State v. LeFebvre
| Decision Date | 13 April 1928 |
| Docket Number | 26,358 |
| Parties | STATE v. ANDREW J. LeFEBVRE |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Defendant appealed from an order of the district court for Itasca county, Wright, J. denying his motion for a new trial. Affirmed.
Act of 1925 regulating use of highways by intrastate motor carriers does not violate federal constitution.
1. The state has control of its public highways and may constitutionally prohibit intrastate common carriers by motor vehicles from carrying on business thereon unless they obtain from the railroad and warehouse commission a certificate of public convenience and necessity as provided by L. 1925, c 185. The statute does not apply to interstate commerce nor does it assume to make a carrier for hire a common carrier against his will. The carrier must be a common carrier in fact. In requiring a certificate of convenience and public necessity as a condition to doing business on the public highways as an intrastate common carrier the statute does not offend the interstate commerce clause of the federal constitution or the fourteenth amendment.
An exemption of interstate commerce in act is not discriminatory or based on improper classification.
2. L. 1925, p. 178, c. 185, § 14, which has to do with the granting of certificates of public convenience and necessity to common carriers by automobile on public highways, provides that it shall not apply to interstate commerce except as it may be permitted under the provisions of the constitution and acts of congress. This action is not unconstitutional as discriminatory or without a proper basis of classification.
Act does not violate constitution in exempting carriers of school children.
3. Nor is § 2(f), (h), unconstitutional in excluding those engaged exclusively in the transportation of children to or from school.
Or in excluding carriage of farm products to primary market.
4. Nor in excluding those engaged exclusively in transporting farm products from the point of production to the primary market, nor in excluding those transporting or delivering dairy products.
Or in excluding intracity freight carriers.
5. Nor in excluding intracity freight carriers or carriers between contiguous municipalities.
Or in excluding operators of taxicabs.
6. Nor in excluding those engaged in operating taxicabs.
Or in excluding operators of hotel busses.
7. Nor in excluding those engaged in operating hotel busses.
Or in delegating to railroad commission issue of certificates.
8. The delegation of power to the railroad and warehouse commission to determine upon the issuance of certificates of public necessity and convenience is not unconstitutional.
Existing operators do not have constitutional right to certificates.
9. Carriers operating at the date of the enactment of the statute are not entitled to certificates as a matter of constitutional right.
Right to carry mail on federal aid highway gives no right to use road for other purposes.
10. The defendant cannot claim exemption from the statute because he was carrying mail upon a federal aid highway at the time of its enactment.
Motor Vehicles, 42 C.J. p. 648 n. 61; p. 680 n. 45; p. 683 n. 97; p. 686 n. 81, 82, 83, 84; p. 687 n. 85; p. 695 n. 44; p. 696 n. 47; p. 697 n. 71; p. 698 n. 78, 79, 84, 94.
See 5 R.C.L. pp. 703, 715; 1 R.C.L. Supp. pp. 1481, 1488; 4 R.C.L. Supp. 342; 5 R.C.L. Supp. 297.
Alfred L. Thwing and R. A. McOuat, for appellant.
Clifford L. Hilton, Attorney General, William H. Gurnee, Assistant Attorney General, and Hayner N. Larson, for the state.
Gannon, Strizich & Farnand, for objector, Mesaba Transportation Company.
The defendant appeals from the order of the district court of Itasca county denying his motion for a new trial. The case came to the district court upon appeal from an order of the railroad and warehouse commission denying his application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity authorizing him to operate motor vehicles between Grand Rapids and Hibbing as a common carrier. There is no settled case. We have only the findings of fact. Only constitutional questions are presented.
Prior to 1925 the defendant had a contract with the government for the carrying of mail between Grand Rapids and Hibbing. In connection therewith he operated a motor bus line between the two points as termini, serving intermediate towns, and traveled a federal aid and state trunk highway. On May 12, 1925, he applied to the railroad and warehouse commission pursuant to the terms of L. 1925, p. 178, c. 185, for a certificate of public convenience and necessity, without which he could not operate as a common carrier. The Mesaba Transportation Company made a similar application and objected to the granting of defendant's application. Hearings were had. On December 8, 1925, the defendant was granted a limited certificate permitting him to carry passengers on his trips while carrying the United States mail. The Mesaba Transportation Company was granted a certificate. Defendant appealed to the district court of Itasca county. The district court affirmed the order of the railroad and warehouse commission.
The defendant attacks the constitutionality of the statute. The state claims that having invoked a privilege under the statute and received a benefit he cannot attack its constitutionality. We pass this question without intimating a view and go directly to the constitutional objections.
1. The state has control of the public highways and may regulate and on occasion even prohibit transportation by common carriers thereon. This question was considered at length in Schultz v. City of Duluth, 163 Minn. 65, 203 N.W. 449. The court said [at p. 68]:
In that case there was involved an ordinance of Duluth regulating the operation of motor vehicles carrying passengers for hire and excluding them from streets occupied by the street railway. There is involved in the case before us L. 1925, p. 178, c. 185, entitled:
"An act providing for supervision and regulation of transportation of persons and property for hire as common carriers on any public highway in this state, by motor vehicles, and for the safe operation thereof, and subjecting such transportation to the jurisdiction and control of the railroad and warehouse commission; and defining what constitutes such transportation for hire, and providing for the enforcement of this act and for punishment for violation thereof."
The statute was enacted to meet new conditions brought about by the entry of motor vehicles into the business of transporting passengers and freight over the state highways as common carriers. It has in view, directly or indirectly, public safety and convenience; but principally its purpose is the control and regulation of common carriers by motor vehicles and a possible resultant prohibition of competition. Transportation companies are forbidden to operate except upon compliance with the act. No company may operate "for the transportation of persons or property for hire as a common carrier on any public highway without first having obtained from the commission under the provisions of this act a certificate declaring that public convenience and necessity require such operation." [§ 5(a).] Provision is made for the application to the commission and hearings thereon and the granting of the certificates if public convenience and necessity require it. The company must file a bond to insure its compliance with the statute, and must furnish public liability or indemnity insurance. The act excludes operations in interstate commerce unless permitted by the federal constitution or some act of congress. Time schedules and tariff rates are regulated by the commission. An auto transportation company is defined as meaning "every corporation or person owning, controlling, operating or managing any motor-propelled vehicle not usually operated on or over rails used in the business of transporting persons or property for compensation as common carriers over any public highway in this state between fixed termini or over a regular route." [§ 2(h).] Certain kinds of motor transportation are excluded. They are noted later.
In Buck v. Kuykendall, 267 U.S. 307, 45 S.Ct. 324, 69 L.Ed 623, 38 A.L.R. 286, it was held that a statute requiring a certificate of public convenience and necessity was unconstitutional as applied to one using federal aid highways as a common carrier purely in interstate commerce because in violation of the commerce clause of the federal constitution and also as defeating the purpose of the federal aid statute. 23 USCA, §§ 1-53. The statute [Laws Wash. 1921, c. 111, § 4] requiring the certificate applied to transportation "for compensation between fixed termini or over a regular route in this state." It did not exclude interstate carriers. In George W. Bush & Sons Co. v. Maloy, 267 U.S. 317, 45 S.Ct. 326, 69 L.Ed. 627, it was held that a somewhat...
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