96 Neb. 245 | Neb. | 1914
The complainant, Hooper Telephone Company, filed its complaint with the state railway commission, alleging that it is, and for several years past has been, operating a public telephone station and exchange at Hooper, in Hodge county, and that the defendant, Nebraska Telephone Company, is, and for many years last past has been, “operating public telephone stations and exchanges and various telephone toll lines throughout the state of Nebraska, one of such exchanges being at Fremont, Nebraska, which exchange has more than two thousand subscribing telephones connected therewith;” that the Fremont Telephone Company had for several years been doing a similar business in Dodge county, and that company and complainant had owned and maintained a county line jointly, and that the Nebraska Telephone Company had purchased the stock of the Fremont company, and asked the railway, commission to order the defendant to connect its switchboard and exchange with the complainant’s lines. The railway commis
1. The complainant filed a motion to dismiss the appeal on the ground that this court has no jurisdiction thereof, and this presents the first question to be determined.
Sections 1, 2, art. VI of the constitution, are as follows:
Section 1. “The judicial power of this staté shall be vested in a supreme court, district courts, county courts, justices of the peace, police magistrates, and in such other courts, inferior to the district courts as may be created by law for cities and incorporated towns.”
Section 2. “The supreme court shall consist of seven (7) judges; and a majority of all the elected and qualified judges shall be necessary to constitute a quorum or pronounce a decision. The supreme court shall have jurisdiction in all cases relating to the revenue, civil cases in which the state is a party, mandamus, quo warranto, habeas corpus, and such appellate jurisdiction as may be provided by law.”
In 1906 an amendment to the constitution was adopted providing for a state railway commission. Since the revision of the statutes in 1913, this amendment appears as section 19a, art. V of the constitution, and is as follows r “There shall be a state railway commission, consisting of three members, who shall be first elected at the general election in 1906, whose terms of office, except those chosen at the first election under this provision, shall be six years, and whose compensation shall be fixed by the legislature. Of the three commissioners first elected, the one receiving the highest number of votes, shall hold his office for six years, the next highest four years, and the lowest two years. The powers and duties of such commission shall 'include the regulation of rates, sérvice and general control of common- carriers as the legislature may protide by law. But, in the absence of specific legislation, the
The legislature of 1907 enacted a general comprehensive statute entitled “An act, creating and defining the powers, duties and qualifications of the state railway commission and the secretary thereof and fixing their compensation; defining railway companies and common carriers, regulating the same, and providing the method of fixing, establishing, publishing rates, charges and classifications for the transportation of passengers, freights and cars, including joint through rates and joint traffic arrangements, over and upon the various lines of said railway companies and common carriers in this state; to provide for a system of annual reports by common carriers; the method of making, establishing and enforcing the general orders of said commission; defining unjust discriminations; to provide penalties for the violation of the provisions of this act, and to repeal all acts or parts of acts in conflict herewith, and to declare that an emergency exists.” Laws 1907, ch. 90.
Section 2 of the act provides for the organization and the powers and duties of the commission. Subdivision b o'f that section is: “Said commission shall have the power to regulate the rates and services of, and to exercise a general control over all railroads, express companies, car •companies, sleeping car companies, freight and freight line ■companies, and all other common carriers engaged in the transportation of freight or passengers within the state.” The commission also is required, by subdivision c, to “investigate any and all cases of alleged neglect or violations of the laws of the state by any railway company, or •common carrier.” Subdivision d of this section provides: “Said commission shall have the power, and it shall be its •duty to make all necessary classifications and to fix all ■necessary rates, charges and regulations to govern and regulate the freight and passenger tariffs of railway companies .and common carriers-, the power to correct abuses and prevent unjust discriminations, extortions and overcharges in rates of freight and passenger tariffs on the different
Subdivision e, sec. 5, provides: “No railway company or common carrier applying in any court for any temporary writ of injunction or other mandatory order, with reference to any or all of said rates so complained of,, shall be entitled to any injunction or mandatory order unless it show to the court that there has been a hearing-before said commission with reference to said rate or rates, within the time fixed by said commissión for said rate or rates to go into force and effect, and shall attach to said application for said temporary writ of injunction or other mandatory order, and make the same a part thereof,- a transcript of the record of said commission upon said hearing with reference to the rate or rates complained of, which said transcript shall contain a copy of the complaint filed with said commission, their decision and findings of fact with reference thereto, and all the evidence introduced at said hearing, which transcript shall be considered by the court in allowing or disallowing said temporary writ of injunction or other mandatory order.”
- Section 7 provides for appeals from the decisions of the commission as follows: “If any railway company, common carrier, or any person or persons affected thereby, shall be dissatisfied with the decision of said railway commission, affirming, revising, annulling or modifying any rate or rates complained of in,said original schedule, or
The legislature of 1911 amended section 7 in an act entitled “An act to amend section 7, chapter 72, article 8, Compiled Statutes of Nebraska for 1909, and to repeal said original section.” Laws 1911, ch. 94. The first part of the former section was retained, but, beginning with “may file a petition, setting forth the particular cause or causes of objection to such decision, act, rate, rule, charge, classification, or order, or to either or all of them, in the district court,” the following was substituted for the remainder of the section: “May institute proceedings in the supreme court of Nebraska to reverse, vacate or modify the order complained of. The procedure to obtain such reversal, modification or vacation of any such order or regulation' made and adopted, upon which a hearing has been had before said commission, shall be governed by the same provisions now in force with reference to appeals and error proceedings from the district courts to the supreme court of Nebraska. The evidence presented before the railway commission, as reported by its official stenographer
This last act, it is insisted, is unconstitutional and void. Section 2, art. VI of the constitution, above quoted, prescribes the original jurisdiction of this court. If the jurisdiction which this statute attempted to confer is original, this court cannot have such jurisdiction under the constitution, unless it can be held that the “state is a party,” within the meaning of that provision. Whether the state may be so far interested as to be considered a party in the sense intended by the constitution, although not named as such, or this provision must be taken literally and the state must be actually named as a party, and, if the former, whether the state is in fact defending this action of the commission, and so is the real party in interest, are interesting questions, in view of decisions of this court in cases such as State v. Pacific Express Co., 80 Neb. 823, and holdings of the supreme court of the United States in the so-called rate cases. We have concluded to place our decision of this motion to dismiss the appeal upon grounds perhaps less difficult, although not entirely free from
In State v. Piper, 50 Neb. 25, 33, the court said: “It is very evident an appeal or proceeding in error will not ■lie directly to this court to review the decisions of the secretary of state under the Australian ballot act, for two reasons: First, no provision is made therefor by the law in question, or by any other statute; and, in the next place, the appellate jurisdiction of this court is confined to a review of the judgments and orders made by the several district courts of the state. Neither error nor appeal can be prosecuted from the decision of any other court or tribunal directly to this court.” The action was an original one in mandamus to compel the secretary of state to certify to the county clerks the names of certain persons only as nominees for certain offices. There was no question of appeal involved, and the language above quoted was used merely arguendo. If it involved a point necessary to be decided in the case, the first reason given for holding that no such apj>eal would lie was amply sufficient. It was not necessary to say that neither error nor appeal can be prosecuted directly to this court from the decision of any other court or tribunal than the district court. Cleghorn v. Waterman, 16 Neb. 225, is cited, which decides only that this court can reverse, vacate or modify a judgment rendered by the district court only for error appearing on the record, and does not consider the question of the right of appeal from other courts or tribunals. There is still a stronger reason for not regarding State v. Piper, supra, as authority in this case. At that time the constitutional provision creating the railway commission was not in existence, and the statement that no appeal could be taken
Of course, “a- state may, by constitutional provision, unite legislative and judicial powers in the same body.” Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., 211 U. S. 210. The amendment gives very large powers to the legislature. In providing for general legislation upon the subject of the powers and duties of the commission, it uses the words: “As the legislature may provide by law.” It is not necessary now to determine whether the legislature could confer the powers offia court upon this commission. It is sufficient to consider that the amendment introduces a new element into our constitution, and, construing the other provisions together with this amendment its purpose and scope must not be limited only as the necessary meaning' of the whole instrument requires. We must therefore consider this constitutional amendment itself in the.light of other provisions of the constitution, and discover whether the legislative construction of its power to allow appeals from the decisions of the railway commission is so clearly unwarranted as to require us to hold this legislation unconstitutional for that reason. The words “appeal” and “appellate” are words of general application in the law. Ordinarily they refer to the removal of proceedings from one court or' tribunal to another for review. In section 9, art. IX of the constitution, the word appeal signifies a transfer of proceeding for review from an executive office to the district court. The former decisions of this court would, perhaps, preclude construing the word appellate in section 2, art. VI, so broadly. But it is not necessary to do so in this case.
Article II of the constitution provides: “The powers of the government of this state are divided into three distinct departments, the legislative, executive and judicial, and no person or collection of persons being one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, except as hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.” The last clause of this provision implies that some of the provisions of the constitution
Our constitution forbids the legislature to confer legislative powers upon the courts. If the statute providing for this appeal necessarily does so, such legislation would be void. The statute must be sustained if it will admit of any reasonable construction in harmony with the constitution. By section 11 of the act provision is made for enforcing the orders of the commission when they become effective. By subdivision e, above quoted, the remedy of injunction and “mandatory order” are recognized as existing independently of the remedies provided by the act. Section 7 of the original act, which provided for an appeal to the district court, is the only part of the act amended. That section provided that, when the proceedings were so removed to the district court, that court should be “sitting as a court of equity,” and the case should “be tried and determined as other civil cases in said court.” . These provisions were omitted in the amended section, and in lieu thereof it is provided that the procedure “shall be governed by the same provisions now in force with reference to appeals and error proceedings from the district courts to the supreme court of Nebraska.” The evidence taken before the commission is certified to this court, and this court is to act only upon the. record so made. The court is to “reverse, vacate or modify” the decision of the commission. These words are borrowed from the statute
We conclude that, under the power given to the legislature to provide generally the appellate jurisdiction of this court, in view of the scope and purpose of the constitutional amendment which creates the railway commission, and the power given to the legislature by that amendment, and the general statutes enacted pursuant to that power, the amendment of the statute providing for appeals directly to this court is not in violation of the constitution. The motion to dismiss the appeal is therefore overruled.
2. In 1913 the legislature enacted a statute entitled “An act compelling all persons, associations or corporations doing a public telephone business in this state to connect trunk or toll lines through their switching stations, and to give and make terminal service to all subscribers from any point in the state of Nebraska, regardless of the ownership of lines or routes over which such message or service was received. To provide in what manner same shall be done, and giving certain instructions to the state railway commission regarding the division of toll charges and the enforcement of the provisions of this act, and to provide a penalty for the violation of the same, and to repeal all acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith.” Laws 1913, ch. 79. The first section of the act is as follows: “Any telephone company, corporation, association, person or persons doing a public telephone business in the state of Nebraska shall take the calls or messages coming from any other telephone company, corporation, association, person or persons, and so switch and connect its wires that such telephone message from any point in
The appellant contends (a) that the railway commission has no jurisdiction of the controversy; (b) that the commission had no authority to make an order in reference to-physical connection between telephone lines as that matter is regulated by statute; (c) that chapter 79, laws 1913,, is unconstitutional, because it provides for taking of private property without due process of law, which is forbidden by the state constitution, as well as by the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution; (d) that the order of the commission is void for the same reason. It also-contends that the order of the commission is not supported' by the evidence and that the Fremont Telephone Company was a necessary party. It is contended that the’ statute itself fixes and determines the rights of the public and of individuals, and has left nothing for the railway
The appellant contends that the order compelling it to make physical connection with the Hooper company amounts to the taking of its property without compensation, and, as the statute makes no provision for compensation, it violates both the state and federal constitution in that respect. It is conceded that the appellant is engaged in the carrying on of a general telephone business, and operates telephone exchanges located in various towns in
Perhaps we do not fully understand the argument and reasoning upon this point. It appears that physical connection of different telephone lines has been made in many instances without any such direful results. When an individual asks for connection of his private telephone with the toll lines of the company, and such connection is made for him, he has the exclusive use of the toll line of the company for a certain time. There is no doubt that if he complies with the reasonable regulations of the company he is entitled to such use of the line, and that the
Another contention is that, since the order of the commission includes physical connection with the lines formerly operated by the Fremont Telephone Company, that company is a necessary party to these proceedings, without Avhich no such order could be made. It is conceded in the record that the Nebraska Telephone Company has purchased, and now owns and controls, the stock of the Fremont Telephone Company, except a few shares not nominally held by the Nebraska company, the ownership of which is not disclosed in the' record. Since purchasing this stock, the Nebraska company has transferred the business of the Fremont company to its own exchange and is using the lines of the Fremont company in connection with its own business. It does not appear from the evidence that it would be impracticable for the railway commission to adjust equitably the terms and conditions upon which the Nebraska company might make physical connection of these lines Avith those of the Hooper company. We cannot therefore determine from this record that the railway commission has exceeded its powers in proceeding to a determination of the matter without bringing in the Fremont company.
The order of the Nebraska state railway commission is affirmed, without prejudice to either party to apply to the commission to introduce further evidence, and obtain the order of the commission adjusting terms and expenses of making the connection, and such other or further action on the part of the commission as may be necessary.
Affirmed.