Spain v. St. Louis & S.F.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 13 March 1907
• Citation: 151 F. 522
• Parties: SPAIN v. ST. LOUIS & S.F.R. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

151 F. 522

SPAIN v. ST. LOUIS & S.F.R. CO.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Arkansas, Eastern Division.

March 13, 1907

Armstrong & Gravette and J. T. Coston, for plaintiff.

W. J Orr, for defendant.

TRIEBER District Judge.

The constitutionality of the act of Congress of June 11, 1906, c 3073, 34 Stat. 232, generally known as the 'Employers' Liability Act,' is attacked upon two grounds: First, that Congress has no power to create and enforce liabilities growing out of the employment of servants by carriers, even if those carriers be engaged in interstate commerce; and, second, if it has such power the language of the act is so general as to include intrastate commerce, and both are so inseparably connected as to make the whole act unconstitutional.

In passing upon the constitutionality of an act, the courts are governed by certain well-settled rules. Statutes are always presumed to be constitutional, and this presumption will be indulged until the contrary is clearly shown; statutes will be so construed, so far as it is possible to do so, that they shall harmonize with the Constitution, to the end that they may be sustained. On the other hand, if the statute is clearly unconstitutional, the duty of the court is to so declare.

1. The power to regulate commerce among the several states is granted to Congress by the Constitution in terms as absolute as is the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. Brown v. Houston, 114 U.S. 627, 630, 5 Sup.Ct. 1091 29 L.Ed. 257; Bowman v. Railway Co., 125 U.S. 465, 482, 8 Sup.Ct. 689, 1062, 31 L.Ed. 700; Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U.S. 47, 58, 11 Sup.Ct. 851, 35 L.Ed. 649; Pittsburg Coal Co. v. Bates, 156 U.S. 577, 578, 15 Sup.Ct. 415, 39 L.Ed. 538.

'Definitions as to what constitutes 'interstate commerce' are not easily given so that they shall clearly define the full meaning of the term. We know from the cases decided in this court that it is a term of very large significance. It comprehends, as it is said, intercourse for the purposes of trade in any and all its forms, including transportation, purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities between the citizens of different states, and the power to regulate it embraces all the instruments by which such commerce may be conducted. ' Hopkins v. United States, 171 U.S. 578, 597, 19 Sup.Ct. 40, 47 (43 L.Ed. 290).

Ever since the decision of Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1, 6 L.Ed. 23, it has been held to be a term of the largest import, comprehending intercourse for the purposes of trade in any and all its forms, including transportation. For a full collation of the authorities on that subject, see the Lottery Cases, 188 U.S. 321, 23 Sup.Ct. 321, 47 L.Ed. 492.

Has Congress under that provision of the Constitution, section 8 of article 1, the power to enact legislation regulating the employment of those necessarily required to manage the vehicles necessary for the transportation of interstate commerce? That Congress has assumed, ever since the adoption of the Constitution, that, under the commerce clause, it possesses the power to regulate the employment of and legislate for the protection of those engaged on the vehicles used for interstate transportation, is evidenced by the fact that the first Congress which met after the adoption of the Constitution enacted a statute for the regulation and protection of those employed on merchant vessels, then practically the only means of transporting passengers, as well as goods and merchandise, in interstate or foreign commerce. By the act of July 20, 1790, 1 Stat. 131, the employment of seamen on the vessels engaged in interstate commerce was regulated, and from time to time Congress has added to and changed these acts. The various statutes may be found on pages 3061 to 3125, U.S. Comp. St. 1901. As late as 1852 Mr. Justice Curtis, in Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 53 U.S. 299, 361, 13 L.Ed. 996, stated that the validity of these acts had never been questioned.

That the power of Congress to regulate navigation depends solely on the commerce clause is beyond question. In Gibbons v. Ogden the question before the court was whether an act of the Legislature of the state of New York granting an exclusive right to navigate the waters of the state was repugnant to the national Constitution, and its invalidity was placed solely on the ground that navigation is commerce and therefore within the grant to Congress 'to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes. ' In every case decided by the Supreme Court, as well as every other national court since then, the validity or invalidity of every act of Congress in any wise affecting navigation has been determined solely upon the commerce clause. To cite all these cases would serve no useful purpose, but an examination of a few of the most important cases will show that this is one of the few rules of law upon which there is not even an apparent conflict among the decisions of the courts. United States v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 78, 9 L.Ed. 1004; Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 53 U.S. 299, 13 L.Ed. 996; Pennsylvania v. Wheeling Bridge Co., 59 U.S. 421, 15 L.Ed. 435; Foster v. Davenport, 63 U.S. 244, 16 L.Ed. 248; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 70 U.S. 713, 18 L.Ed. 96; The Daniel Ball, 77 U.S. 557, 19 L.Ed. 999; Miller v. Mayor, 109 U.S. 385, 3 Sup.Ct. 228, 27 L.Ed. 971; Patterson v. Bark Eudora, 190 U.S. 169, 23 Sup.Ct. 821, 47 L.Ed. 1002; North Bloomfield, etc., Co. v. United States, 88 F. 664, 32 C.C.A. 84; The Chusan, 2 Story, 455, Fed. Cas. No. 2,717.

Mr. Justice Story, in his great work on the Constitution (section 1062), says on that subject:

'If commerce does not include navigation, the government of the Union has no direct power over that subject, and can make no law prescribing what shall constitute American vessels, or requiring that they shall be navigated by American seamen. Yet this power has been exercised from the commencement of the government; it has been exercised with the consent of all America; and it has always been understood to be a commercial regulation. The power over navigation, and over commercial intercourse, was one of the primary objects for which the people of America adopted their government, and it is impossible that the convention should not so have understood the word 'commerce' as embracing it. Indeed, to construe the power so as to impair its efficiency would defeat the very object for which it was introduced into the Constitution, for there cannot be a doubt that to exclude navigation and intercourse from its scope would be to entail upon us all the prominent defects of the confederation, and subject the Union to the ill-adjusted systems of rival states, and the oppressive preferences of foreign nations in favor of their own navigation.'

In The Chusan, Mr. Justice Story, in speaking of that subject, says:

'The power to regulate commerce includes the power to regulate navigation with foreign nations and among the states, and it is an exclusive power in Congress. This, I conceive, has been fully established by the Supreme Court in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. (U.S.) 193, 6 L.Ed. 23 and the doctrine stands, as I conceive, upon grounds which cannot be shaken without endangering the interests of the whole Union, if not the very existence of the Constitution as a frame of government for the professed objects and purposes which it was intended to accomplish. Now, there cannot be a doubt that the prescribing of rules for the shipping of seamen and the navigation of vessels engaged in foreign trade, or trade between the states, is a regulation of commerce. In what respect does the exercise of a power to regulate, control, or extinguish the liens given by the maritime law for materialmen upon foreign vessels differ from the power to regulate the shipping of seamen or the navigation of foreign vessels? Each is a regulation of foreign commerce or commerce among the states.'

In The Daniel Ball the act of Congress of July 7, 1838, 5 Stat. 304, and the amendatory act of August 30, 1852, 10 Stat. 61, imposing a penalty on steam vessels to transport passengers or freight on any of the navigable waters of the United States without first having procured a license and complied with other provisions of the acts of Congress, were before the court. The issues determined were what constituted navigable waters of the United States, subject to the control of Congress, under the Commerce clause, and it was unanimously held:

'And they constitute navigable waters of the United States within the meaning of the acts of Congress, in contradistinction from the navigable waters of the states, when they form in their ordinary condition by themselves, or by uniting with other waters, a continued highway over which commerce is or may be carried on with other states or foreign countries in the customary modes in which such commerce is conducted by water.'

And on page 565 of 77 U.S. (19 L.Ed. 999) the court say:

'The fact that several different and independent agencies are employed in transporting the commodity, some acting entirely in one state, and some acting through two or more states, does in no respect affect the character of the transaction. To the extent in which each agency acts in that transportation, it is subject to the regulation of Congress.'

In North Bloomfield, etc., Co. v. United States, an act of Congress regulating hydraulic mining in California, to the end that navigable waters should not be obstructed, was attacked as unconstitutional. But the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in overruling this contention, held that the power of Congress to pass the act in question under the commerce clause was undoubted.

But it is claimed that such legislation can...