Ryman Steamboat Line Co. v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 10 April 1907
• Parties: RYMAN STEAMBOAT LINE CO. v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

101 S.W. 403

125 Ky. 253

RYMAN STEAMBOAT LINE CO. v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

April 10, 1907

Appeal from Circuit Court, Livingston County.

"To be officially reported."

Hendrick Miller & Marble, and W. S. Pryor, for appellant.

N. B Hays, Atty. Gen., and Chas. H. Morris, for the Commonwealth.

O'REAR C.J.

Appellant under the name of the "Ryman Line," operates a line of steamboats engaged in the coast trade plying between the ports of Nashville, Tenn., on the Cumberland river, and Evansville, Ind., on the Ohio. The boats touch at points in Kentucky, and in Livingston county, for the purpose of receiving and discharging freight and passengers, interstate commerce as well as interstate traffic. Appellant does not or at least did not, so far as appears, maintain any wharfboat, depot, or agency in Livingston county. It was indicted for violating section 571, Ky. St. 1903, which provides that all corporations carrying on business in this state shall at all times have one or more known places of business in this state, and an authorized agent thereat upon whom process can be served, and making it unlawful for such corporation to carry on any business in this state without complying with the requirements of the section and filing a statement with the Secretary of State giving the location of its place of business and the name of its agent upon whom process can be served. For a violation of the statute a fine of from $100 to $1,000 may be imposed. Appellant was convicted under this statute for failing to file the statement with the Secretary of State, and fined $500.

Brushing aside some technical points not deemed material to the decision, the real question is: Is it competent for the state to require of a steamboat company engaged in interstate traffic, as a condition precedent to doing interstate business in this state, to file the statement in question?

By the Constitution of the United States (article 1, § 8, subsec. 3), Congress has the exclusive power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes. The Cumberland river is navigable in fact from its mouth to a point far above Nashville. It is therefore a natural highway for commerce between two or more states, and, as such, is the property of the public constituting the country at large. Jurisdiction over it for purposes of interstate commerce is in the Congress of the United States. Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, 18 L.Ed. 96; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 6 L. Ed. 23; Willson v. Black Bird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245, 7 L.Ed. 412. Under the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States, it is held that maritime jurisdiction over the nontidal navigable inland waters of this country, where they are susceptible of use for interstate traffic, is vested in the courts of the United States, and has been so exercised since Judiciary Act Sept. 24, 1789, c. 20, 1 Stat. 73 (section 2, art. 3, Const. U. S.), and was so exercised even under the Confederation. Penhallow v. Doane, 3 Dall. 54, 1 L.Ed. 507. The navigation acts passed by Congress, long before the question became one of such apparent importance and magnitude, were assumptions by the federal government of its jurisdiction with respect to the subject of such interstate traffic. Licenses are issued to the coast trading vessels by the United States government in virtue of that jurisdiction; and it was early declared, in the very infancy of steamboat navigation, that such licenses necessarily carried full authority to the licensees to navigate interstate waters, and to carry interstate commerce, unmolested so far as the privilege itself was concerned by any state, whether by attempt at direct regulation, or indirectly, as by taxing the business. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 6 L. Ed. 23; Sinnot v. Davenport, 22 How. 227, 16 L.Ed. 243; Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U.S. 47, 11 S.Ct. 851, 35 L.Ed. 649. In Gibbons v. Ogden, supra, the leading case on the subject, discussing the effect of the license granted by the federal government under the acts of Congress, it was said: "The grant of the privilege is an idle, empty form, conveying nothing, unless it convey the right to which the privilege is attached, and in the exercise of which its whole value consists. To construe these words otherwise than as entitling these ships or vessels described to carry on the coasting trade would be, we think, to disregard the apparent intent of the act." And again, speaking of the fourth section of Act Cong. Feb. 18, 1793, c. 8, 1 Stat. 306, it was said: "The word 'license' means permission or authority, and a license to do any particular thing is a permission or authority to do that thing, and, if granted by a person having power to grant it, transfers to the grantee the right to do whatever it purports to authorize. It certainly transfers to him all the rights which the grantor can transfer to do what is in the terms of the license."

In Sinnot v. Davenport, supra, it appears that the steamboat Bagby was engaged in the coasting trade, plying between New Orleans, in Louisiana, and Montgomery and other points, in Alabama, touching at Mobile. She had a license as such from the government of the United States. The state of Alabama had passed an act entitled "An act for the registration of the names of steamboat owners." The purpose of that act was not essentially different from our statute, so far as it applies to the...