Samuelson v. State

• Decision Date: 30 June 1906
• Parties: SAMUELSON v. STATE.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

95 S.W. 1012

116 Tenn. 470

SAMUELSON v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

June 30, 1906

Appeal from Criminal Court, Shelby County; John T. Moss, Judge.

I Samuelson was convicted of the sale of unused nontransferable railroad tickets, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Lehman Gates & Lehman and Moritz Rosenthal, for appellant.

Atty Gen. Cates, Charles N. Burch, A. W. Biggs, F. T. Edmondson, and M. R. Patterson, for the State.

BEARD C.J.

The plaintiff in error was convicted in the criminal court of Shelby county, of a violation of chapter 410, p. 873, of the Session Acts of 1905. It is agreed that the facts proven brought the offense charged within the provisions of the act, and the only question made on the record is as to its constitutionality. It is in these words:

"Chapter 410. Senate Bill No. 492.

"An act to prohibit traffic in nontransferable signature tickets issued by common carriers, and to require common carriers to redeem unused or partly used tickets, and to provide punishment for the violation of this act.

"Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Tennessee, that it shall be unlawful for any person, other than the authorized agent of the common carrier issuing the same, to sell, or otherwise deal in or offer to sell, any railroad, railway, steamship, or steamboat passenger ticket which shows that it was issued and sold below the standard schedule rate under contract with the original purchaser entered upon such ticket and signed by the original purchaser, to the effect that such ticket is nontransferable and void in the hands of any person other than the original purchaser thereof: Provided, however, that nothing in this act shall be construed as depriving the original purchaser of a transferable ticket of a right to sell same to a person who will in good faith personally use it in the prosecution of a journey.

"Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, that it shall be the duty of every common carrier that shall have sold any ticket or other evidence of the purchaser's right to travel on its line, (or any line of which it forms a part, to, if the whole of such ticket be unused, redeem the same, paying the original purchaser thereof the actual amount for which said ticket was sold; or, if any part of such ticket be unused, to redeem such unused part, paying the original purchaser thereof at a rate which shall be equal to the difference between the price paid for the whole ticket and the price of a ticket between the points for which said ticket was actually used; provided, such purchaser shall present such unused or partly used ticket for redemption within six (6) months after the date of its issuance, to the officer or agent who shall be authorized or designated by such common carrier to redeem unused or partly used tickets, and the said officer shall, within fifteen (15) days after the receipt of said ticket, redeem the same as hereinbefore provided for. Such redemption shall be made without cost of exchange or other expense to the purchaser of the ticket.

"Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, that any person or corporation violating any of the provisions of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by fine in the sum of not less than fifty ($50) dollars, nor more than one hundred ($100) dollars.

"Sec. 4. Be it further enacted, that this act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare requiring it.

"Passed April 13, 1905.

"E Rice,

"Speaker of the Senate.

"W. K. Abernathy,

"Speaker of the House of Representatives.

"Approved April 14, 1905:

"John I. Cox, Governor."

The first objection made by the plaintiff in error is that this statute violates so much of section 17 of article 2 of our state Constitution as provides: "No bill shall become a law which embraces more than one subject; that subject to be expressed in the title."

The purpose of this provision is well understood by the profession. Log rolling among legislators, followed often by incongruous statutes, grew to be a flagrant evil. Under that system it was altogether possible, by adroit management, for a vicious section to be concealed in a multitude of sound provisions, under an innocent, meaningless caption, and thus become enacted into law without attracting the attention of a large part of the members of the Legislature, or of the public. It was to root out this evil practice, through which such baneful results might be accomplished, that this constitutional provision was adopted.

The leading case in this state, and the one in which the clause was examined and proper limitations imposed upon it, is that of Cannon v. Mathes, 8 Heisk. 405. Later cases have been but an application of the principle therein announced. The statute in question in that case was entitled "An act to fix the state tax on property," and it contained a section providing for a tax on "privileges." The insistence was that, inasmuch as "privileges" were not "property," there was such incongruity in the act as made it obnoxious to this constitutional requirement.

In meeting the argument on which this insistence rested, after quoting with approval from the text of Judge Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Limitations, that "the generality of a title is no objection to it so long as it is not made a cover to legislation incongruous in itself, and which by no fair intendment can be considered as having a necessary or proper connection," the opinion proceeded to make clear that the act embraced but one subject, that of the raising of state revenue by taxation on property and privileges, and this subject was expressed in the title. In concluding, the court, rejecting the narrowness of interpretation, which would seriously hamper legislation, deduced from the authorities this general rule: "Any provision of the act directly or indirectly relating to the subject expressed in the title, and having a natural connection therewith and not foreign thereto, should be held embraced in it."

The rule announced by Chief Justice Nicholson in that case has been later applied by this court on many occasions. In Frazier v. Railway Company, 88 Tenn. 138, 12 S.W. 537, it was held that the title, "An act to amend the law in relation to the consolidation of railways," naturally embraced a provision that "no railroad company shall have power under this act or any of the laws of this state to give or create any mortgage *** which shall be valid and binding against judgments and decrees and executions therefrom, for timbers furnished and work and labor done on, or for damages done to persons and property in the operation of its railroad in this state."

In Ryan v. Terminal Company, 102 Tenn. 111, 50 S.W. 744, 45 L. R. A. 303, a statute which, under the title of "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to provide for an organization of railroad terminal corporations, and to define the powers, duties and liabilities thereof,"' enacted, inter alia, that a railroad company contracting for use of the facilities of a terminal company shall have power to own stock and bonds of such terminal company and to guaranty its bonds and other contracts, was held not to be violative of the Constitution as grouping foreign or incongruous matter under the title.

Among the many cases which have recognized the essential wisdom of the liberal rule of construction, as announced in Canno v. Mathes, supra, and have applied it to the saving of different statutes, attacked on like ground with the present, are Luehrman v. Taxing District, 2 Lea, 426; Morrell v. Fickle, 3 Lea, 79; Ex parte Griffin, 88 Tenn. 550, 13 S.W. 75; Cole Mfg. Co. v. Falls, 90 Tenn. 469, 16 S.W. 1045; State v. Yardley, 95 Tenn. 554, 32 S.W. 481, 34 L. R. A. 656.

Coming now, in the light of these cases, to the act in question, does it, either in title or body, cover incongruous legislation? Its evident purpose is to regulate the issuance, sale, and redemption of tickets sold by common carriers as evidences of the rights of purchasers to pass over the routes of travel covered by the tickets. For reasons satisfactory to itself, the Legislature, in the matter of regulation, saw proper to prohibit the dealing in nontransferable signature tickets, issued and sold by the common carrier to original purchasers below the standard schedule rate, by any other person than the authorized agent of the carrier. Assuming for the moment, that this legislation is within the police power of the state, then it seems to us there is no necessary incongruity between it and a provision requiring the carrier to redeem all tickets sold by him where they have been wholly or in part unused. To the contrary, we think there is a natural connection between the two. In the statute, the Legislature in effect says to the common carrier: We concede that it is a wise and proper thing to protect you, and indirectly the public, by absolutely breaking up this system of general or indiscriminate dealing in tickets which have been sold to original purchasers at reduced rates, and upon signed agreements that they were not transferable; but this relief is given upon the condition that you promptly redeem all tickets sold by you which are unused in whole or in part. We see no reason why such legislation should be held void, when the statute in question in the Frazier Case, in the Ryan Case, and other cases referred to, have been maintained as a constitutional exercise of legislative power.

If the caption had been "An act to regulate the sale and redemption of tickets by common carriers," we think it would hardly be insisted that the redemption of tickets was so foreign to their sale that both could not be embraced in the same act. Or, if the act had been entitled "An act to...