282 Mass. 429 | Mass. | 1933
Trial by jury upon these complaints was waived, they were submitted upon a single case stated, requests by the defendant for rulings were denied, the defendant was found guilty, fines were imposed, and sentences were stayed.
A single bill of exceptions by the defendant covering both complaints brings the cases here according to correct procedure applicable alike to civil and criminal practice. Barrell v. Globe Newspaper Co. 268 Mass. 99, 101-102.
The defendant is charged with violations of St. 1931, c. 399, on different dates. Its provisions, so far as here material, summarily stated are that no one in or from Boston shall furnish service by a sight-seeing automobile, in or on which guide service by the driver or other person is offered or furnished, unless such automobile is licensed by the police commissioner of Boston and unless a certificate declaring that public necessity and convenience require such operation is obtained from the department of public utilitiés. After public hearing, that department may issue or refuse to issue such certificate, may attach to the exercise of the privilege thereby conferred such terms and conditions as to fares (among other matters) as it may deem required by public necessity and convenience, and may make suitable and reasonable rules and regulations governing the fares and may revise, alter, amend and annul the same. Penalties are attached to violations of the statute and of any rule, order or regulation, and of any condition attached to the Certificate of public necessity and convenience.
A main contention of the defendant is that its business, so far as here concerned, was exclusively interstate in nature and therefore not subject to the terms of the statute. The facts bearing upon this contention in brief are these: For
The automobiles used by the defendant on all these occasions were assigned to the exclusive use of the tourists pursuant to prior contract with The New England Steamship Company and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company with respect to Mayflower tours. While engaged in this transportation, no persons were carried as passengers except those who started on the tour from New York. The automobiles assigned to these tours were operated irrespective of the numbers of passengers and there were at times several or many vacant seats. No tickets in connection with these tours were sold by the defendant. The only form of collection made by it was the coupon or ticket sold to each tourist in New York by The New England Steamship Company or by The Pennsylvania Railroad Company elsewhere. The only revenue received by the defendant' for its transportation of these tourists was that fixed and specified by the tariffs and prior contracts made with the other carriers involved.
At the times here material the defendant did not have a license from the police commissioner of Boston or a certificate of public necessity and convenience from the department of public utilities as required by St. 1931, c. 399. After the effective date of that statute the defendant, although not believing that its operations with respect to the tours as herein described were within its purview, applied respectively to the police commissioner of Boston for the license and to the department of public utilities for the certificate described in the statute. Each declined to act on the merits of the defendant’s application mainly on the ground that the other had not first acted favorably.
The defendant was engaged exclusively in interstate commerce in its conduct challenged in these complaints. It was at the times alleged transporting in its automobiles persons who had bought tickets in other States entitling them to such transportation' as part of a continuous and uninterrupted journey from those States, in part over the high seas, through ¡portions of this Commonwealth and back to their initial point of departure. The persons purchasing and the carriers selling the tickets entertained a common purpose and were actuated by an identical intent that there should be a transportation from one State to another of which the transportation furnished by the defendant was an essential part. Whatever may be the precise meaning of interstate commerce under the power conferred upon Congress by art. 1, § 8, of the Constitution of the United States to regulate commerce among the several States, it is in any event a term of very broád signification
The circumstance that the transportation is broken in the way shown in the case at bar and a part occurs entirely within one State does not affect its interstate character. If the journey or carriage is in truth and fact a single chain of interstate transportation, one link of it located within a single State does not sever the interstate commerce and become a separate section subject to State control. Commonwealth v. Peoples Express Co. 201 Mass. 564, 574. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 162 U. S. 184, 192. Rearick v. Pennsylvania, 203 U. S. 507. Baer Brothers Mercantile Co. v. Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, 233 U. S. 479, 490-491. The case is distinguishable from Pennsylvania Railroad v. Knight, 192 U. S. 21, where the interstate journey had come to an end at the station of the interstate carrier and the cab service from the station to hotel or home was a distinct travel for which its appropriate fare was charged.
The State has broad powers. General regulations for the preservation of the highways, for the protection of the safety of travel, for the conservation of the public health, and in a somewhat restricted sense for the promotion of the general welfare, are valid even though interstate commerce and travel may be incidentally affected. Such regulations do not constitute an unlawful burden on interstate commerce. Morris v. Duby, 274 U. S. 135. Clark v. Poor, 274 U. S. 554. Interstate Busses Corp. v. Blodgett, 276 U. S. 245. Continental Baking Co. v. Woodring, 286 U. S. 352, 365-366, Hendrick v, Maryland, 235 U. S. 610. Kane v.
There are limits in this direction beyond which the State may not go. It was said in Adams Express Co. v. Kentucky, 214 U. S. 218, 223, quoting from Atlantic Coast Line Railroad v. Wharton, 207 U. S. 328, 334: “any exercise of state authority, in whatever form manifested, which directly regulates interstate commerce, is repugnant to the commerce clause of the Constitution.” The State may not by legislation compel a private carrier to assume the burdens and obligations of a common carrier. Michigan Public Utilities Commission v. Duke, 266 U. S. 570. Frost & Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Commission of California, 271 U. S. 583.
In the case at bar the defendant was engaged in interstate transportation of passengers. That business was protected from discriminatory burdens imposed by the Commonwealth. If subject to the statute, the right of the defendant to conduct its business at all would be dependent upon a determination by the department of public utilities that such business was required by public necessity and convenience and upon a determination as to fares to be charged passengers to be carried by it. Within the sweep of powers would be comprised competency to decide that public necessity and convenience do not require the operation of the automobiles of the defendant on the tours in question and to establish fares different from those displayed in the tariffs or schedules of rates on file with the Interstate Commerce Commission. The business of the defendant, being interstate in nature, was not liable to be extinguished by the determination of a State board that it was not required by public necessity and convenience. Interstate commerce is conducted as matter of right under the Federal Constitution. That right cannot be denied by the several States. It is not dependent upon discretionary dispensations to be granted or refused by the several States
Such power in the department of public utilities, if applied to the defendant, would, we think, unduly encroach upon interstate commerce. Commonwealth v. O’Neil, 233 Mass. 535, and cases reviewed. It would enable that department to determine the persons by whom, and not the manner in which, highways may be used in interstate commerce. That would transcend the power of the Commonwealth. Buck v. Kuykendall, 267 U. S. 307, 315. George W. Bush & Sons Co. v. Maloy, 267 U. S. 317. Frost & Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Commission of California, 271 U. S. 583. Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U. S. 553. Barrett v. New York, 232 U. S. 14, 31.
The circumstance that the defendant furnished guide
These considerations lead to the conclusion that it could not have been the design of the Legislature in enacting St. 1931, c. 399, that it should apply to interstate commerce such as that here shown to have been conducted by the defendant and made the basis of these complaints. It would be contrary to the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution if so applied, as already shown. It was said by the court speaking through Knowlton, C.J., in Attorney General v. Electric Storage Battery Co. 188 Mass. 239, 241: “a statute which would be unconstitutional as applied to a certain class' of cases, and is constitutional as applied to another class, may be held to have been intended to apply only to the latter class, if this seems in harmony with the general purpose of the Legislature.” W. & J. Sloane v. Commonwealth, 253 Mass. 529, 534. Magee v. Commissioner of Corporations & Taxation, 256 Mass. 512, 518. Toland’s Case, 258 Mass. 470, 472. Harrison v. Commissioner of Corporations & Taxation, 272 Mass. 422, 426.
That principle is controlling in the eases at bar. It has been held in Commonwealth v. Boston & Maine Transportation Co., ante, 345, that the statute has appropriate operation in governing intrastate or domestic transportation. It has thus been given scope and effect in relation to local transportation. It is valid in that field. We think that it was not intended by the General Court to be ap
Exceptions sustained.