52 N.H. 430 | N.H. | 1873
I. A common carrier is a public carrier. He engages in a
“ 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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;
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.
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
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.
Case discharged.