, Indianapolis, for appellees, Baker & Daniels, Indianapolis, of counsel.

MYERS, Chief Justice.

Appellees' petition for reconsideration of our denial of their Petition for Re-hearing and their petition for stay and appellants' motion to strike 'Appellees' Petition For Reconsideration and Brief in Support Thereof' and to deny 'Appellees Petition For Stay' heretofore filed herein, are now considered by the court. The court having given careful attention to the above mentioned pleading now finds that appellants' motions to strike appellees said pleadings are well taken and that the same should be sustained.

It is therefore considered, ordered, adjudged and decreed by the court that 'Appellees' Petition for Reconsideration and Brief in Support Thereof' and 'Appellees' Petition for Stay' be and they are hereby denied. It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed by the court that the prayer of appellants' motions to strike 'Appellees Petition For Reconsideration and Brief in Support Thereof' and to deny 'Appellees' Petition For Stay' is hereby granted.

It further having been suggested to the court that its previous opinion contains certain alleged latent ambiguities, and it being the decision of the court that if there be such ambiguities in such opinion and it being still within term and the opinion of the court thereby being in fieri the court now sua sponte, withdraws its former opinion and in lieu thereof now substitutes for such former opinion, the opinion herewith accompanying this order and the clerk of this court is now ordered to certify forthwith to the clerk of Marion Superior Court, Room No. 3 and to the clerk of the Shelby Circuit Court the opinion accompanying this order.

Opinion

JACKSON, Judge.

Appellees on May 13, 1964, filed a complaint in the Superior Court of Marion County, Indiana, Room 3, seeking a temporary and permanent injunction to prevent the enforcement, by certain of the appellants therein named, of Acts 1937, ch. 58, §§ 1--13 (inclusive) being §§ 55--1326--55--1338, Burns' 1951 Replacement.

The law challenged by appellees' complaint is known as the Indiana Full Crew Law. The aforesaid complaint alleged that the Governor, the Attorney General and the Public Service Commission of Indiana are required to enforce the above mentioned law; and further alleged that said law is violative of appellees' rights under the Indiana and the United States Constitutions; said complaint further alleged that Congress by the adoption of Public Law 88--108, 77 Stat. 132, enacted August 28, 1963, preempted the field in which said law was designed to operate, and

'For the reasons hereinbefore alleged the application of the Indiana Excess Crew Law to the plaintiffs herein is unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional in the following respects:

'(a) Such law does not tend to promote or protect the public health, morals, safety or welfare of the people of the State of Indiana and is, therefore, not justified as an exercise of the police power of the State of Indiana but is an invalid and unauthorized attempt to exercise such power in violation of Article 1, Sections 1, 12 and 21, of the Indiana Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

'(b) Such law interferes with and deprives plaintiffs of personal rights and liberty in violation of Section 1, Article 1, of the Indiana Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

'(c) Such law deprives plaintiffs of their business and property without just compensation and without due process of law in violation of Section 12 and 21, Article 1, of the Indiana Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

'(d) Such law deprives plaintiffs of equal protection of the laws in violation of Article 1, Section 23, of the Indiana Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

'(e) Such law is not a general law but is discriminatory and does not apply equally to all persons in like circumstances in violation of Section 23, Article 4, of the Indiana Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

'(f) Such law imposes undue and unreasonable burdens on interstate and foreign commerce in violation of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3, of the Constitution of the United States, commonly known as the 'Commerce Clause.'

'(g) Such law is contrary to and interferes with Public Law 88--108 and the binding award made pursuant thereto, and thereby violates the Commerce Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3) and the Supremacy Clause (Article 6, Section 2) of the United States Constitution.'

Appellees' complaint further alleged that irreparable injury would result from the continued enforcement of such law and prayed for a temporary injunction against the enforcement thereof.

The issues were formed, at the hearing on the temporary injunction by appellants' affidavits, objections and arguments offered in opposition to appellees' request for temporary injunction and the affidavits and exhibits offered in support of the petition by appellees. Hearing thereon was had on September 23, 1964.

February 3, 1965, the trial court granted the temporary injunction sought by appellees. The temporary injunction, in pertinent part reads as follows:

'IT IS, THEREFORE, ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED by the Court as follows:

'1. The defendants, Public Service Commission of Indiana and Merton Stanley, Phillip L. Bayt, and C. Patrick Clancy, individually and as members of and constituting the Public Service Commission of Indiana, together with their successors in office, agents, servants, attorneys and all others in active concert with them, and each of them, are hereby until further order of this Court, jointly and severally enjoined from in any manner enforcing or threatening to enforce Chapter 58, Acts of The Indiana General Assembly for 1937 (Burns Ind.Stat.Ann., 1951 Repl., Sec. 55--1326 through--1338) and from taking any steps or relating or instituting or causing to be related or instituted any legal proceedings such as injunction, imposition of penalties or otherwise to enforce the provisions of said statute against plaintiffs, or any one of them, or their agents and employees.

'2. The bond is set in the penal amount of $5,000.00, and the plaintiffs' written undertaking with surety in this amount is approved by the Court.

'3. This temporary injunction shall be effective immediately, and the Sheriff is hereby ordered immediately to serve a copy of this temporary injunction upon each of the defendants named in this order.'

The appeal here under consideration was taken directly from the action of the court in granting such temporary injunction, pursuant to Acts 1921, ch. 251, § 1, p. 741, § 2--3218, Burns' 1946 Replacement.

March 10, 1965, appellants filed transcript and assignment of errors with the clerk of this court. The Assignment of Errors, omitting formal parts and signatures thereto, reads as follows:

'The appellants aver that there is manifest error in the interlocutory order of the Superior Court of Marion County, Room No. 3 and in the proceedings had in this cause which are prejudicial to appellants, in that:

'1. The court erred in admitting into evidence, over objections of appellants, affidavits and exhibits of appellees in support of rhetorical paragraphs 28 and 40 of their complaint, being Plaintiffs' Exhibits N and Q, as to which such paragraphs 28 and 40 the court sustained appellants' motion to strike.

'2. The court erred in admitting into evidence, over objections, of appellants, all of the affidavits and exhibits of appellees allegedly in support of rhetorical paragraphs 25, 26, 33, 34, 36 and 37 of their complaint, which said paragraphs allege changed conditions since enactment of Chapter 58 of the Indiana Acts of 1937.

'3. The court erred in granting the temporary injunction requested by appellees.'

Appellees' complaint contained 46 rhetorical paragraphs, the first 20 of which were concerned solely with the identification of the parties, while the remaining 26 paragraphs were purportedly directed against the constitutionality of the Full Crew Law in its entirety. It is apparent, however, that appellees' concern was clearly limited to the need for employing firemen on all trains, and extra brakemen on freight trains of seventy cars or more. Thus, the question is narrowed to a determination of whether or not the provisions of the Full Crew Law, requiring firemen on all trains and the extra brakemen on trains of 70 cars or more, are constitutional in their application to appellees.

The constitutional issues formed in the complaint are summarized in rhetorical paragraph 44 thereof. Subparagraphs (a), (b) and (c) of said paragraph, charge the improvident exercise of the police power made so by the changed conditions in railroading since World War II, thus, a violation of the due process clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions was assigned; subparagraphs (d) and (e) regard the law as being violative of the equal protection clauses of said constitutions; subparagraph (f) cites the Federal Commerce clause as grounds for the laws unconstitutionality; and subparagraph (g) contends that the field covered by the Full Crew Law has been preempted by Federal Legislation and, therefore, violates the commerce and supremacy...