Railroad Commission v. Western Union Telegraph Co.
| Decision Date | 21 November 1893 |
| Citation | 18 S.E. 389,113 N.C. 213 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. RAILROAD COMMISSION v. WESTERN UNION TEL. CO. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from superior court, Wake county; G. H. Brown, Judge.
Proceeding by the state, on the relation of the railroad commission against the Western Union Telegraph Company, to regulate rates. From the order of the board of railroad commissioners the telegraph company appeals. Modified.
Strong & Strong and Robt. Styles, for appellant.
Robert O. Burton, for appellee.
The board of railroad commissioners is "authorized and required to make or cause to be made just and reasonable rates of charges for the transmission of messages by any telegraph line or lines doing business in the state." Laws 1891, c. 320, § 26. It may cause notice to be served upon corporations or persons charged with a violation of the rules prescribed by it in pursuance of the above authority and upon a hearing may ascertain. And direct ample and full recompense to be made by the company, corporation, or person offending, which recompense may be enforced by civil action is prescribed in section 10 of said act. Mayo v. Telegraph Co., 112 N.C. 343, 16 S.E. 1006. It is a court of record, with "the powers and jurisdiction of a court of general jurisdiction" as to all subjects embraced in said act, by virtue of Laws 1891, c. 498. Atlantic Exp. Co. v. Wilmington & W. R. Co., 111 N.C. 463, 16 S.E. 393; Const. N.C. art. 4, § 2.
The defendant, being served with process, appeared before this court to answer the complaint or petition of Eugene Albea, called plaintiff herein, and filed its answer. Thereupon, a trial was had, and, it appearing that the said Albea had tendered no commercial message to any of the offices of the defendant, it was adjudged that he had no cause of complaint, and the proceeding was practically dismissed as to him. The commission, however, having the defendant before it, proceeded, under its general powers, to make rates of charges for the transmission of business by the defendant from and to points in North Carolina, which rate of charges in the same as that applicable to all the offices of the defendant within the limits of the state. The commission, after having disposed of the complaint of Albea, should have amended the proceeding so as to substitute as complainant the state of North Carolina ex rel. the railroad commission; but, as it has been fully heard without reference to this irregularity, we have ordered that the amendment be now made, and the proceeding be entitled accordingly. Code, § 273; Reynolds v. Smathers, 87 N.C. 24.
The order of the board which is the subject of review is as follows: "That the telegraph offices at Edenton and Elizabeth City, and at other points on the Norfolk & Southern Railroad in North Carolina, are offices of defendant, and that said offices shall transmit commercial messages at rates prescribed by the commission to any point in North Carolina." This order is based upon certain findings of fact, some of which are excepted to; but inasmuch as it was agreed that his honor might pass upon these questions in the place of a jury, and as there was evidence sufficient to warrant such findings as, under the view we have taken are material to be considered, they cannot be reviewed in this court. Battle v. Mayo, 102 N.C. 413, 9 S.E. 384; Fertilizer Co. v. Reams, 105 N.C. 283, 11 S.E. 467.
It appears, in the language of his honor, "that the defendant owns, controls, and operates a line of telegraph from Edenton, N. C., passing through Elizabeth City, N. C., Hertford, Moyock, N. C., and other places along the track of the Norfolk & Southern Railroad to Berkley and Norfolk, Va., *** that the company receives and transmits over this line (commercial) messages at the towns and villages of Hertford, Moyock, and other places along said line to any place in North Carolina where it has an office, at the uniform rate of twenty-five cents per message of ten words, except at Edenton and Elizabeth City," at which two last-named offices the defendant receives no commercial business; the said offices being devoted exclusively to the business of the Norfolk & Southern Railroad Company, in respect to the running of its trains, etc. It is very clear to us that, under the authority given it to make rates for "the transmission of messages by any telegraph line or lines doing business in the state," the commission--subject, of course, to the right of appeal--has the incidental power of ascertaining what particular corporation is at least in the control or operation of the same. This would seem indispensably necessary to a proper exercise of its authority to fix rates, as well as to know against whom to proceed, under section 10 of the act, in the event of a violation of such regulation. The exception, therefore, in this respect, must be overruled.
A more serious question, however, is presented by the ruling of the court upon the third conclusion of the commission, which is as follows: "That telegraphic messages transmitted by defendant over its said line from Elizabeth City or Edenton or other points in North Carolina, to points in said state, do not constitute commerce between states, although traversing another state in the route, and are subject to the rate prescribed by the commission." It appears from the findings of fact that the shortest and only route over the wire of the defendant, by which messages can be transmitted to many points in this state, necessarily "traverses, in part, the state of Virginia, and thence back into North Carolina;" and it is insisted that such messages so transmitted are interstate commerce, and therefore not subject to the tariff regulation of the commission. It is not denied that the offices of the defendant along the line of the Norfolk & Southern Railroad Company, except those at Edenton and Elizabeth City, receive commercial messages for transmission, in the manner described, to various points in North Carolina; and it is plain that such business does not relate to the intercourse of the citizens of this state with those of some other state. It is purely an intercourse between the citizens of North Carolina, through the means afforded by a corporation having extensive facilities of communication within the limits of the said state; and the...
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