Railway Transfer Company, of Minneapolis v. Railroad & Warehouse Commission

• Decision Date: 14 September 1888
• Parties: Railway Transfer Company, of Minneapolis, v. Railroad and Warehouse Commission. Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway Company v. Same
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

39 N.W. 153

39 Minn. 219

Railway Transfer Company, of Minneapolis, v. Railroad and Warehouse Commission. Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway Company v. Same

Supreme Court of Minnesota

September 14, 1888

On July 7, 1887, the railroad and warehouse commission made an order reciting: "Whereas all railroad companies owning or operating terminal or switching facilities at or within the city of Minneapolis, with the exception of the Chicago Mil. & St. Paul Ry. Co., * * * have filed with this commission copies of their several schedules of rates and charges for switching cars on their respective tracks at and within said city; and whereas it appears from said schedules that the rates and charges made by said companies vary from 25 cents per car for empty cars to two dollars per car for loaded cars; and whereas said commission, after due and careful inquiry and consideration, do find that each and every charge in excess of one dollar per car for switching within the limits of the city of Minneapolis is unreasonable and an excessive compensation for the services performed." After which recital the order proceeds as follows:

"Now therefore it is ordered and determined by this commission pursuant to the authority in them vested by the aforesaid legislative act, that all such schedules be changed by striking therefrom all charges or rates in excess of one dollar per car for the switching or transfer thereof, and inserting, in room of the words or figures stricken out, the word 'one dollar' or the appropriate sign and figures therefor.

"It is the object and purpose of this order to establish one dollar as the maximum charge for the switching or transfer of any car at or within the limits of said city, without regard to distance, or kind of goods or merchandise with which the car so switched or transferred may be loaded."

On August 8, 1887, no judicial proceedings having been begun by the attorney general to enforce the order, the two companies above named severally served on the commission notices of appeal on law and facts to the district court for Hennepin county. The appeals coming on for hearing in that court before Young, J., a motion to dismiss them was denied, and they were heard on the merits, and the order of the commission was in all respects rescinded, on grounds thus stated in the decision of the court: "The statute contemplates that the rates, charges, etc., named in the recommendation shall be as definite and certain as in the schedule required to be filed by the company, for, upon the contingency mentioned, the rates so recommended become binding, and the statute declares 'that after such publication and posting, it shall be unlawful for such common carrier to charge or maintain a higher or lower rate, fare charge, or classification than that so fixed and published by said commission.' The establishment of a maximum rate implies that there may be a graduation of rates below such maximum. The order referred to fixes no rates at all, but establishes a maximum, leaving the common carrier to establish its own rates at any figure below the maximum fixed. It is apparent that such is not what is contemplated by the statute." From this order the commission appealed.

Order reversed.

Moses E. Clapp, Attorney General, and Morrison, Flannery & Cooke, for appellant.

M. D. Grover and J. D. Springer, for respondents.

OPINION

Dickinson, J.

The separate appeals of the above-named corporations involve the same question, and were heard together in this court. The question is presented whether chapter 10, Laws 1887, creating the state railroad and warehouse commission, and prescribing its duties, authorizes an appeal to the district court from an order of that body, prescribing rates to be charged by common carriers. The court below entertained such an appeal, and reversed the orders appealed from. From the order of the district court the railroad and warehouse commission appealed to this court.

In State v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co., 38 Minn. 281, (37 N.W. 782,) we were required to decide the questions whether, upon the legal construction of this act, it must be regarded as expressing the intention of the legislature that the action of the commission fixing rates in accordance with the statute should be final and conclusive, and whether, so construed, the act was constitutional. Both of these questions were decided in the affirmative. That decision goes far to control the determination of the present cases. Much of what is said in that opinion in support of the decision that the statute contemplates that the order of the commission fixing rates shall be conclusive, and not subject to review by the court upon proceedings taken for the enforcement of the order, is applicable to the precise question now presented, and need not be here repeated. But as it does not necessarily follow from that decision that the statute is not to be construed as allowing the right to appeal directly from such orders of the commission, we will now consider that particular question.

In entering upon this inquiry, we may adopt as a premise what was decided in the former case, as to the construction of subdivisions e, f, and g, of section 8; that is, that this part of the statute clearly expresses the intention of the legislature that the action of the commission should be final and conclusive. The further inquiry is whether the other parts of the act disclose a purpose to modify the natural import of the language of those subdivisions, so far as to allow an appeal in such cases and, upon such appeal, an inquiry as to the reasonableness of the rates prescribed by the commission. Such is claimed to be the effect of subdivision d of section 15. We will here recite that subdivision, first showing, however, its relation to other parts of the act to which reference will be made. In our former decision we referred to section 8 as being complete in itself as to the subject of the fixing of...