193 A.D. 615 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1920
Lead Opinion
The Public Service Commission, Second District (hereafter referred to as the Commission), instituted a proceeding under the provisions of section 57 of the Public Service Commissions Law, the object of which was to compel the New York Central Railroad Company, the respondent, to obey the provisions of an order issued by the Commission directing the respondent to restore the passenger rates prescribed by law on and after the 1st day of September, 1920. This order was issued on the 15th day of June, 1920, and, as a defense, the respondent asserted the provisions of section 208, subdivision a, of the Federal Transportation Act of 1920, and the learned court at Special Term has dismissed the proceeding on the merits, holding in effect that the provisions of the Federal statute operate to fix the rate at three cents per mile until the Legislature of this State has, under the supposed authority of the Federal statute, taken affirmative action changing such rate. (See 112 Mise. Rep. 617.) The question presented for review here is the proper construction of the statute, and, if the construction put upon it by the respondent and the court below is sustained, whether such statute is warranted under the provisions of the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
Adopting the respondent’s statement of facts, “ various connecting railroads between Albany and Buffalo were con
“ The two-cent rate prescribed by section 7 of chapter 76 of the Laws of 1853, in time codified in subd. 5 of section 57 of the Railroad Law, had remained continuously in effect when, on December 28, 1917, the President of the United States, pursuant to Act of Congress, approved August 29, 1916, by proclamation dated December 26, 1917, assumed possession, use, occupation and control of respondent’s railroad system.” (See 39 U. S. Stat. at Large, 604, chap. 417, amdg. 24 id. 380, § 6, as amd. by 34 id. 587, § 2; Official U. S. Bulletin, Dec. 27,1917, vol. 1, No. 193, pp. 1, 2.)
Under the provisions of the Federal Control Act of March 21, 1918, it was provided that the railroads so taken over by the general government should continue in that relation “ during the period of the war and for a reasonable time thereafter, which shall not exceed one year and nine months next following the date of the proclamation by the President of the exchange of ratifications of the treaty of peace,” and the President was authorized to relinquish such control at any time in his discretion. (40 U. S. Stat. at Large, 458, § 14.) By General Order 28, dated May 25, 1918, the Director-General of Railroads authorized the collection from June 10, 1918, of three-cent fares for both interstate and intrastate passenger traffic (Official U. S. Bulletin, May 28, 1918, vol. 2, No. 321, pp. 6, 7), and this rate continued to be authorized and collected up to and including the 29th day of February, 1920, the day following the approval of the Federal Transportation Act of 1920,
There is a canon of construction which cogently argues that a rational, sensible and practical construction of a constitution, statute or contract should be preferred to one which is unreasonable, absurd or impracticable (McPhee & McGinnity Co. v. Union Pacific R. Co., 158 Fed. Rep. 5, 17), and it is always proper to assume that the legislative body has acted with a knowledge of existing laws and constitutions, and that it has intended to produce a harmonious and workable system, without doing violence to constitutional principles. “ The Constitution itself,” says Cooley in his Principles of Constitutional Law (p. 33), “ never yields to treaty or enactment; it neither changes with time, nor does it in theory bend to the force of circumstances. It may be amended according to its own permission; but while it stands it is 'a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances,’ ” and it is proper, therefore, that we consider the position in which the United States government stood in relation to the respondent’s railroad and to the State of New York in the enactment of the provision here under consideration.
There is no doubt that “ the government within the Con
If we are right in these several propositions, the war 'power does not in its exercise increase the .sovereign powers of the United States beyond the enumerated powers; it does not authorize an invasion of the field of State legislation. Though limited in its powers it is supreme in the matters confided to it, and its laws, when made in pursuance of the United States Constitution, form the supreme law of the land, “ anything in the Constitution or laws of any State, to the contrary notwithstanding.” (Second Employers’ Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 54.) The law which authorized the President of the United States to take over the railroads of the country was clearly an exercise of the war power; the right to take the property of individuals and corporations upon the payment of just compensation for the purposes of the war, and as the taking did not contemplate their destruction but rather a usufructuary right, to terminate with the ending of the war, there was no occasion for any interference with the legislative power of the State. The government of the United States came into possession of the property under a paramount power — a power superior to that of the State and the owners combined. It had within itself, for the purposes of the war, the combined rights of both
This was the true environment in which the legislation here under consideration was enacted. The necessity which
The order Appealed from should be reversed, with costs, and' the Commission should have judgment in accord with the petition, with costs.
All concur, Cochrane, J., in result, except John M. Kellogg, P. J., who' dissents, with an opinion in which H. T. Kellogg, J., concurs.
Dissenting Opinion
The taking over of the railroads by the government during the war was a proper war measure and in effect superseded and annulled, for the time being at least, the State laws with respect to their operation. There can be no serious dispute but that the Federal Transportation Act of 1920 (41 U. S. Stat. at Large, 456, chap. 91), under which the railroads' were returned to the owners, contemplated that the rates
The war measure by which the government took over the railroads was not complete by the taking; it involved the operation and the return, both of which were contemplated by and were a necessary part of ib. “ Assuming that the implied power to enact such a prohibition must depend not upon the existence of a technical state of war, terminable only with the ratification of a treaty of peace or a proclamation of peace (United States v. Anderson, 9 Wall. 56, 70; The Protector, 12 Wall. 700, 702; Hijo v. United States, 194 U. S. 315, 323), but upon some actual emergency or necessity arising out of the war or incident to it, still, as was said in Stewart v. Kahn (11 Wall. 493, 507): ‘ The power is not limited to victories in the field and the dispersion of the [insurgent] forces. It carries with it inherently the power to guard against the immediate renewal of the conflict, and to remedy the evils which have arisen from its'rise and progress.’ ” (Hamilton
Immediately upon taking over the railroads the government, in effect, operated the entire systems of railways in the country as one system, taking from certain Unes the business which had been built up by them in the previous years and diverting it to other lines as the interests of the government required. It had greatly increased the wages of railway employees and, as a consequence of the war, all expenses .of railroads as well as of others, were nearly doubled. It was obvious, and the legislative records show that it was deemed disastrous to the roads and injurious to the pubhc and the general good if they were to be returned to the owners without some relief from the conditions which the government had caused by its control and management — that unless relief was granted bankruptcy of many and perhaps of most of the roads would have followed.
Congress evidently considered that the rates in the various States fixed by the Commission and the statutes before government control were then of doubtful validity because of the changed condition. It evidently considered that a rate which was just before the war was unjust and unremunerative at the time the Transportation Law was passed. It had good reason to conclude that a return of the roads without some governmental protection meant chaos, and that there were no existing rates outside of those fixed under government control. It evidently had in view the rule laid down in Municipal Gas Co. v. Public Service Commission (225 N. Y. 89, 96), from which we quote: “ Into every statute of this kind, we are to read, therefore, an implied condition. The condition is that the rates shall remain in force at such times and at such only as their enforcement will not work denial of the right to a fair return. When the return falls below that level, the regulation is suspended. When the level is again attained, the duty of obedience revives. There would be no obscurity about this if the condition were expressed. It is no less binding because it is implied. The Constitution is the supreme law; and statutes are written and enforced in submission to its commands.”
The Transportation Act did not entirely return the roads
H. T. Kellogg, J., concurs.
Order reversed, with costs. Judgment for the Commission in accordance with the petition, with costs.