State v. Public Service Commission of Missouri

• Decision Date: 13 June 1918
• Docket Number: No. 20409.,20409.
• Citation: 204 S.W. 395,275 Mo. 60
• Parties: STATE ex rel. MISSOURI PAC. RY. CO. et al. v. PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF MISSOURI et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

204 S.W. 395

275 Mo. 60

STATE ex rel. MISSOURI PAC. RY. CO. et al. v. PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF MISSOURI et al.

No. 20409.

Supreme Court of Missouri. In Banc.

June 13, 1918.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Cole County; J. G. Slate, Judge.

Certiorari by the State, on the relation of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company and another, against the Public Service Commission and others. From an adverse judgment, the relators appeal. Judgment reversed, and cause remanded.

Jas. F. Green and H. H. Larimore, both of St. Louis, for appellants. A. Z. Patterson, and James D. Lindsay both of Jefferson City, for respondent Public Service Commission.

GRAVES, J.

For a number of years the Missouri Pacific Railway Company had maintained track scales at Rich Hill, Mo. For five or six mouths the scales had been out of repair, and were not in use. The company were about to remove the scales, and the Commercial Club of the city of Rich Hill filed complaint with the Public Service Commission, asking that the railway company be compelled to erect and maintain proper scales on its tracks at such city. This the Public Service Commission directed, and their judgment under statutory certiorari to the circuit court of Cole county was by such court sustained, and by appeal, taken by the railway company and B. F. Burch its receiver, the case comes here.

The order of the Public Commission, as well as the opinion of the commission, does not find that these scales are a necessary public convenience, except in the following limited way. The commission in its opinion says:

"The Missouri statute provides that at all stations or places from which the shipment of grain by the road of any railroad company shall have amounted during the previous year to 50,000 bushels or more, such railroad company shall erect and keep in good condition for use and use in weighing grain to be shipped over its road true and correct scales of proper structure and capacity for the weighing of grain by carload in its car. Such railway shall carefully and correctly weigh each car upon which grain shall be shipped from such place or station, both before and after the same is loaded, and ascertain and receipt for the true amount of grain so shipped. Sertion 3157, R. S. Mo. 1909. The provisions of section 49 of the Public Service Commission Law are broad enough to justify a commission order requiring track scales as a facility in connection with the transportation of property, where the evidence shows a public convenience or necessity, or that such facility `ought reasonably to be provided.' In the judgment of the lawmaking body, as expressed clearly in section 3157, supra, when the shipment of grain from any given point on the road shall have amounted during the previous year to 50,000 bushels or more, a public convenience or necessity arises, and therefore such scales `ought reasonably to be provided.'"

From this it is clear that the commission was of the opinion that the terms of said section 3157, R. S. 1909, fixed the measure of public necessity: and, the evidence having shown the quantity of grain therein named, the commission was bound to find a public necessity although the other evidence might disclose a different situation. The other evidence did strongly tend to show a different situation. It is clear that the commission based its judgment as to public convenience on this statute. In so doing the railway urges error, in that the statute is of no force since the passage of the Public Service Commission Act. Such is the case in a nutshell.

I. If the Public Service Commission in this case had, on the facts involved, and excluding the force of section 3157, R. S. 1909, found that there was a public necessity for the track scales sought, then we might have a different question here. The commission makes no such finding. We doubt whether they could make such finding upon the facts presented. What the commission really has done is to say that they are bound upon the question of public necessity by the terms of the statute aforesaid. In other words, because section 3157, supra, requires that a railroad should furnish track scales at all...