McDuffee v. Portland & Rochester Railroad, 52 N.H. 430

McDuffee v. Portland & Rochester Railroad

52 N.H. 430 | N.H. | 1873

Doe, J.

I. A common carrier is a public carrier. He engages in a *448public employment, takes upon himself a public duty, and exercises a sort of public office. Sandford v. R. Co., 24 Pa. St. 378, 381; N. J. S. N. Co. v. Merchants’ Bank, 6 How. 344, 382; Shelden v. Robinson, 7 N. H. 157, 163, 164; Gray v. Jackson, 51 N. H. 9, 10; Ansell v. Waterhouse, 2 Chitty 1, 4; Hollister v. Nowlen, 19 Wend. 234, 239. He is under a legal obligation ; others have a corresponding legal right. His duty being public, the correlative right is public. The public right is a common right, and a common right signifies a reasonably equal right. “ There are certain cases, in which, if individuals dedicate their personal services, or the temporary use of their property, to the public, the law will impose certain duties upon them, and regulate their proceedings to a certain extent. Thus, a common carrier is bound by law, if he have conveniences for the purpose, to carry for a reasonable compensation.” Olcott v. Banfill, 4 N. H. 537, 546. “ He [the common carrier] holds a sort of official relation to the public. He is bound to carry at reasonable rates such commodities as are in his line of business, for all persons who offer them, as early as his means will allow. He cannot refuse to carry a proper article, tendered to him at a suitable time and place, on the offer of the usual reasonable compensation. Story on Bailments, sec. 508; Riley v. Horne, 5 Bing. 217, 224; Bennett v. Dutton, 10 N. H. 486. When he undertakes the business of a common carrier, he assumes this relation to the public, and he is not at liberty to decline the duties and responsibilities of his place, as they are defined and fixed by law.” Moses v. B. & M. R. R., 24 N. H. 71, 88, 89. On this ground, it was held, in that case, that a common carrier could not, by a public notice, discharge himself from the legal responsibility pertaining to his office, or from performing his public duty in the way and on the terms prescribed by law.

“ The very definition of a common carrier excludes the idea of the fight to grant monopolies, or to give special and unequal preferences. It implies indifference as to whom they may serve, and an equal readiness to serve all who may apply, and in the order of their application.” N. E. Express Co. v. M. C. R. R. Co., 57 Me. 188, 196. A common carrier of passengers cannot exercise an unreasonable discrimination in carrying one and refusing to carry another. Bennett v. Dutton, 10 N. H. 481. A common carrier of freight cannot exercise an unreasonable discrimination in carrying for one and refusing to carry for another. He may be a common carrier of one kind of property, and not of another ; but, as to goods of which he is a common carrier, he cannot discriminate unreasonably against any individual in the performance of the public duty which he assumed when he engaged in the occupation of carrying for all. His service would not be public, if, out of the persons and things in his line of business, he could arbitrarily select whom and what he would carry. Such a power of arbitrary selection would destroy the public character of his employment, and the rights which the public acquired when he volunteered in the public service of common-carrier transportation. With such a power, he would be a carrier, —a special, private carrier, but not a common, public one. From the *449public service, — which he entered of his own accord, — he may retire, ceasing to be a common carrier, with or without the public consent, according to the law applicable to his case ; but, as long as he remains in the service, he must perform the duties appertaining to it. The remedies for neglect or violation of duty in the civil service of the State are not the same as in the military service; but the public rights of having the duties of each performed are much the same, and, in the department now under consideration, ample remedies are not wanting. The right to the transportation service of a common carrier is a common as well as a public right, belonging to every individual as well as to the State. A right of conveyance, unreasonably and injuriously preferred and exclusive, and made so by a special contract of the common carrier, is not the common, public right, but a violation of it. And when an individual is specially injured by such a violation of the common right which he is entitled to enjoy, he may have redress in an action at common law. The common carrier has no cause to complain of his legal responsibility. ít was for him to consider as well the duty as the profit of being a public servant, before embarking in that business. The profit could not be considered without taking the duty into account, for the rightful profit is the balance of compensation left after paying the expenses of performing the duty. And he knew beforehand, or ought to have known, that, if no profit should accrue, the performance of the duty would be none the less obligatory until he should be discharged from the public service. Taylor v. Railway, 48 N. H. 304, 317. The chances of profit and loss are his risks, being necessary incidents of his adventure, and for him to judge of before devoting his time, labor, care, skill, and capital to the service of the country. Profitable or unprofitable, his condition is that of one held to service, having, by his own act, of his own free will, submitted himself to that condition, and not having liberated himself, nor been released, from it.

A common carrier cannot directly exercise unreasonable discrimination as to whom and what he will carry. On what legal ground can he exercise such discrimination indirectly ? He cannot, without good reason, while carrying A, unconditionally refuse to carry B. On what legal ground can he, without good reason, while providing agreeable terms, facilities, and accommodations for the conveyance of A and his goods, provide such disagreeable ones for B that he is practically compelled to stay at home with his goods, deprived of his share of the common right of transportation ? What legal principle, guaranteeing the common right against direct attack, sanctions its destruction by a circuitous invasion ? As no one can infringe the common right of travel and commercial intercourse over a public highway, on land or water, by making the way absolutely impassable, or rendering its passage unreasonably unpleasant, unhealthy, or unprofitable, so a common carrier cannot infringe the common right of common carriage, either by unreasonably refusing to carry one or all, for one or for all, or by imposing unreasonably unequal terms, facilities, or accommodations, which would practically amount to an embargo upon the travel *450or traffic of some disfavoi’ed individual. And, as all common carriers combined cannot, directly or indirectly, destroy or interrupt the common right by stopping their branch of the public service while they remain in that service, so neither all of them together, nor one alone, can, directly or indirectly, deprive any individual of his lawful enjoyment of the common right. Equality, in the sense of freedom from unreasonable discrimination, being of the very substance of the - common right, an individual is deprived of his lawful enjoyment of the common right when he is subjected to unreasonable and injurious discrimination in respect to terms, facilities, or accommodations. That is not, in the ordinary legal sense, a public highway, in which one man is unreasonably privileged to use a convenient path, and another is unreasonably restricted to the gutter; and that is not a public service of common carriage, in which one enjoys an unreasonable preference or advantage, and another suffers an unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage. A denial of the entire right of service by a refusal to carry, differs, if at all, in degree only, and the amount of damage done, and not in the essential legal character of the act, from a denial of the right in part by an unreasonable discrimination in terms, facilities, or accommodations. Whether the denial is general by refusing to furnish any transportation whatever, or special by refusing to carry one person or his goods ; whether it is direct by expressly refusing to carry, or indirect by imposing such unreasonable terms, facilities, or accommodations as render carriage undesirable ; whether unreasonableness of terms, facilities, or accommodations operates as a total or a partial denial of the right; and whether the unreasonableness is in the intrinsic, individual nature of the terms, facilities, or accommodations, or in their discriminating, collective, and comparative character, — the right denied is one and the same common right, which would not be a right if it could be rightfully denied, and would not be common, in the legal sense, if it could be legally subjected to unreasonable discrimination, and parcelled out among men in unreasonably superior and inferior grades at the behest of the servant from whom the service is due.

The commonness of the right necessarily implies an equality of right, in the sense of freedom from unreasonable discrimination; and any practical invasion of the common right by an unreasonable discrimination practised-by a carrier held to the common service, is insubordination and mutiny, for which he is liable, to the extent of the damage inflicted, in an action of case at common law. The question of reasonableness of price may be something more than the question of actual cost and value of Service. If the actual value of certain transportation of one hundred barrels of flour, affording a reasonable profit to the carrier, is one hundred dollars ; if, all the circumstances that ought to be considered being taken into account, that sum is the price which ought to be charged for that particular service; and if the carrier charges everybody that price for that service, there is no encroachment on the common right. But if, for that service, the carrier charges one flour merchant one hundred dollars, and another fifty dollars, the *451common right is as manifestly violated as if the latter were charged one hundred dollars, and the former two hundred. What kind of a common right of carriage would that be which the carrier could so administer as to unreasonably, capriciously, and despotically enrich one man and ruin another ? If the service or price is unreasonable and injurious, the unreasonableness is equally actionable, whether it is in inequality, or in some other particular. A service or price that would otherwise be reasonable, may be made unreasonable by an unreasonable discrimination, because such a discrimination is a violation of the common right. There might be cases where persons complaining of such a violation would have no cause of action, because they would not be injured. There might be cases where the discrimination would be injurious : in such cases it would be actionable. There might be cases where the remedy by civil suit for damages at common law would be practically ineffectual on account of the difficulty of proving large damages, or the incompetence of a multiplicity of such suits to abate a continued grievance, or for other reasons : in such cases there would be a plain and adequate remedy, where there ought to be oiie, by the reenforcing operation of an injunction, or by indictment, information, or other common, familiar, and appropriate course of law.

The common and equal right is to reasonable transportation service for a reasonable compensation. Neither the service nor the price is necessarily unreasonable because it is unequal, in a certain narrow, strict, and literal sense; but that is not a reasonable service, or a reasonable price, which is unreasonably unequal. The question is not merely whether the service or price is absolutely unequal, in the narrowest sense, but also whether the inequality is unreasonable and injurious. There may be acts of charity ; there may be different prices for different kinds or amounts of service; there may be many differences of price and service, entirely consistent with the general principle of reasonable equality which distinguishes the duty of a common carrier in the legal sense, from the duty of a carrier who is not a common one in that sense. A certain inequality of terms, facilities, or accommodations may be reasonable, and required by the doctrine of reasonableness, and, therefore, not an infringement of the common right. It may be the duty of a common carrier of passengers to carry under discriminating restrictions, or to refuse to carry those who, by reason of their physical or mental condition, would injure, endanger, disturb, or annoy other passengers; and an analogous rule may be applicable to the common carriage of goods. Healthy passengers in a palatial car would not be provided with reasonable accommodations, if they were there unreasonably and negligently exposed, by the carrier, to the society of small-pox patients. Sober, quiet, moral, and sensitive travellers may have cause to complain of their accommodations, if they are unreasonably exposed to the companionship of unrestrained, intoxicated, noisy, profane, and abusive passengers,, who may enjoy the discomfort they cast upon others. In one sense, both classes, carried together, might be provided with equal accommodations; in another *452sense, they would not. The feelings not corporal, and the decencies of progressive civilization, as well as physical life, health, and comfort, are entitled to reasonable accommodations. 2 Greenl. Ev., sec. 222 a; Bennett v. Dutton, 10 N. H. 481, 486. Mental and moral sensibilities, unreasonably wounded, may be an actual cause of suffering, as plain as a broken limb; and, if the injury is caused by unreasonableness of facilities or accommodations (which is synonymous with unreasonableness of service), it may be as plain a legal cause of action as any bodily hurt, commercial inconvenience, or pecuniary loss. To allow one passenger to be made uncomfortable by another committing an outrage, without physical violence, against the ordinary proprieties of life and the common sentiments of mankind, may be as clear a violation of the common right and as clear an actionable neglect of a common carrier’s duty, as to permit one to occupy two seats while another stands in the aisle. Although reasonableness of service or price may require a reasonable discrimination, it does not tolerate an unreasonable one; and the law does not require a court or jury to waste time in a useless investigation of the question whether a proved injurious unreasonableness of service or price was in its intrinsic or in its discriminating quality. The main question is, not whether the unreasonableness was in this or in that, but whether there was unreasonableness, and whether it was injurious to the plaintiff.

This question may be made unnecessarily difficult by an indefiniteness, confusion, and obscurity of ideas that may arise when the public duty of a common carrier, and the correlative common l’ight to his reasonable service for a reasonable price, are not clearly and broadly distinguished from a matter of private charity. If A receives, as a charity, transportation service without price, or for less than a reasonable price, from B, who is a common carrier, A does not receive it as his enjoyment of the common right; B does not give it as a performance of his public duty ; C, who is required to pay a reasonable price for a reasonable service, is not injured ; and the public, supplied with reasonable facilities and accommodations on reasonable terms, cannot complain that B is violating his public duty. There is, in such a case, no discrimination, reasonable or unreasonable, in that reasonable service for a reasonable price which is the common right. A person who is a common carrier may devote to the needy, in any necessary form of relief, all the reasonable profits of his business. He has the same right that any one else has to give money or goods or transportation to the poor. But it is neither his legal duty to be charitable at liis own expense, nor his legal right to be charitable at the expense of those whose servant he is. If liis reasonable compensation for certain carriage is one hundred dollars, and his just profit, not needed in his business, is one tenth of that sum, he has ten dollars which he may legally use for feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or carrying those in poverty, tq, whom transportation is one of the necessaries of life, and who suffer for lack of it. But if lie charges the ten dollars to those who pay him for their transportation, if he charges them one *453hundred and ten dollars for one hundred dollars’ worth of service, he is not benevolent himself, but he is undertaking to compel those to be benevolent who are entitled to his service ; he is violating the common right of reasonable terms, which cannot be increased by compulsory contributions for any charitable purpose. So, if he carries one or many for half the reasonable price, and reimburses himself by charging others more than the reasonable price, he is illegally administering, not his own, but other people’s charity. And when he attempts to justify an instance of apparent discrimination 6ii the ground of charity, it may be necessary to ascertain whose charity was dispensed,— whether it was his, or one forced by him from others, including the party complaining of it. But it will not be necessary to consider this point further until there is some reason to believe that what the plaintiff complains of is defended as an act of disinterested benevolence performed by the railroad at its own expense.

In Garton v. B. & E. R. Co., 1 B. & S. 112, 154, 165, when it was not found that any unreasonable inequality had been made by the defendants to the detriment of the plaintiffs, it was held that a reasonable price paid by them was not made unreasonable by a less price paid by others — a proposition sufficiently plain, and expressed by Crompton, J., in another form, when he said to the plaintiffs’ counsel during the argument of that case, — “ The charging another person too little is not charging you too much.” The proposition takes it for granted that it has been settled that the price paid by the party complaining was reasonable, — a conclusion that settles the whole controversy as to that price. But before that conclusion is reached, it may be necessary to determine whether the receipt of a less price from another person was a matter of charity, or an unreasonable discrimination and a violation of the common right. Charging A less than B for the same service, or service of the same value, is not of itself necessarily charging A too little, or charging B too much; but it may be evidence tending to show that B is charged too much, either by being charged more than the actual value of the service, or by being made the victim, of an unjustifiable discrimination. The doctrine of reasonableness is not to be overturned by a conclusive presumption that every inequality of price is the work of alms-giving, dictated by a motive of humanity. If an apparent discrimination turns out, on examination, to have been, not a discrimination in the performance of the public duty, but a private charity, there is an end of the case. But if an apparent discrimination is found to have been a real one, the question is whether it was reasonable, and, if unreasonable, whether the party complaining was injured by it.

In some cases, this may be an inquiry of some difficulty in each of its branches. But such difficulty as there may be will arise from the breadth of the inquiry, the intricate nature of the matter to be investigated, the circumstantial character of the evidence to be weighed, and the application of the legal rule to the facts, and not from any want of clearness or certainty in the general principle of the common law *454applicable to tlie subject. The difficulty will not be in the common law, and cannot be justly overcome by altering that law. The inquiry may sometimes be a broad one, but it will never be broader than the justice of the case requires. A narrow view that would be partial, cannot be taken ; a narrow test of right and wrong that would be grossly inequitable, cannot be adopted. If the doctrine of reasonableness is not the doctrine of justice, it is for him who is dissatisfied with it to show its injustice; if it is the doctrine of justice, it is for him to show the grounds of his discontent.

The decision in N. E. Express Co. v. M. C. R. Co., 57 Me. 188, satisfactorily disposed of the argument, vigorously and ably pressed by the defendants in that case, that a railroad, carrying one expressman and his freight on passenger trains, on certain reasonable conditions, but under an agreement not to perform a like service for others, does not thereby hold itself out as a common carrier of expressmen and their freight bn passenger trains, on similar conditions. So far as the common right of mere transportation is concerned, and without reference to the peculiar liability of a common carrier of goods as an insurer, such an arrangement would, necessarily and without hesitation, be found, by the court or the jury, to be an evasion. A railroad corporation, carrying one expressman, and enabling him to do all the express business on the line of their road, do hold themselves out as common carriers of expresses ; and when they unreasonably refuse, directly or indirectly, to carry any more public servants of that class, they perform this duty with illegal partiality. The legal principle, which establishes and secures the common right, being the perfection of reason, the right is not a mere nominal one, and is in no danger of being destroyed by a quibble. If there could possibly be a case in which the exclusive arrangement in favor of one expressman would not be an evasion of the common law right, the question might arise, whether, under our statute law (Gen. Stats, chs. 145, 146, 149, 150), public railroad corporations are not common carriers (at least to the extent of furnishing reasonable facilities and accommodations of transportation on reasonable terms) of such passengers and such freight as there is no good reason for their refusing to carry.

The public would seem to have reason to claim, that the clause of Gen. Stats., ch. 146, sec. 1,—“Railroads being designed for the public accommodation, like other highways, are public,” — is a very comprehensive provision ; that public agents, taking private property for- the public use, are bound to treat all alike (that is, without unreasonable preference), so far as the property is'used, or its use is rightfully demanded, by the public for whose use it was taken ; and that, in a country professing to base its institutions on the natural equality of men in respect to legal rights and remedies, it cannot be presumed that the legislature intended, in the charter of a common carrier, to grant an implied power to create monopolies in the express business, or in any other business, by undue and unreasonable discriminations.There would seem to be great doubt whether, upon any fair construe*455tion of general or special statutes, a common carrier, incorporated in this country, could be held to have received from the legislature the power of making unreasonable discriminations and creating monopolies, unless such power were conferred in very explicit terms. And, if such power were attempted to be conferred, there would be, in this State, a question of the constitutional authority of the legislature to convey a prerogative so hostile to the character of our institutions and the spirit of the organic law. But, resting the decision of this case, as we do, on the simple, elementary, and imrepealed principle of the common law, equally applicable to individuals and corporations, we have no occasion, at present, to go into these other inquiries.

We might have safely rested our opinion on the authority of N. E. Express Co. v. M. C. Railroad Co., 57 Me. 188, Sandford v. Railroad Co., 24 Pa. St. 378, C. B. & Q. Railroad Co. v. Parks, 18 Ill. 460, 464, and 2 Redfield Am. R. R. Cases 71. But it seemed desirable that it should be distinctly founded on a general and fundamental principle, which does not need the support of, and could hardly be shaken by, decided cases. We have carefully examined F. Railroad Co. v. Gage, 12 Gray 393, and have not overlooked the fact that, in England, it seems to be supposed that, at common law, common carrier's are not bound to carry all and for all on reasonably equal terms. Baxendale v. E. C. R. Co., 4 C. B. (N. S.) 63; Branley v. S. E. R. Co., 12 id. 63, 75. The position of the English law appears to be plain and instructive. The principal English cases usually cited are Pickford v. G. J. R. Co., 10 M. & W. 399; S. C. in Equity, 3 Eng. Railway & Canal Cases 538; Parker v. G. W. R. Co., 7 M. & G. 253; Crouch v. L. & N. W. R. Co., 2 C. & K. 789; Parker v. G. W. R. Co., 11 C. B. 545; Edwards v. G. W. R. Co., 11 C. B. 588; Crouch v. L. & N. W. R. Co., 14 C. B. 255; Crouch v. G. N. R. Co., 9 W. H. & G. 556; Finnie v. G. & S. W. R., 2 Macqueen H. of L. Cas. 177; S. C. 34 Eng. L. & Eq. 11; Crouch v. G. N. R. Co., 11 H. & G. 742; Barker v. M. R. Co., 18 C. B. 46; Parker v. G. W. R. Co., 6 E. & B. 77; Caterham R. Co. v. L. B. & S. C. R. Co., 1 C. B. (N. S.) 410; Barret v. G. N. R. Co., id. 423; Ransome v. E. C. R. Co., id. 437; Oxlade v. N. E. R. Co., id. 454; Marriott v. L. & S. W. R. Co., id. 499; Beadell v. E. C. R. Co., 2 C. B. (N. S.) 509; Painter v. L. B. & S. C. R. Co., id. 702; Baxendale v. N. D. R. Co., 3 C. B. (N. S.) 324; Harris v. C. & W. R. Co., id. 693; Jones v. E. C. R. Co., id. 718; Baxendale v. E. C. R. Co., 4 C. B. (N. S.) 63; Ransome v. E. C. R. Co., id. 135; Cooper v. L. & S. W. R. Co., id. 738; Piddington v. S. E. R. Co., 5 C. B. (N. S.) 111; Baxendale v. G. W. R. Co., id. 309; Baxendale v. G. W. R. Co., id. 336; Nicholson v. G. W. R. Co., id. 366; Garton v. G. W. R. Co., id. 669; Garton v. B. & E. R. Co., 4 H. & N. 33; Garton v. B. & E. R. Co., 6 C. B. (N. S.) 639; Bennett v. M. S. & L. R. Co., id. 707; Nicholson v. G. W. R. Co., 7 C. B. (N. S.) 755; Ransome v. E. C. R. Co., 8 C. B. (N. S.) 709; Garton v. B. & E. R. Co., 1 B. & S. 112; Baxendale v. B. & E. R. Co., 11 C. B. (N. S.) 787; Branley v. S. E. R. Co., 12 C. B. (N. S.) 63; *456Baxendale v. L. & S. W. R. Co., id. 758; Baxendale v. G. W. R. Co., 14 C. B. (N. S.) 1; Baxendale v. G. W. R. Co., 16 C. B. (N. S.) 137; Sutton v. G. W. R. Co., 3 H. & C. 800; Baxendale v. L. & S. W. R. Co., L. R. 1 Exchq. 137; S. C., 4 H. & C. 130; Palmer v. L. & S. W. R. Co., L. R. 1 C. P. 588; West v. L. & N. W. R. Co., L. R. 5 C. P. 622; Palmer v. L. B. & S. C. R. Co., L. R. 6 C. P. 194; Parkinson v. G. W. R. Co., id. 554.

These cases seem to be based on statutes general or special. The English parliament has been extremely vigilant and industrious in putting, in the charters of corporations, provisions for the protection of the rights of individuals and the public. Out of abundant caution, and for the information of those specially concerned, and to guard against any possible construction by implication repealing the common law, they affirmed some of its simplest rules. Sandford v. Railroad Co., 24 Pa. St. 378. In charters of common canders, what is called the equality clause was inserted, requiring the carriers to furnish transportation on equal terms. The fashion of legislation once set, was studiously followed with a degree of reverence for precedent that does not prevail in this country. General statutes were passed, enacting the common law doctrine of reasonable equality, and new methods of enforcing it were introduced. And the practice of the English courts, on charters and general acts of this kind, has been so long continued, that the fact seems now to be overlooked that the general principle of equality is the principle of the common law. With so much legislation on the subject as there has been in that country, and so much litigation upon acts of parliament, it was not strange that the bar and bench should finally lose sight of the common law origin of the principle so many times enacted in different forms, and earned out in different methods prescribed by parliament. It seems to have been a result of the anxiety of parliament, that, instead of merely providing such new remedies and modes of judicial procedure as they deemed necessary for the enforcement of the common law, they repeatedly reenacted the common law, until it came to be supposed that, in such an important matter as the public service of transportation by common carriers, the public were indebted, for.the doctrine of equal right, to the modern vigilance of parliament, instead of the system of legal reason which had been the birthright of Englishmen for many ages. A mistake of this kind is an. evil of some magnitude. It unjustly weakens the confidence of the community in the wisdom and justice of the ancient system, and impairs its vigor. When the understanding prevails that equality, in a branch of the public service so vast as that of transportation by common carriers, depends upon the action of a legislature declaring it by statute, and attempting the difficult task of accurately expressing the whole length and breadth of the doctrine in words not defined in the common law, public and common rights of immense value are removed from a natural, broad, and firm foundation, to one that is artificial and narrow, and consequently less secure ; and many results of ill consequence flow from such a misconception of the free institutions of the common law.

*457English cases, based on statutes passed in affirmance of the common, law, are precedents and authorities on the reasonableness of common carriers’ discriminations that may be useful in this country. Even if it should be found that, in those cases, a question of fact is sometimes decided as a question of law, or that, in cases tried by the court without a jury, the distinction between law and fact is sometimes lost, the decisions may still, for some purposes, be of material value. But the common law rule of equal right and reasonableness is the ground on which we stand. “ Common,” in its legal sense, used as the description of the carrier and his duty ,and the correlative right of the public, contains the whole doctrine of the common law on the subject. The defendants are common carriers. That is all that need be said. All beyond that can be no more than an explanation or application of the legal meaning of “ common ” in that connection.

II. The views already stated necessarily lead to the opinion that the equality clause of section 2, chapter 149, Gen. Stats., requiring that all persons shall have reasonable and equal terms, facilities, and accommodations for the transportation of themselves, their agents, and servants, and of any merchandise and other property, upon any railroad owned or operated in this State, and for the use of the depot and other buildings and grounds, is, so far as it has any application to the present posture of this case, merely declaratory of the common law, which, by section 3 of the same chapter, may be enforced by indictment* as well as by suit for damages. Section 4 allows railroads to carry stockholders going to or returning from the meetings of the proprietors, persons in charge of mails and expresses, poor persons, -and others’ without payment of the regular fare. Poor persons, unable to pay the regular fare, may be relieved. As to them the common law is not changed. And the statute, construed by the reason of the common law which it affirms, might well be held to leave the matter of charity to the direction of the carrier. And, as to matters of business—matters within the public duty of the carrier, and the common right of mankind—the statute, requiring reasonableness and equality in affirmance of the common law, is to be construed by the reason of the common law, and the whole statute is to be construed together. When section 2 says all persons shall have reasonable and equal terms, and section 4 allows expressmen and others to be carried without payment of the regular fare, both sections, taken together, do not allow any unreasonable discrimination between expressmen, or between any individuals or classes of the human race. The equality clause of the *458second section is tlie gist of the statute in relation to discrimination. Sections 4 and 5 are illustrations, showing, to a certain extent, the application of the common law doctrine of reasonable equality. In regard to the general doctrine, the statute, so far as it goes, is as bi’oad and sweeping as the common law. The persons who are allowed, by section 4, to be carried without payment of the regular fare, can no more be made the subjects of an unreasonable discrimination than they could if that section were not in the statute. The fact that there may be a reasonable discrimination between wholesale and retail prices of transportation of passengers, as well as between wholesale and retail prices of lands or goods, seems to be recognized by the fifth section; but the Eastern Express Company, if they are such a company as their name indicates, are not one of the “ other organized companies” alluded to in that section.

III. A part of the defendants’ road is in Maine, and a part in New Hampshire. The defendants are, for ordinary practical purposes, one and the same corporation in each State, and are under the same common law obligations in each State. We know not how any individuals or corporations of New Hampshire can be aggrieved, in such cases as this, if the common law of both States is administered to them by the tribunals of Maine. If it was the opinion of the legislature or the judiciary of Maine that we ought not to take jurisdiction of the plaintiff’s complaint of an unreasonable discrimination made by the defendants against the plaintiff on that part of the road situated in Maine, we should endeavor to give no just cause of offence, and to avoid all jurisdictional conflict. And, if it should be found that we had unwittingly encroached upon the sovereignty of another State, we should make haste to retrace our steps. But, as we understand the law of Maine, we are safe in holding that we may take jurisdiction of the whole of the case presented by the plaintiff, in an action at common law. Undoubtedly, on the question of discrimination practised by the defendants in the performance of their duty in' Maine, the rights of the parties are to be determined according to the law of that State. But, with the present system of continuous common carriage among our numerous States, if the remedy were cut in pieces by every State line, in cases of this kind, the evil consequences would be serious, and, as we think, without any legal necessity. Considering this point upon the general doctrine of transitory actions, the generally uniform liability of natural and artificial persons, and the intent of the legislatures of Maine and New Hampshire to create a corporation that might act, and be dealt with, as one and not two, in such matters as those involved in this suit, we see no room for doubt. Angell & Ames on Corporations, secs. 402-407, 4th ed.; Libbey v. Hodgdon, 9 N. H. 394; Fuller v. C. & N. W. R. R. Co., 31 Iowa 187; Fuller v. C. & N. W. R. R. Co., 31 Iowa 211.

IV. The defeiidants contend that the declaration is bad at common law, because it is not alleged that the defendants were common carriers. It is not so alleged in terms; probably it is so alleged in substance. *459The objection being one so easily obviated by an amendment alleging, in so many words, that the defendants were common carriers, the plaintiff, having his attention called to a possible motion in arrest of judgment, will undoubtedly guard against danger in that quarter, and avoid an unprofitable and uninteresting question of pleading, by making such an amendment. This being a case, in some respects, of novel impression in this State, the plaintiff’s counsel, in drawing the declaration, very prudently referred to the statute, and inserted several counts of considerable length and elaboration. Since we hold that damage suffered by the plaintiff from an unreasonable discrimination made by the defendants between the plaintiff and the Eastern Express Company or any one else, in terms, facilities, or accommodations — damage caused by any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage made or given by the defendants, as common carriers, to or in favor of any particular person or company, or caused by any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage to which the defendants subjected the plaintiff — is a cause of action at common law, a good and sufficient count can easily be drawn for such a cause of action, without reference to the statute. It may be well to employ as much of the phraseology of the statute as possible, and it may not be strictly necessary to insert explicit allegations presenting the case in the exact verbal form in which we have presented it, but the declaration should be made obviously and unquestionably sufficient. The suggestions we have made will enable counsel readily to put it in such form as to avoid every possible objection. Our time is too much needed for the consideration of subjects of some importance, to be properly occupied with an unnecessary and barren question of pleading.

Case discharged.