45 N.J. Eq. 50 | New York Court of Chancery | 1889
The complainants allege that the defendants have refused to perform a legal duty which the defendants owe to them, and they bring this suit to procure a decree compelling the performance of such duty.
The complainants have control of a continuous line of railway from Hoboken to Buffalo, with connections at Buffalo extending to Chicago and other points in the West. They do a very large business in the transportation of live-stock, their income for carrying this kind of freight exceeding a half a million of dollars a year. The defendants are a stock-yard corporation, having yards and other facilities at the foot of Sixth street, in Jersey City, for the safe-keeping, feeding, sale and slaughter of livestock. Their yards front on the Hudson river, where wharves have been built for the reception of live-stock carried to the yards by vessel. The eastern terminus of the complainants’ road is at Hoboken, distant about sixteen hundred feet from the defendants’ yards. There is no connection between the complainants’ road and the defendants’ yards by railroad track or other physical means. There are three different ways or means by which live-stock may be taken to the defendants’ yards: First, it may be driven there over the public highway; second, both the Erie Railway Company and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company have laid tracks from the line of their roads to the defendants’ yards, over which cars containing live-stock are run to the yards; and, third, live-stock may be carried to the defendants’ yards by vessel and delivered on their wharf. For more than two years prior to the 15th of July, 1887, nearly all the cattle, calves and sheep, carried by the complainants to the
The case has been heard on final hearing, and is now to be decided on its merits. The claim of the complainants is, that the defendants are under a legal obligation to take from them just such live-stock as they may desire to have yarded at the defendants’ yards, whether the same be sent to the defendants on foot, by rail or by boat; and also that it is the duty of this court to enforce this obligation by injunction. The proofs show that the defendants have never refused to receive stock from the complainants when the same was sent on foot or delivered by rail. At present, however, the complainants cannot have stock carried to the defendants’ yards by rail. They have no track of their own, and they have been denied the use of the Pennsylvania track, and have ceased to use that of the Erie, because they are not willing to pay the rate which they have been notified will be charged for its use. But the particular way or method of delivery is rendered wholly immaterial by the defendants’ answer. , They deny that they are under any duty or obligation to the complainants, let the method of delivery be what it may, to take livestock from them. The following are the pertinent averments of their answer:
*54 “ These defendants have and do refuse to receive, except under the command of an injunction, any live-stock transported over the road of the complainants,, and consigned to shippers doing business at the defendants’ yards, so long as-the complainants persist in diverting from the defendants’ yards at least nine-tenths of the complainants’ cattle business; and they are advised and insist that they have a right so to do.”
Again :
“ These defendants admit that it is their intention to prevent the transportation to their yards of any live-stock coming over the complainants’ railroad, unless the complainants are willing to give to the defendants all their business, the same as other railroads do ; and they are advised and insist that they, have a right so to do.”
Further:
“ These defendants also say that they never have made, and do not intend' to make, any objection to yarding live-stock which has been delivered to consignees on the line of complainants’ road and driven to their yards.”
From these averments, it -will be seen that the material matter in dispute is not what right a natural person may have to have-live-stock yarded at the defendants’ yards, nor what may be the right of the general public in that regard, but whether the complainants have such right. This is not a suit by the attorney-general asking for the protection or vindication of a public right,, nor a suit by a natural person asking to be protected against a special and peculiar injury which he must suffer if deprived of a right, which he, in common with all the citizens of the state,, is entitled to enjoy; but it is a suit by a corporation, to enforce-a right which it says belongs to it as a body corporate.
The complainants are the mere creature of legislative power,, and have no capacity or rights, and can exercise no powers except such as have been given to them by their creator. They exist by force of legislative authority, and have no rights except such as the legislature has given to them, or as they have acquired by contract, or as have arisen from custom or usage, so long and uniformly pursued as to have become a part of our general system, of laws. Where, in a case like the present, one corporation seeks-judicial redress against another, on the ground that the other has-
These cases, it will be remembered, arose out of the refusal of certain railroad corporations to give equal facilities, on like terms, to each express company asking to be permitted to do an express business on their roads. Under the lead of Mr. Justice Miller, of the supreme court of the United States, it was held, both on interlocutory application and on final hearing, in several cases decided by the circuit court of the United States, in two or three different, circuits, that a railroad corporation was under a legal duty, in the absence of either statutory regulation or contract obligation, to furnish to each express company, desiring to do business on its road, the same facilities for the doing of such business, which it either provided for itself or furnished to any other express company, and also that a court of equity might, in the rightful exercise of its general jurisdiction, compel the performance of this duty by injunction. These decisions were put mainly on the ground that as railroads were public highways, and the express business had become a well-recognized instrument of commerce, it was necessary, in order that the publio might have the full benefit of the general principle, making it the duty of a common carrier, who carries on his business on the public highways, to extend equal privileges and accommodations to all, on equal terms as to compensation, that this principle should be applied in defining the duty of a railroad company to an express company. Decrees were accordingly made, compelling the defendant railroad company in each case to furnish to the complaining express company, the same facilities, on both passenger and freight trains, for the transaction of an express business on its road, that it provided for itself or furnished to any other express company. Several of the cases in which this doctrine was enforced will be found collected in the notes to 2 Wood’s Railway Law 587.
Substantially the same principle had previously been enunciated in the decision of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. R. Co. v. Denver & New Orleans R. R. Co., 110 U. S. 667. The names of - three railroad corporations appear in this case, namely, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company, and the Denver and New Orleans Railroad Company, and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company. For brevity, the first will hereafter be called the Atchison company, the second the New Orleans company, and the third the Rio Grande company. Tlie Atchison company controlled a line of railroad extending from Kansas City, Missouri, to Pueblo, Colorado, and the New Orleans company and Rio Grande company each owned a railroad
Three provisions of the constitution of Colorado were supposed, in their joint effect, to lay a foundation for this decree. These provisions declare, first, that all railroads shall be public highways, and all railroad companies shall be common carriers; second, that every railroad company shall have the right, with its road, to intersect, connect with or cross any other railroad, and, third, that all individuals, associations and corporations shall have equal rights to have persons and property transported over any railroad in this state, and no undue or unreasonable dis • crimination shall be made, in charges or facilities, for the trans
The complainants do not ground their claim to judicial aid on
The defendants’ business is of recent origin. Their duties and liabilities are wholly undefined, except as they may be deduced from the application of well-established legal principles to other corporations in analogous cases. No case was cited on the argument, and none is known to exist, in which the duties of a body corporate, like the defendants, have been the subject of judicial consideration. The business of the defendants has no exact counterpart or model in any of the established instruments of commerce, or agencies used by the public in the transaction of business. It bears a closer resemblance to the business carried on by warehousemen than to any other business known to the law. Except in the character of the property which is the subject of bailment, the business of the defendants corresponds, in many respects, with that of the warehouseman. That is the only business which can, in my judgment, be safely used, by way of analogy, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not, according to established principles of general law, the defendants are subject to the duty which the complainants ask the court to compel them to perform.
There can be no doubt, I think, that a warehouseman is not required, by any general rule of law, to receive goods on storage against his will. In Addison on Contracts p. 630, it is said: “A man cannot be made a depositary without his consent; he cannot have the possession of another man’s property, with its accompanying duties and responsibilities, forced upon him against his will.” This must be so from the very nature of such transactions, for all bailments, not made by force of statutory regulation, rest in contract, and no contract can exist without consent, express or implied. 'Warehouses, for the storage of grain, must, however, since the decision of the Elevator cases, reported under the title of Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, be regarded as so far public in their nature as to be subject to legislative control. That case, it will be remembered, arose out of this state of facts: By the constitution of Illinois, adopted in 1870, all elevators or
The discussion thus far has demonstrated, I think, that even if we were at liberty, in deciding a question of strict legal right against a new instrument of business, to enter the field of analogy, and, if there was found there a somewhat similar instrument to the one in question which had been held to be subject to certain duties, to charge the new instrument with the same duties, on the ground of its similarity to the other, that no such duty as that which complainants claim could, by force of any general rule of law, be held to rest upon the defendants.
The only other means by which the duty in question could have been created is by statute. The complainants say that it is imposed by the statute which created the defendants a body corporate. They do not say that it is imposed in express words. On the contrary, they admit that there are no words which, in plain terms, impose it, but their contention is that it should be implied from the powers granted and the general purpose of the statute. Thus it will be seen that the court, to sustain the complainants’ claim, must be able to find evidence of an intention, not expressed in words, on the face of this statute, so clear and strong that it may, without fear of usurping legislative power, declare that such intention is part of the legislative will.
The defendants were created a corporation by a statute passed in 1873. P. L. of 1873 p. 920. They are given power to locate,
In considering what construction should be given to this statute, it will be important to keep in mind that the legislature, in enacting it, were creating a corporation to establish and carry on a business which was in its infancy even where it had existed longest, and which, in this state, was entirely new. The business was one which, it was believed, would be likely to be of great publie utility, if successful, but whether or not it could be made successful vyas uncertain when the statute was passed. To make the experiment, somebody had to risk his capital. In this state of affairs, it is not difficult to believe that there would be a natural disposition, on the part of the representatives of the people, to give those who were willing to em
Besides, it is quite apparent, as I think, that the court could not attempt to extend to the complainants the relief they ask in this case, without very soon being confronted by a condition of affairs which would compel it either to usurp power, or to very greatly- relax its control over the defendants. By the express terms of their charter the defendants are given power to adopt regulations for the well-ordering of their business. Under this power they would probably have the right, among other things, to make a regulation, requiring that when live-stock is delivered to them some evidence shall be delivered with it, showing that it is iu a healthy condition, or that they shall have the right to have it inspected by their own inspector before receiving it, and also to prescribe other regulations, fixing the hours in each day when stock may be delivered, and the places on their yards at which each particular kind must be delivered. The power of
Both for the want of legal right, and also because the case is not the proper subject of equity jurisdiction, the complainants’ bill should, in my judgment, be dismissed, with costs.