State v. Gladson
| Decision Date | 01 June 1894 |
| Docket Number | 8679 |
| Citation | 59 N.W. 487,57 Minn. 385 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota v. M. L. Gladson |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal by defendant, M. L. Gladson, from a judgment of the District Court of Pine County, F. M. Crosby, J., entered January 16 1894.
Defendant was a locomotive engineer engaged with an engine in hauling the afternoon through passenger train between St. Paul and Duluth. On July 22, 1893, he run his train as usual through the village of Pine City, county seat of Pine County, at about four o'clock in the afternoon without stopping. Complaint was made before a Justice of the Peace and he was arrested, tried and convicted. He appealed to the District Court of Pine County where he was again tried, convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of $ 25 and the costs $ 30.57. He appealed, gave bond and obtained a stay of proceedings.
The judgment appealed from should be affirmed.
J. D Armstrong and Bunn & Hadley, for appellant.
This case should be a landmark of the law indicating a point beyond which the legislative power cannot go in infringement of private rights. It is now settled that the legislature cannot own and operate the railroads. Rippe v Becker, 56 Minn. 100. This involves the conclusion that they cannot operate or run railroads without owning them. The province of the legislature is restricted to regulation, and regulation must be reasonable.
The legislature cannot enact unreasonable limitations and restrictions on the speed of trains. To be valid these must fall within the police power, they must be justified by a police necessity. Evison v. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. Ry Co., 45 Minn. 370.
The legislative power to fix rates is limited by the courts to the fixing of reasonable rates. The legislative imposition of unreasonably low rates is a taking of property contrary to the constitutional limitation. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U.S. 418.
This statute is a regulation of interstate commerce not within the power of the state. If passengers or freight are carried on a through contract and rate from one state to another, that business is interstate commerce. Each carrier concerned in the transportation may stop its trains or cars within the state where they started. Such commerce is still interstate, and the vehicles used in the carriage are instruments employed in interstate commerce. The carriage of passengers and express by this train from St. Paul to West Superior was interstate commerce, though there was a transfer at West Duluth to another connecting train running to Superior. Wabash, St. L. & P. Ry. Co. v. Illinois, 118 U.S. 557; Norfolk & W. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 136 U.S. 114; The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall. 557.
We concede the power of the state to pass proper police laws even though they operate incidentally to burden interstate commerce. Such laws do not rest on any power in the state to regulate commerce, but on the power to protect the lives, property, health and morals of the community. On this principle inspection laws, health laws, quarantine laws and similar laws are held valid, though operating on commerce. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U.S. 465; Patterson v. Kentucky, 97 U.S. 501; Willis v. Standard Oil Co., 50 Minn. 290; Morgan v. Louisiana, 118 U.S. 455; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465; Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Alabama, 128 U.S. 96.
But except as to necessary and reasonable police regulation resting on the rule in Gibbons v. Ogden, the states have no power to burden interstate commerce. Non-action by congress is equivalent to a declaration that commerce between states shall be free. Walling v. Michigan, 116 U.S. 446; Brown v. Houston, 114 U.S. 622; Welton v. Missouri, 91 U.S. 275; Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U.S. 485.
This law is not a police regulation valid as such though creating a burden on commerce. The law is a regulation of commerce pure and simple, operating and intended to operate directly on commerce. It is a commercial, not a police regulation. As such it must fall because it throws a burden on and is a regulation of commerce between the states. The police power in its broadest sense is founded on the maxim, "Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas." Thorpe v. Rutland, &c., Ry. Co., 27 Vt. 140; Butler v. Chambers, 36 Minn. 69; Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U.S. 33; Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 666.
Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. People, 143 Ill. 434, and Chicago & A. R. Co. v. People, 105 Ill. 657, are cases sustaining the law. It is supposed by the Illinois court in those cases that such laws have some reference to the despatch of court business, the indictment and prosecution of criminals, the attendance of witnesses and jurors. But a law that all trains must stop cannot be justified on this ground where it is plain the law could not compel the running of the train at all. The law in short compels all trains to stop, whether there is any public convenience or necessity to be served or not. If the Illinois reasoning is correct, no obstacle exists to compelling railroads to carry people free of fare to or from county seats.
As to carrying of the United States mail, it is in the discretion of the postmaster general to determine at what hours the mail shall arrive at and depart from postoffices. Upon this point his decision is absolute and cannot be controlled by the states. Neil v. Ohio, 3 How. 720. The road in question is a post road and the postal service thereon is committed to the United States by the constitution. U. S. Rev. Stat. § 3964. If the legislature can pass this law it can cripple and impede the United States mail service.
S. G. L. Roberts, R. C. Saunders, H. W. Childs and George B. Edgerton, for the state.
The police power of the state extends to what is variously termed the "public welfare," "public prosperity," "common good," and "public well being." Thorpe v. Rutland, &c., Ry. Co., 27 Vt. 140; State v. New Haven & N. Co., 43 Conn. 351; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113; Davidson v. State, 4 Tex.App. 545; Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U.S. 465; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27; Stone v. Farmers' L. & T. Co., 116 U.S. 307; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623; Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U.S. 678; Lake View v. Rose Hill Cem. Co., 70 Ill. 191; Butler v. Chambers, 36 Minn. 69.
This act is one affecting the public welfare. In Chicago & A. R. Co. v. People, 105 Ill. 657, the court briefly states the character of the business transacted by the public through the county officials at county seats, and it is unnecessary to repeat it here. Public necessities may require trains to stop at county seats and this question is for the legislature. Pennsylvania Co. v. Wentz, 37 Ohio 333; Commonwealth v. Eastern R. Co., 103 Mass. 254; State v. New Haven & N. Co., 43 Conn. 351.
County seats unquestionably require greater train facilities than other towns of the same size and doing the same amount of business. This feature of the case is illustrated by the fact incidentally disclosed by the evidence, "We have stopped there to let the Judge off."
The state has the power to require railroad companies to fence their roads, to slacken the speed of their trains while running through cities, to post their tariffs and time tables at designated places, and to stop their trains at draw bridges and railroad crossings. And why not at county seats?
All will admit that the law has some relation to the public welfare. If so, the legislature had the power to pass it and to determine the necessity for the law. Its judgment is final. The reasonableness of the law is not for judicial investigation, unless it has no real or substantial relation to the public welfare, or is a palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law. Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U.S. 678; Butler v. Chambers, 36 Minn. 69; Evison v. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. Ry. Co., 45 Minn. 370; Rippe v. Becker, 56 Minn. 100; Metropolitan Board of Excise v. Barrie, 34 N.Y. 657; Craig v. First Presbyterian Church, 88 Pa. 42.
It is sometimes difficult to determine when an act tends to regulate interstate commerce in the constitutional sense of the term. The deposit in congress of the power to regulate interstate commerce was not a surrender of the police power of the state. Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U.S. 465. It is not everything that affects commerce that amounts to a regulation of it within the meaning of the constitution. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113; State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. 293; Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. People, 143 Ill. 434; Chicago & A. R. Co. v. People, 105 Ill. 657; State v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 24 W.Va. 783.
The statute is not an unlawful burden on the carriage of the United States mail. The cases cited upon this point mainly involve the question of the delay and obstruction of the mail by the arrest of the carrier while engaged in transporting it. That question is not involved in this case. We submit a reference to a few additional authorities. Ohio & M. R. Co. v. McClelland, 25 Ill. 140; Lakeview v. Rose Hill Cem. Co., 70 Ill. 191; Stone v. Farmers' L. & T. Co., 116 U.S. 307; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465.
Canty, J. Buck, J., absent, sick, took no part.
Pine City is a village of 800 inhabitants, the county seat of Pine county, and a station on the St. Paul...
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