Railroad Commission of Alabama v. Northern Alabama Ry. Co.
Citation | 182 Ala. 357,62 So. 749 |
Parties | RAILROAD COMMISSION OF ALABAMA v. NORTHERN ALABAMA RY. CO. |
Decision Date | 12 June 1913 |
Court | Supreme Court of Alabama |
Rehearing Denied June 30, 1913
Appeal from City Court of Montgomery; Gaston Gunter, Judge.
Suit by the Northern Alabama Railway Company against the Alabama Railroad Commission to enjoin the enforcement of an order requiring the construction of a union passenger depot. From a decree for complainant, defendant appeals. Reversed and rendered.
The order of the railroad commission was that the several railroad companies, to wit, the Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham Railroad Company, the Illinois Central Railroad Company, and the Northern Alabama Railroad Company, being unable to agree upon a location for a passenger station (union) as required by former order of the commission The order contained other matters not necessary to be here set out. The bill avers that the complainant has its own joint freight and passenger depot almost in the heart of the town of Jasper, and had arranged and agreed before the order of the commission to build a new and larger joint station and had its plans prepared to that end, when a controversy arose between it and the citizens of Jasper as to the exact location of its new depot. The bill avers that the order of the commission is so unreasonable and arbitrary that it deprived complainant of its property without due process of law in violation of the Constitution of Alabama and of the United States, and on that ground, and others set up in the bill, the order is null and void. The trial court granted a preliminary injunction, and on final hearing granted a permanent injunction restraining the order of the railroad commission, and the commission appeals.
R.C Brickell, Atty. Gen., and W.L. Martin, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.
Bankhead & Bankhead, of Jasper, and J.T. Stokeley, of Birmingham, for appellee.
Article 12 of the Constitution of 1901, composed of sections 242-246 deals with railroads and canals, and section 243 provides in part as follows: "The power and authority of regulating railroad freight and passenger tariffs, the locating and building of passenger and freight depots, correcting abuses, *** are hereby conferred upon the Legislature, whose duty it shall be to pass laws," etc. The Legislature, availing itself of this constitutional provision, created a railroad commission and enacted laws for the purpose of compelling obedience to the mandate of our organic law. Section 5543 of the Code of 1907 requires every railroad in this state, on the order of the railroad commission, to provide, construct, and maintain adequate depots and depot buildings for the accommodation of passengers and for receiving and handling freight, where public necessity demands it, and the revenue at such point will be sufficient to justify it. Section 5545 authorizes the railroad commission, when any two or more railroads enter any city or town, to require a union passenger depot when practicable, or when the necessities of the case in the judgment of the railroad commission demands it. It also authorizes the commission to require the different railroads to unite in the joint undertaking and expense of erecting, constructing, and maintaining such union passenger stations on such terms, regulations, provisions, and conditions as said railroad commission may prescribe, and provides a penalty for a default.
The object of the constitutional provisions and these legislative enactments was to give proper protection to the traveling public against inconvenient and inadequate depot facilities. Georgia R. Co. v. Smith, 70 Ga. 694 ( ).
Our own court is in accord with the holding that the Legislature performs its function in creating the laws and can delegate the execution of same to officials legally selected for said purpose, and that the giving of said officials some latitude in the execution of same does not amount to the delegation of the authority to legislate. Whaley v. State, 168 Ala. 152, 52 So. 941, 30 L.R.A. (N.S.) 499; State v. McCarty, 5 Ala.App. 212, 59 So. 543 ( ); Ward v. State, 154 Ala. 227, 45 So. 655; Tallassee Co. v. Coms. Court, 158 Ala. 263, 48 So. 354.
Indeed, the power of the Legislature to create a railroad or corporation commission, and through them to exercise its power of regulation over railroads, has been repeatedly sustained, subject to the limitations that they cannot be invested with strictly legislative or judicial powers, and that their power and proceedings must be within constitutional restrictions relating to due process of law, and equal protection of the laws, and that a state cannot authorize a railroad commission to regulate interstate commerce.
So a railroad commission legally constituted is an administrative body, and not legislative, or a court, although they do in some cases exercise some functions of a judicial character nor are their decisions judgment in the ordinary sense of the term. 33 Cyc. 45, and cases cited in note. ...
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