State v. Overby

• Decision Date: 22 December 1911
• Docket Number: 17,434 - (5)
• Citation: 133 N.W. 792,116 Minn. 304
• Parties: STATE v. CHRIS OVERBY
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

133 N.W. 792

116 Minn. 304

STATE v. CHRIS OVERBY

Nos. 17,434 - (5)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

December 22, 1911

Defendant, conductor of a street car, was prosecuted in the municipal court of Minneapolis for the offense of overcrowding a street car, contrary to the ordinance of that city. At the close of the trial, defendant's motion to dismiss the prosecution, for the reason that there was no evidence of passengers boarding the interurban car within the city limits, except the two police officers who made the arrest, and that the officers were not passengers, was denied by Montgomery, J., who found defendant guilty and imposed a fine of five dollars, and dismissed the case against the motorman, on the ground that that part of the ordinance which attempts to hold a motorman liable for knowingly permitting any passengers to be admitted into a car beyond its carrying capacity, is unreasonable as applied to the motorman, and therefore void. From the judgment of conviction, defendant appealed. Affirmed.

SYLLABUS

Violation of car service ordinance -- evidence.

Evidence considered, and held to sustain the conviction of the defendant for violating the service ordinance of the city of Minneapolis.

Municipal court of Minneapolis -- judicial notice.

The municipal court of that city takes judicial notice of all city ordinances, and it is not necessary either to prove or give them in evidence.

N. M Thygeson and D. R. Frost, for appellant.

Daniel Fish, City Attorney, and W. G. Compton, Assistant City Attorney, for the state.

OPINION

START, C.J.

The defendant, a conductor of the Minneapolis Street Railway Company, was found guilty in the municipal court of the city of Minneapolis of unlawfully admitting an excess of passengers into a street car of the company operated by him, contrary to the service ordinance of the city. Thereupon the court adjudged him guilty of the offense, and that as punishment therefor he pay a fine of five dollars. He appealed from the judgment.

The assignments of error raise the general question whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction.

There was evidence tending to show that two policemen boarded the car in question; that each paid his fare on request of the conductor, and then proceeded to count the passengers in the car and on the platform thereof, and found that the number of adult passengers, excluding themselves, exceeded the legal limit; and, further, that they boarded the car because it was apparently overloaded, and for the purpose only of counting the passengers and arresting the conductor and motorman if they found an excess of passengers. There was also evidence on the part of the defendant tending to show that no passengers, in excess of the limit, except the policemen, who alone constituted the overload, boarded the car within the city...