BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN & ENGINEMEN ET AL. v. CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & PACIFIC RAILROAD CO. ET AL.
No. 16
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided November 18, 1968
393 U.S. 129
Argued October 22, 1968.* *Together with No. 18, Hardin, Prosecuting Attorney, et al. v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Co. et al., on appeal from the same court.
Robert V. Light and Martin M. Lucente argued the cause for appellees in both cases. With them on the brief were W. J. Smith, H. H. Friday, and R. W. Yost.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases raise the question whether the Arkansas “full-crew” laws, specifying a minimum number of employees who must serve as part of a train crew under certain circumstances, violate the Commerce Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment. The constitutionality of these Arkansas laws has been specifically upheld against challenges under the same constitutional provisions in three decisions of this Court, in 1911, in 1916, and again in 1931.1 In the present cases, however, the District Court found that as a result of economic and technical
The first of the two statutes challenged here was enacted in 1907, and this law makes it an offense for a railroad operating a line of more than 50 miles to haul a freight train consisting of more than 25 cars, unless the train has a crew of not “less than an engineer, a fireman, a conductor and three [3] brakemen . . .”2 The second statute, enacted in 1913, makes it an offense for any railroad with a line of 100 miles or more to engage in switching operations in cities of designated populations, with “less than one [1] engineer, a fireman, a foreman and three [3] helpers . . .”3 These two statutes, the constitutionality of which this Court previously upheld, are precisely the statutes here challenged and struck down.
This latest attack on these Arkansas laws was commenced by a group of interstate railroads operating in Arkansas which asked the United States District Court to declare the statutes unconstitutional and enjoin two Arkansas prosecuting attorneys, appellants here, from enforcing them. The railroad brotherhoods, also appel-
In its first opinion in these cases, the District Court granted the railroads’ motion for summary judgment, holding that the field of full-crew legislation was pre-empted by Pub. L. 88-108, 239 F. Supp. 1 (D. C. W. D. Ark. 1965), but we reversed on the pre-emption question, sub nom. Engineers v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 382 U. S. 423 (1966). We also held that the railroads were not entitled to summary judgment on their alternative theory that because the effect of the mileage exemption in the two Acts is to free all of the State‘s intrastate railroads from the full-crew requirements while ensuring coverage of most of the interstate railroads, the two Acts “constitute discriminatory legislation against interstate commerce in favor of intrastate commerce.” Id., at 437-438. On remand the District Court held an evidentiary hearing and, after compiling a voluminous record, found that the full-crew requirements had “no substantial effect on safety of operations,” placed “substantial financial burdens” upon the carriers, and caused
I.
The question of crew size has been a subject of dispute between the railroads and their employees for more than half a century. Much of the controversy has of course been fought out by collective bargaining between the railroads and the unions.5 In many States attempts have been made to settle the controversy by legislation. The Arkansas statutes before us were passed in 1907 and 1913, along with a number of other laws designed to further railroad safety, such as headlight standards, regulations concerning the obstruction of train crossings, and so on.6 Many other States have also passed full-crew laws as parts of detailed codes regulating railroad safety.7
In spite of this background of frequent and recent legislative re-evaluation of the full-crew problem, both at the state and national levels, the railroads now ask us to determine as a judicial matter that these laws no longer make a significant contribution to safety and so
The State of Arkansas and the railroad brotherhoods, all appellants here, take a different view of the functions performed by the firemen and other additional crewmen required under the statutes. They claim that the work performed by these employees—serving as lookout, passing signals, relieving the engineer in emergencies, inspecting the engine and other cars, and helping to make needed adjustments and repairs while the train is moving—is still necessary and cannot be performed by other employees without unduly burdening them and interfering with the proper performance of their other tasks. Ap-
The District Court analyzed these conflicting contentions and the conflicting evidence adduced to support them and concluded that the full-crew requirements have “no substantial effect on safety of operations.” The court also said that even if these requirements did add “some increment of safety to the operation, we think that such an increment is negligible . . . and not worth the cost.” As additional factors justifying its conclusion that the laws created an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce, the court emphasized “the financial burden of compliance, which is out of all proportion to the benefit, if any, derived, and the added burden involved in the taking on and discharging men at or near the Arkansas State line . . . .”
We think it plain that in striking down the full-crew laws on this basis, the District Court indulged in a legislative judgment wholly beyond its limited authority to review state legislation under the Commerce Clause. The evidence as to the need for firemen and other additional crewmen was certainly conflicting and to a considerable extent inconclusive. Many railroad employees gave direct testimony as to incidents in which, for example, the presence of a fireman as a lookout helped avert a serious accident. With respect to statistical evidence, the District Court itself noted: “The statistical evidence as to the effect upon safety of the reductions in force authorized by the basic award and by the awards of the special adjustment boards [under the 1963 arbitration] is not entirely satisfactory either way . . . .” Indeed, as the
It would hardly be possible to summarize here all the other evidence in the record relevant to the safety question, and, as we have indicated, it is wholly unnecessary to do so. A brief summary of some of the findings of Arbitration Board No. 282, the panel set up pursuant to Pub. L. 88-108, should suffice to show that the question of safety is clearly one for legislative determination. In quoting from this report, of course, we in no way intend to indicate that the District Court should have accepted any of its specific conclusions or that this evidence was necessarily any more persuasive than any of the many other sources of information about the problem. We single it out only because it is one of the more recent reports and because it was heavily relied upon by the District Court and by the railroads themselves. The Board stated as its very first finding:
“1. The record contains no evidence to support the charge, frequently and irresponsibly made, that firemen presently employed in road freight and yard service throughout the country are being paid to do nothing and actually perform no useful work.”
The Board then went on to deal specifically with the various functions for which firemen were claimed to be necessary. It concluded that firemen were not necessary to perform the lookout function in “the great majority of cases” and that they were not needed to perform cer-
“[W]e are satisfied that a certain number of such assignments require the continued employment of firemen in order to prevent excessive safety hazard to lives and property, to avoid imposing an undue burden upon the remaining crew members, and to assure adequate and safe transportation service to the public.”
Finally, and most significant, the Board itself stressed in conclusion the subjective nature of its findings with reference to safety:
“Safety is, of course, essentially a relative concept; once adequate minimum standards have been achieved, the decision as to how much more safety is required must necessarily be governed by all the accompanying circumstances. Railroading is, unfortunately, a hazardous occupation, and the problem before us cannot be viewed simply in terms of preventing or not preventing accidents.”
This summary, taken from evidence heavily relied upon by the railroads and generally favorable to their position, leaves little room for doubt that the question of safety in the circumstances of this case is essentially a matter of public policy, and public policy can, under our constitutional system, be fixed only by the people acting through their elected representatives. The District Court‘s re-
Of the other matters relied upon by the District Court, the problem of delay at the state borders apparently has not changed appreciably since the days of this Court‘s earliest full-crew decisions, and this Court‘s statement of the insignificance of the problem in Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona, 325 U. S. 761, 782 (1945), is equally valid today:
“While the full train crew laws undoubtedly placed an added financial burden on the railroads in order to serve a local interest, they did not obstruct interstate transportation or seriously impede it. They had no effects outside the state beyond those of picking up and setting down the extra employees at the state boundaries; they involved no wasted use of facilities or serious impairment of transportation efficiency . . . .”
Nor was it open to the District Court to place a value on the additional safety in terms of dollars and cents, in order to see whether this value, as calculated by the court, exceeded the financial cost to the railroads.12 As we said
“Cost taken into consideration with other factors might be relevant in some cases to the issue of burden on commerce. But it has assumed no such proportions here. If we had here only a question whether the cost of adjusting an interstate operation to these new local safety regulations prescribed by Illinois unduly burdened interstate commerce, we would have to sustain the law under the authority of the Sproles [286 U. S. 374 (1932)], Barnwell [303 U. S. 177 (1938)], and Maurer [309 U. S. 598 (1940)] cases. The same result would obtain if we had to resolve the much discussed issues of safety presented in this case.” Id., at 526.13
It is difficult at best to say that financial losses should be balanced against the loss of lives and limbs of workers and people using the highways. We certainly cannot do so on this showing.
II.
We deal next with the contention that because of the mileage exemption, the full-crew laws discriminate against interstate commerce in favor of intrastate commerce. This contention, like the railroads’ other claims,
and en route. The railroads introduced no evidence to indicate the approximate amount of such new expenses, and we have no way of knowing whether, as appellants claim, these expenses would to a substantial extent offset the wage savings associated with the reduction in crew sizes.
Despite the extensive testimony and exhibits added to the record since our previous consideration of these cases, we have found no basis for altering our conclusion that the mileage classification is permissible. The railroads argue that the extra men, if needed at all, are equally necessary on all trains, regardless of whether the company operating them happens to own a more or a less extensive system of track. But evidence in the record establishes a number of legitimate reasons for the mileage exemption. In the case of at least one of the short-line roads, the maximum speed for trains running over its main track is 35 miles per hour, while trains moving over the longer lines have speed limits of 65 and in some cases 75 miles per hour. The apparent use of much slower trains over the short lines certainly provides a basis upon which the Arkansas Legislature could conclude that the hazards encountered in line-haul operations are less serious, and accordingly that the need for regulation is less pressing, on the short lines. Similarly in connection with the switching operations, there was evidence that the usefulness of additional employees depends to some extent on the length of the train being switched,
Although the railroads claim that other criteria could provide a more precise test of the situations where a larger crew is desirable, these other standards have inadequacies of their own, and are for the most part far too vague to provide a basis for a statutory classification. And in any event the courts may not force a state legislature to attain scientific perfection in determining the coverage of statutes of this type. As we stressed in the Bibb case, 359 U. S., at 524:
“These safety measures carry a strong presumption of validity when challenged in court. If there are alternative ways of solving a problem, we do not sit to determine which of them is best suited to achieve a valid state objective. Policy decisions are for the state legislature, absent federal entry into the field.”
Mileage classifications have repeatedly been upheld on this basis, not only in this Court‘s previous decisions dealing with these very statutes but in many other cases involving similar problems. See, e. g., New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. New York, 165 U. S. 628 (1897). Nothing suggests that full-crew laws should now be treated differently.
III.
There remains for consideration only the railroads’ contention that the Arkansas laws violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Little need be said of the claim that the statutes violate the Equal Protection Clause for the reason that they discriminate against the railroad industry
The railroads also argue that the statutes violate the Due Process Clause because they are “unduly oppressive” and impose costs on the regulated industry that exceed the public benefits of the regulation. The District Court agreed with this position, holding that the impact of the full-crew laws today is “unreasonable and oppressive” and therefore a violation of due process. Insofar as these arguments seek to present an independent basis for invalidating the laws, apart from any effect on interstate commerce, we think, with all due deference to appellees and the District Court, that these contentions require no further consideration. Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726 (1963); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955); Olsen v. Nebraska, 313 U. S. 236 (1941); West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 (1937); Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502 (1934).
IV.
Under all the circumstances we see no reason to depart from this Court‘s previous decisions holding that the Arkansas full-crew laws do not unduly burden interstate commerce or otherwise violate the Constitution. Undoubtedly heated disputes will continue as to the extent
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE FORTAS took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.
I would agree with the Court that if the constitutionality of these Arkansas laws were to be judged as safety measures under the State‘s police power, they would have to be sustained. But as I indicated in my dissent in Engineers v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 382 U. S. 423, 438, Congress in enacting Pub. L. 88-108, 77 Stat. 132, undertook to displace state “full-crew” laws by delegating power to a national arbitration board to determine, for example, the necessity of firemen on diesel freights and the minimum size of train and switching crews.
I would, therefore, remand the cases to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with Pub. L. 88-108 and the awards that have been made under it.