St Louis Ry Co v. Williams

• Decision Date: 08 December 1919
• Docket Number: No. 66,66
• Citation: 40 S.Ct. 71,64 L.Ed. 139,251 U.S. 63
• Parties: ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. v. WILLIAMS et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

251 U.S. 63

40 S.Ct. 71

64 L.Ed. 139

ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO.

v WILLIAMS et al.

No. 66.

Argued Nov. 11, 1919.

Decided Dec. 8, 1919.

Messrs.

Robert E. Wiley

and Edgar B. Kinsworthy, both of Little Rock, Ark., for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Justice VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

By a statute of Arkansas, regulating rates for the transportation of passengers between points within the state any railroad company that demands or collects a greater compensation than the statute prescribes is subjected 'for every such offense' to a penalty of 'not less than fifty dollars nor more than three hundred dollars and costs of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee,' and the aggrieved passenger is given a right to recover the same in a civil action. Act April 4, 1887 (Laws 1887, p. 227; Kirby's Digest, 1904, § 6620); Act March 4, 1915 (Laws 1915, p. 365; Kirby & Castle's Digest, 1916, § 8094).

In June, 1915, a company operating a line of railroad within the state demanded and collected 66 cents more than the prescribed fare from each of two sisters carried over part of its line when returning to their home from a school commencement elsewhere in the state; and in suits separately brought for the purpose, and afterwards consolidated, these passengers obtained judgments against the company for the overcharge, a penalty of seventy-five dollars and costs of suit, including an attorney's fee of twenty-five dollars. The company appealed, asserting that the provision for the penalty was repugnant to the due process of law clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; but the Supreme Court of the state sustained the provision and affirmed the judgments. 131 Ark. 442, 199 S. W. 376. To obtain a review of that decision the company prosecutes this writ of error.

The grounds upon which the provision is said to contravene due process of law are, first, that the penalty is 'so severe as to deprive the carrier of the right to resort to the courts to test the validity' of the rate prescribed, and, second, that the penalty is 'arbitrary and unreasonable, and not proportionate to the actual damages sustained.'

It is true that the imposition of severe penalties as a means of enforcing a rate, such as was prescribed in this instance, is in contravention of due process of law, where no adequate opportunity is afforded the carrier for safely testing, in an appropriate judicial proceeding, the validity of the rate—that is, whether it is confiscatory or otherwise before any liability for the penalties attaches. The reasons why this is so are set forth fully and plainly in several recent decisions and need not be repeated now. Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 147, 28 Sup. Ct. 441, 52 L. Ed. 714, 13 L. R. A. (N. S.) 932, 14 Ann. Cas. 764; Willcox v. Consolidated Gas Co., 212 U. S. 19, 53, 29 Sup. Ct. 192, 53 L. Ed. 382, 48 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1134, 15 Ann. Cas. 1034; Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Nebraska, 217 U. S. 196, 207, 208, 30 Sup. Ct. 461, 54 L. Ed. 727, 18 Ann. Cas. 989; Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Tucker, 230 U. S. 340, 33 Sup. Ct. 961, 57 L. Ed. 1507: Wadley Southern Ry. Co. v. Georgia, 235 U. S. 651, 659, et seq., 35 Sup. Ct. 214, 59 L. Ed. 405.

And it also is true that where such an opportunity is afforded and the rate is adjudged valid, or the carrier fails to avail itself of the opportunity, it then is admissible, so far as due process of law is concerned, for the state to enforce adherence to the rate by imposing substantial penalties for deviations from it. Wadley Southern Ry. Co. v. Georgia, supra, 235 U. S. p. 667 et seq., 35 Sup. Ct. 214, 59 L. Ed. 405; Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Texas, 246 U. S. 58, 62, 38 Sup. Ct. 236, 62 L. Ed. 574.

Here it does not appear that the carrier had not been afforded an adequate opportunity for safely testing the validity of the rate, or that its deviation therefrom proceeded from any belief that the rate was invalid. On the contrary, it is practically conceded—and we judicially know—that if the carrier really regarded the rate as confiscatory, the way was open to secure a determination of that question by a suit in equity against the Railroad Commission of the state, during the pendency of which the operation of the penalty provision could have been suspended by injunction. Wadley Southern Ry. Co. v. Georgia, supra. See, also, Allen v. St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Ry. Co., 230 U. S. 553, 33 Sup. Ct. 1030, 57 L. Ed. 1625; Rowland v. St. Louis & San Francisco R. R. Co., 244 U. S. 106, 37 Sup. Ct. 577, 61 L. Ed. 1022; St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Ry. Co. v. McKnight, 244 U. S. 368, 37 Sup. Ct. 611, 61 L. Ed. 1200. And the record shows that at the trial the carrier not only did not raise any question about the correct fare, but proposed and secured an instruction to the jury wherein the prescribed rate was recognized as controlling.

It therefore is plain that the first branch of the company's contention...