287 S.W. 763 | Ark. | 1926
Appellants have each been engaged in the business of operating motor cars or busses on the public highways of Pulaski County, and they attack the validity of the regulation prescribed by the Arkansas Railroad Commission requiring all persons operating such business to deposit with the Commission "a liability or indemnity contract, written by some solvent insurance or indemnity company authorized to do business under the laws of the State of Arkansas, agreeing to indemnify the legal liability of said owner or licensee of said motor or jitney bus on account of personal injury, in the sum of $5,000, to any one person, and $10,000 for any single accident where more than one person is injured or killed, and $1,000 on account of property damage to any one." Appellants each applied to the Railroad Commission for a permit, or license, to operate busses, and offered to give bond in the sums named in the rules prescribed by the Commission, executed by personal sureties, but the Commission declined to approve the bond or to issue a permit, and appellants resorted to an action in the Pulaski Circuit Court to compel the Commission to accept the bond. Relief was denied in the circuit court, and an appeal has been prosecuted to this court.
Appellants introduced testimony, in the hearing before the Railroad Commission, to the effect that the premium rate for a bond such as that required was $270 per annum; that the income of one of appellants from the business amounted to eighty or ninety dollars per month, and that of the other about $120 per month. This was urged as a reason for treating the requirement as unreasonable and oppressive.
The statutes of this State (Acts 1921, p. 177) plainly authorized the Commission to regulate the operation of *92
common carriers, and we have held that this authority extends to the operation of motor busses and vehicles of that kind being operated for hire on a public highway. Mason v. Inter-City Terminal Ry. Co.,
The regulation is not invalid merely because it prescribes the kind of surety to be given on the bond. The fact that appellants are unable to give the bond required, or that the particular business in which they are engaged will not stand the expense of a surety company bond, does not render the provision unreasonable. If the inability of an applicant for license to comply with the regulation concerning the same were sufficient to render the regulation invalid, then there could be no regulation at all. The validity of the regulation of a business operated under a license cannot be made to depend upon the ability of the applicant to comply.
Counsel for appellants rely upon the case of Jitney Busses Association v. Wilkes-Barre,
There are many decisions upholding the right of a State or municipality to regulate carriers on the public highway, and such regulations are generally sustained, but there are only a few cases which relate to the particular point involved in the present case, namely, the *93
requirement to give bond with a surety company as surety. There are several decisions of the Supreme Court of Washington, beginning with the case of State v. Seattle Taxicab Transfer Co.,
Our conclusion therefore is that the regulation is valid, and that the circuit court was correct in so holding.
Judgment affirmed.
HART, J., dissents.