Thompson's Express & Storage Co. v. Mount

• Citation: 111 A. 173
• Decision Date: 14 June 1920
• Docket Number: No. 16.,16.
• Parties: THOMPSON'S EXPRESS & STORAGE CO. v. MOUNT et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

111 A. 173

THOMPSON'S EXPRESS & STORAGE CO.

v. MOUNT et al.

No. 16.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

June 14, 1920.

Williams, Taylor, and Gardner, JJ., dissenting.

Appeal from Court of Chancery.

Bill by Thompson's Express & Storage Company against Norman Mount and others. Decree for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

The Central Railroad Company of New Jersey made a written agreement with the complainant, giving it the privilege of soliciting on the platform of the Lakewood Station orders for baggage delivery, hack, taxicab and omnibus service, from arriving passengers, and also the privilege of soliciting on west-bound trains orders for like service to and from Lakewood Station. These privileges were to be exclusive to such extent as the railroad company might lawfully so accord.

The defendants solicited like orders upon the station platform. The present bill was filed to enjoin this interference with the complainant's exclusive rights under the agreement with the railroad. The injunction was granted, and the defendants appealed.

Charles E. Cook, of Asbury Park, for appellants.

Wilfred H. Jayne, Jr., of Lakewood, for respondent.

SWAYZE, J. (after stating the facts as above). The general question raised is not new. The great weight of authority sustains the complainants. It is enough to cite Barney v. Oyster Bay Steamboat Co., 67 N. Y. 301, 23 Am. Rep. 115; Old Colony R. R. Co. v. Tripp, 147 Mass. 35, 17 N. E. 89, 9 Am. St. Rep. 661; N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. Co. v. Scovill, 71 Conn. 136, 41 Atl. 246, 42 L. R. A. 157, 71 Am. St. Rep. 159; Donovan v. Pennsylvania Co., 199 U. S. 279, 26 Sup. Ct. 91, 50 L. Ed. 192. It would serve no useful purpose to repeat the reasons so well stated in these cases. All that is required of us is to pass upon the effect of our own statutes.

1. The first act to require consideration is the Railroad Act of 1903, § 22 (C. S. p. 4230), which enacts that any railroad company may erect a fence or other inclosure around its stations so as to prevent any persons other than passengers from coming near its trains, and may exclude from such inclosures all persons except travelers. The act is, in substance, the same as the act of 1839 (P. L. p. 170; R. S. p. 594), and antedates by 10 years the charter of the Central Railroad. That railroad has therefore always had the right to exclude from its stations all persons except travelers, and the agents of the company. The importance of the enactment to the present purpose is that it demonstrates, if demonstration were needed, that the Legislature could not have meant to require railroads to transport passengers beyond their own stations, for such transportation would require the entrance of others—hackmen and the like—to the station grounds. As the railroad business developed and towns increased in size a demand arose for cab and omnibus service. This was a kind of public service which the railroads might well provide for the better accommodation of the traveling public. Even if they were without authority to do so under their charters, the case would come within the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Jacksonville Railway Co. v. Hooper, 160 U. S. 514, at page 523, 16 Sup. Ct. 379, 383 (40 L. Ed. 515). The court said:

"Although the contract power of railroad companies is to be deemed restricted to the general purposes for which they are designed, yet there are many transactions which are incidental or auxiliary to its main business, or which may become useful in the care and management of the property which it is authorized to hold, and in the safety and comfort of the passengers whom it is its duty to transport. Courts may be permitted, where there is no legislative prohibition shown, to put a favorable construction upon such exercise of power by a railroad company as is suitable to promote the success of the company, within its chartered powers, and to contribute to the comfort of those who travel thereon."

It was held in that case that the railroad company might, under the Florida statute, even lease a summer hotel. The principle was approved by the same court in Union Pacific Ry. Co. v. Chicago, etc., Ry. Co., 163 U. S. 564, 592, 16 Sup. Ct. 1173, 41 L. Ed. 265, and applied to an agreement by one railroad with another for the right and privilege to move and operate its trains over the tracks of the latter. We do not question the right of the Central Railroad Company to operate hacks and omnibuses in, connection with its train service for the convenience of its passengers, and if it had undertaken to do so, perhaps a different question would now be presented. It has not done so, but has merely contracted that no one but the complainant shall have access to its station and platform for the purpose of conducting business which the railroad itself has not undertaken. The question we have to decide is not, as counsel urges, whether the railroad in the performance of a public duty can discriminate between the complainant and other hackmen, but whether the railroad company can give the complainant an exclusive right in a case where neither the complainant nor any of the defendants have any right whatever, or, in other words, whether the railroad may select its own company in a case where it is under no public duty to serve all who come, and has express statutory authority to exclude all except travelers. Reason clearly answers in favor of the exclusion. The authorities above cited justify the exclusion on the ground that, even where the public duty exists, the right of the railroad company to make reasonable regulations involves the right to protect itself and its passengers from the turmoil and danger involved in a competition between hackmen on the platform of a railroad station and the consequent liability of the railroad company to respond in damages to a passenger in case of injury. Exton v. Central R. R. Co., 62 N. J. Law, 7, 42 Atl. 486, 56 L. R. A. 508, affirmed 63 N. J. Law, 356, 46 Atl. 1099, 56 L. R. A. 508. We are not dealing with visions of possible dangers, but with dangers that have actually occurred and led to the regulations for protection of passengers reviewed in the cases cited. No case has arisen of complaint by...