Wimberly v. Georgia Southern & F. Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 08 December 1908 |
| Docket Number | 1,033. |
| Citation | 63 S.E. 29,5 Ga.App. 263 |
| Parties | WIMBERLY v. GEORGIA SOUTHERN & F. RY. CO. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
The question as to whether a statute is for any reason unconstitutional will not be certified to the Supreme Court when a determination of the issues involved can be reached without a decision involving the constitutionality of the law in question.
[Ed Note.-For other cases, see Appeal and Error, Cent. Dig. § 1770; Dec. Dig. § 309. [*]]
(a) While any person who offers to buy from any railroad company a ticket to a station on the line of a connecting railroad company, and who is refused such ticket after tender of the purchase price thereof, provided such railroad is not authorized to refuse, may maintain an action for the penalty provided by law, still the sole purpose of the act approved October 15, 1891 (Acts 1891, p. 155), was to prevent discrimination on the part of one railroad against another railroad connecting therewith.
(b) Reference may be had to the language employed in the caption of an act in ascertaining the intent of the General Assembly and the scope and purpose of the enactment, as well as to the language employed in the body of the act itself.
[Ed Note.-For other cases, see Carriers, Cent. Dig. § 4; Dec Dig. § 2; [*] Statutes, Cent. Dig. § 288; Dec. Dig. § 211. [*]]
The purpose of the above-mentioned act (now codified as sections 2299-2301 of the Civil Code of 1895), being solely for the protection of railroad companies against unlawful discriminations arising from the refusal to sell tickets good for passage over a connecting line, to recover the penalty provided in section 2301 of the Civil Code of 1895 it must be alleged and proved, not only that such railroad refused to sell tickets to a station or stations on a connecting line, but also that tickets to such stations had been tendered it by such connecting line to be sold for it, and that the defendant railroad company had refused to place such tickets of its connecting line on sale.
[Ed. Note.-For other cases, see Carriers, Cent. Dig. § 33; Dec. Dig. § 20. [*] ]
No liability for the penalty provided by section 2301 of the Civil Code of 1895 attaches to a refusal to sell the tickets of a connecting railroad, where such connecting railroad for any reason does not desire its tickets sold by other than its own agents, or where a connecting railroad has not expressed a desire that tickets to stations on its line shall be sold by another connecting therewith.
Error from City Court of Tifton; R. Eve, Judge.
Action by J. S. Wimberly against the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.
R. S. Wimberly and Jno. Murrow, for plaintiff in error.
Jno. I. Hall, J. E. Hall, and Fulwood & Murray, for defendant in error.
Wimberly brought a petition against the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company for the penalty of $1,000 provided by Civ. Code 1895, § 2301, for violation of section 2299. The petition alleged that the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company connects with the Seaboard Air Line Railway at Cordele, and that Lumpkin is a point or station on the line of the Seaboard Air Line Railway. The petitioner averred that on November 11, 1907, he endeavored to buy, from the agent of the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway at Tifton, tickets to the point of Lumpkin for himself and for two ladies who were with him, and for payment of said tickets tendered to the agent $10, which was more than sufficient to pay for the three tickets, the price of each being $2.70, but the agent refused to sell a ticket to Lumpkin, though he offered to sell one to Cordele or Americus, where the plaintiff could buy one to Lumpkin from the Seaboard Air Line Railway; that the petitioner insisted that said agent sell him a ticket to Lumpkin, but the agent stated to him that he could not and would not sell him a ticket to Lumpkin by any route, and refused to sell a ticket to Lumpkin at the rate which had previously been fixed by the Railroad Commission of Georgia, or at any rate. Upon general demurrer the petition was dismissed, and the plaintiff excepted.
1. The general demurrer, as amended, insists that the petition fails to set forth a cause of action for the additional reason that sections 2299 and 2300 are contrary both to the Constitution of this state and the Constitution of the United States. We are without jurisdiction to consider these grounds of the general demurrer; but inasmuch as a decision upon the constitutionality of the statute is not necessary to the determination of the question as to whether the court erred in dismissing the petition, even if the statute be unconstitutional, under the well-settled ruling of this court we shall proceed to determine (presuming, as we must, that the law is constitutional until there is a holding to the contrary) whether the allegations of the petition are sufficient to support an action under the terms and provisions of the law.
2. If the defendant company violated the provisions of section 2299, the plaintiff is entitled, under the terms of section 2301 of the Civil Code of 1895, to maintain an action for the penalty of $1,000, because by the express terms of the latter section either a railroad company whose road is discriminated against, or a person offering to buy a ticket, or both, may recover against a railroad which refuses to sell the tickets of a connecting line. We are clear, however, in the opinion that the sole purpose of section 2299 was to prevent one railroad from discriminating against a connecting railroad, and equally clear that this was the only object in legislative contemplation at the time of the passage of the act of 1891 (Acts 1891, p. 155), from which the sections 2299 and 2301 are codified. The Legislature had, previous to this enactment, provided for protection in behalf of passengers and their baggage against discriminations, and this act does not attempt to amplify the previous legislation, so far as prospective passengers or patrons of the road are concerned, having dealt with the subject of discriminations against the traveling public and shippers of freight in the Acts of 1874, 1879 and 1889 (Civ. Code 1895, §§ 2188, 2214, 2307). The Legislature, by the act of 1891, turned its attention to the prevention of discriminations on the part of one railroad company against other (perhaps weaker) railroad companies, and sought to provide a penalty which would preclude such discriminations. Nothing is better settled than that the intention of the General Assembly in the passage of a law is derivable as well from the caption of the act as from the body of the enactment itself. True, by the adoption of the Code, the law is declared as expressed in the Code. In other words, the Code speaks the letter of the law, even though in the codification the exact verbiage of the original enactment may have been altered.
However, in ruling as to the precise meaning of the language employed in a statute, nothing, as we have said before, is more pertinent towards ascertaining the true intention of the legislative mind in the passage of the enactment than the Legislature's own interpretation of the scope and purpose of this act as contained in the caption. The caption of an act of the Legislature is properly an index to the contents of the statute as construed by the Legislature itself-a summarizing of the act made right at the time when the discussion of every phase of the question is fresh in the legislative mind. The caption of the act of 1901, which contains all of the Code sections now in question, shows that the Legislature did not intend the act to have any other effect than to prevent discriminations by one railroad as against another, and that when the General Assembly framed the caption no other class was in the legislative view or contemplation except railroads. The Legislature's views as to the extent of the ground covered by its act as set out in the caption is that it is "An act to further carry into effect paragraph 1 of section 2 of article 4 of the Constitution of the state, and to prevent unjust discrimination upon the part of any railroad operated within or partly within this state against any other railroad company within this state." The Legislature, bearing in mind that prior to the passage of this act it had already exercised the power granted by the Constitution, so far as it related to unjust discriminations by railroads against passengers and shippers, declared the act under consideration to be a further carrying into effect of the Constitution, and that further purpose to be to prevent unjust discrimination by a railroad company against another railroad company. The whole attention of the Legislature for the time being was absorbed by the rights of the railroad company which might be discriminated against. The rights of passengers who might be affected were evidently conceded to be merely incidental. That the act, codified with the title omitted, must be interpreted in the light of the title, see Comer v. State, 103 Ga. 69, 29 S.E. 501; J. H. Smith v. Evans, 125 Ga. 109, 53 S.E. 589.
3. If the sole purpose of section 2299 of the Civil Code of 1895 be to prevent discrimination on the part of one railroad company as against another railroad company, then it must appear that the railroad engaged in the discrimination at least was refusing to do...
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