Seegers Bros. v. Seaboard Air Line Ry.

• Decision Date: 13 November 1905
• Citation: 52 S.E. 797,73 S.C. 71
• Parties: SEEGERS BROS. v. SEABOARD AIR LINE RY.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

52 S.E. 797

73 S.C. 71

SEEGERS BROS. v. SEABOARD AIR LINE RY.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

November 13, 1905

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Chesterfield County Watts, Judge.

Action by Seegers Bros. against the Seaboard Air Line Railway. From a judgment reversing the judgment of a magistrate, plaintiffs appeal. Reversed.

W. P Pollock, for appellants. Stevenson & Mathison and Edward McIver, for respondent.

JONES J.

This action was commenced in a magistrate court for the county of Chesterfield to recover $1.75 for loss or damage to freight a bunch of bananas, shipped August 31, 1903, to plaintiffs at McBee, S. C., from Columbia, S. C., over defendant's line, and for $50 penalty for failure to adjust and pay the said loss or damage within 40 days, as required by the statute. The magistrate rendered judgment for the whole amount claimed, including the penalty. On appeal to the circuit court, Judge Watts modified the judgment of the magistrate by reducing the amount to $1.75 and costs holding that the statute imposing the penalty is unconstitutional, under the rule stated in Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150, 17 S.Ct. 255, 41 L.Ed. 666. From this judgment, plaintiffs appeal, and the main question presented is the constitutionality of said statute.

1. The statute in question is entitled "An act to regulate the manner in which common carriers doing business in this state shall adjust freight charges and claims for loss or damages to freight," and was approved February 23, 1903. 24 St. at Large, p. 81. Section 2 of said act, which more particularly concerns the present controversy, is as follows:

"Sec. 2. That every claim for loss of or damage to property while in the possession of such common carrier shall be adjusted and paid within forty days, in case of shipments wholly within this state, and within ninety days, in case of shipments from without this state, after the filing of such claim with the agent of such carrier at the point of destination of the shipment: Provided, that no such claim shall be filed until after the arrival of the shipment or of some part thereof at the point of destination, or until after the lapse of a reasonable time for the arrival thereof. In every case such common carrier shall be liable for the amount of such loss or damage, together with interest thereon from the date of the filing of the claim therefor until the payment thereof. Failure to adjust and pay such claim within the periods respectively herein prescribed shall subject each common carrier so failing to a penalty of fifty dollars for each and every such failure, to be recovered by any consignee or consignees aggrieved in any court of competent jurisdiction: Provided, that unless such consignee or consignees recover in such action the full amount claimed, no penalty shall be recovered, but only the actual amount of the loss or damage, with interest as aforesaid: Provided, further, that no common carrier shall be liable under this act for property which never came into its possession, if it complies with the provisions of section 1710, vol. 1, of the Code of Laws of South Carolina, 1902."

This section was under consideration in the case of Best v. Seaboard Air Line Railway, 72 S.C. 479, 52 S.E. 223, filed October 20, 1905, in which the question presented was whether an action could be maintained for the penalty alone, when there had been voluntary payment and receipt of the loss or damage before suit, but after the expiration of the time named in the statute. This court held that such action could not be maintained. The court used this language: "The object of the statute was not to penalize the carrier for merely refusing to pay a claim within the time required, whether just or unjust, but the design was to bring about a reasonably prompt settlement of all proper claims; the penalty, in case of a recovery in court, operating as a deterrent of the carrier in refusing to settle just claims, and as compensation of the claimant for the trouble and expense of the suit which the carrier's unreasonable delay and refusal made necessary." Under this view the common carrier is made liable for a penalty only in the event of a refusal to pay a claim for loss or damage to goods while in his possession; the bona fides and justice of the claim being established by a court of competent jurisdiction. The present controversy requires the court to go more fully into the consideration of the purpose of the legislation in question, with a view to ascertain the reasonableness of the classification of common carriers as objects of this particular legislation. Common carriers receive from the state the right to carry on business in the state as such. They are by the state endowed with special powers and privileges--which call for special duties and obligations to the public. It is a duty which a common carrier owes, not only under his contract, but under general law, to promptly and safely deliver goods consigned to him for transportation, and he is liable for all loss or damage to such goods while in his possession, not occasioned by the act of God or the public enemy. The duty to make prompt settlement for loss or damage to goods is but an incident of the duty to transport and deliver safely and with reasonable diligence. The statute in question was designed to effectuate an important public purpose, viz., to compel the common carrier to perform with reasonable diligence the duty which peculiarly appertains to his business as a carrier of freight. The penalty is but a means to that end. Whether the adoption of such means is wise, politic, or adequate, is exclusively a legislative question, for the courts have nothing to do with the policy, wisdom, or expediency of legislation. A statute cannot be declared void unless it manifestly violates some constitutional principle.

This statute is assailed as violative of the equality clause of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and a similar provision in article 1, § 5, of the Constitution of this state. The respondents in argument here, and the circuit judge, relied on the Ellis Case, supra, to sustain the position that the statute is unconstitutional. The Texas statute which was declared void in that case was as follows:

"Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the state of Texas, that after the time that this act shall take effect, any person in this state having a valid bona fide claim for personal services rendered or labor done, or for damages, or for overcharges on freight, or claims for stock killed or injured by the train of any railway company, provided that such claim for stock killed or injured shall be presented to the agent of the company nearest to the point where such stock was killed or injured, against any railway corporation operating a railroad in this state, and the amount of such claim does not exceed $50, may present the same, verified by his affidavit, for payment to such corporation by filing it with any station agent of such corporation in any county where suit may be instituted for the same, and if, at the expiration of thirty days after such presentation, such claim has not been paid or satisfied, he may immediately institute suit thereon in the proper court; and if he shall finally establish his claim, and obtain judgment for the full amount thereof, as presented for payment to such corporation in such court, or any court to which the suit may have been appealed, he shall be entitled to recover the amount of such claim and all costs of suit, and in addition thereto all reasonable attorney's fees: Provided, he has an attorney employed in his case, not to exceed $10, to be assessed and awarded by the court or jury trying the issue." Laws 1889, p. 131, c. 107.

The difference between the Texas statute and our statute is manifest. The Texas statute subjects railway companies to a penalty, when successfully sued ""on a claim for personal services rendered or labor done, or for damages, or for overcharges on freight, or claims for stock killed or injured by the train of any railway company," etc. The relation of the railroad company to those who render it services or labor is the ordinary relation of employer and employè, and it may with some reason be said that there is no sufficient ground for making a distinction, such as would compel a railroad company to pay such ordinary claims for services within a given time under penalty, when no such obligation is imposed upon other employers to whom similar services are rendered. So the claims for damages may include claims not substantially different from claims for damages against individuals and corporations generally. So, also, when there was no statute in Texas requiring railroad companies to fence their track against stock, it may be that it would be unreasonable to impose a liability for such acts different from, or greater than, the liability which should attach to the injury of stock by any other person or class. But we venture to say if the Texas statute had been confined to the regulation of some duty which particularly appertains to common carriers as such, and imposed a penalty as a means of securing the performance of that duty, the decision of the court would have been different. The Supreme Court of Texas had considered the statute as a whole, and had declared it was intended to compel the payment of debts. So, considering it as a whole, the court treated it simply as a statute singling out railroad corporations alone, and imposing upon them a penalty for failure to pay certain debts.

In the case of Atchison, etc., Railway Co. v. Matthews, 19 S.Ct. 609, 610, 174 U.S. 96, 43 L.Ed. 909, the court held that a Kansas statute requiring reasonable...