State v. St. Paul City Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 21 February 1936 |
| Docket Number | No. 30439.,30439. |
| Citation | 196 Minn. 456,265 N.W. 434 |
| Parties | STATE et al. v. ST. PAUL CITY RY. CO. et al. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Ramsey County; James C. Michael, Judge.
Proceeding by the State and others against the St. Paul City Railway Company and another. From judgment setting aside an order of the Railroad and Warehouse Commission, plaintiffs appeal.
Affirmed.
John L. Connolly and Louis P. Sheahan, both of St. Paul, and Harry H. Peterson, Atty. Gen., and Fred A. Pike, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellants.
Doherty, Rumble & Butler, of St. Paul, and Junell, Driscoll, Fletcher, Dorsey & Barker, of Minneapolis, for respondents.
An appeal from a judgment of the district court setting aside an order of the Railroad and Warehouse Commission of the state of Minnesota requiring that the St. Paul City Railway Company and the Minneapolis Street Railway Company sell two tokens for 15 cents during a temporary trial period.
On November 3, 1934, the Railroad and Warehouse Commission, in a proceeding instituted on its own initiative, issued an order which provided: "It is Ordered, that from and after the date of this order, and for the period of four (4) months from such date, the Saint Paul City Railway Company and the Minneapolis Street Railway Company place on sale within the territory served by such companies, tickets or tokens on the basis of two for fifteen cents, each such ticket or token to cover one ride within the area now authorized and with transfer privileges to remain unchanged. * * *" From that order the Saint Paul City Railway Company and the Minneapolis Street Railway Company (hereinafter referred to as the company), appealed to the district court for an order staying the order of the commission pending determination on its merits of an appeal from the order. On November 13, 1934, an order was made by that court granting a temporary stay. On January 10, 1935, the district court, after a trial to the court, made and filed its findings of fact, conclusions of law, order for judgment and judgment setting aside and vacating the order of the commission. From the judgment entered, the city of Saint Paul and the state of Minnesota (hereinafter referred to as the city), appeal.
It is contended by the city that the order of the commission was not an appealable order on the grounds: (1) That said order is not a final order; (2) that said order did not fix a rate; (3) that said order is temporary in nature; and (4) That such an appeal constitutes an undue interference with the orderly progress of the proceedings before the commission.
The city grants that the commission acted under the authority of that part of section 4823 of Mason's 1927 Minn.St. which reads as follows: "Thereafter the Commission may on its own initiative and shall upon the application of the city or the street railway from time to time make such investigation as to any change in property value or cost of service as may be reasonably necessary and after a full hearing as herein provided make such order confirming existing rates or changing rates as may be just, to properly regulate rates of fare hereunder."
The city has assumed rather an anomalous position. First it claims that the order did not fix a rate, and then it justifies the order under a section of the statute that grants to the commission the power to fix rates. Either the order did fix a rate, or the commission had no power to make it. We will assume that it fixed a rate.
Mason's 1927 St. § 4825 provides in part:
The fact that the order was temporary in character can make no difference as to the decision of this question. Section 4825, makes no exception in granting the right to appeal whether the order is temporary or not. It specifically states that there may be an appeal from "any order." A temporary order, which affects substantial rights, as does the order here in question, may be just as confiscatory as a permanent order, and not to allow judicial review of it would be in violation of the due process clause.
City of St. Paul v. Railroad & Warehouse Commission, 163 Minn. 274, 203 N. W. 972, 973, is not in point. There the city of St. Paul sought to appeal from a finding of the commission as to the value of the St. Paul Street Railway. This court held that such a finding was not an "order, ruling or decision" within the meaning of section 4825. We stated in that case, "The fact of primary importance is that the Commission has not fixed a rate." Here the contrary can be stated; the fact of primary importance is that the commission has fixed a rate. In City of Duluth v. Railroad and Warehouse Commission, 167 Minn. 311, 209 N.W. 10, it was held that section 4825 expressly granted the right of judicial review over any order of the commission fixing a rate.
We pass to the merits. During the course of the hearing in the district court the parties stipulated as follows: "It is stipulated on this trial that the sole issue involved is the question of whether or not this order in question will have the effect of materially diminishing the revenues of the companies, and that if the Court finds from the evidence adduced, that the order will have such effect, that the Court may set the order aside without further evidence; thus eliminating from the trial of this case all questions of values and fair return upon the values."
The trial court construed the word "materially" as here used to mean: To this construction counsel for both the city and the company agreed. Thus, the only question for this court is, Whether the evidence supports the finding of the trial court that the rate, if put into effect, would materially reduce the income of the company? We think that it does.
Previous to the time that the order of the commission here in question was made, the fare on the street cars of the company was at the rate of six tokens for 45 cents or 10 cents cash fare. Each token or cash fare entitled the passenger to one ride with transfer privileges. Over a period of years from 10 to 12 per cent. of the total passengers carried by the company paid cash fares. This is a considerable portion of its revenue.
Five employees of the company, with many years' experience as combination conductors and motormen, testified, as a result of an observation, that the cash fares were received from the better-dressed class of passengers; that such passengers more often than not gave them a dollar from which they had to make change; that these passengers consisted of the owners of cars, who, for some reason or other, were not using them that particular day; the occasional shopper, the farmer who came to town and parked his car at the end of the street car line, and the stranger who appeared to be making a business call from one part of the city to the other. A great many of the regular passengers would buy as many as 12 tokens at one time and apparently never paid cash fares. It is evident that the cash fare passengers are not those who cannot afford to pay 45 cents at one time for tokens. The company claims that these cash fare passengers would, if possible, buy two tokens for 15 cents instead of paying cash fares...
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