143 S.W. 223 | Tex. App. | 1912
The state of Texas, by the county attorney of Howard county, filed suit in the district court of said county against the appellee, a railroad corporation, to recover penalties in the sum of $1,950 for alleged failure to keep well-lighted existing water-closets at its depot in town of Coahoma, a station upon its line of railroad, where passengers were received and discharged during the nighttime. Special exceptions to the petition were sustained and the suit dismissed. The questions presented by this appeal involve the constitutionality of chapter
The constitutionality of the act is attacked upon three grounds, viz.:
First. Because it violates the fourteenth amendment to the federal Constitution in denying to railroad corporations equal protection of the law, in that it applies to railway corporations only, and does not apply to individuals, copartnerships, receivers, trustees, or associations that are or might be performing identically the same character of service, with the same kind of instrumentalities, under identically the same general conditions, there being no reasonable basis for the classification and imposition of the duties and penalties imposed by the act upon railroad corporations only; that such classification was purely arbitrary and beyond the power of the Legislature.
Second. Because it violates said federal amendment and section 19 of the Bill of Rights of the state Constitution, in that the act is penal in its nature, and is so vague, indefinite, and uncertain in its terms as to be incapable of practical enforcement, giving the corporations affected thereby no information in advance by which they can regulate their conduct, thus depriving them of their property without due process of law.
Third. The act further violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment of the federal Constitution and section 13 of the Bill of Rights of the state because railroad corporations are liable for costs incident to prosecutions under the act, whereas the state is expressly exempted from liability therefor.
We will consider the objections to the statute in the order stated above.
Counsel for appellee urge with great ability, and support their position with high authority, that the singling out of railroad corporations by the act and imposing penalties upon them is not a reasonable, but an arbitrary, classification, and therefore not permissible.
The objection that the law does not apply to individuals, copartnerships, associations, and trustees partakes rather of the abstruse and is hypercritical in its nature, because as a practical matter railroads are *225
not so owned and operated, and the Legislature deals with practical rather than possible or remotely conceivable conditions, but it is true that receivers do frequently operate railroads, and to this court it appears that the failure to include them within the scope of the act dangerously approaches an arbitrary classification without any reasonable basis. That the act does not operate against receivers is clear. Campbell v. Cook,
While the fourteenth amendment guarantees to all the equal protection of the law, yet in the exercise of the "police power" a Legislature, subject to certain limitations, may single out occupations and individuals and impose additional burdens, on the theory that what is done, although it unequally affects part of the community, is for the general peace, good order, morals, or health of the whole community, and it is not within the scope of the amendment to withhold from the states the power of classification, if the law deals alike with all of a certain class. This general power of classification is asserted in Railway Co. v. Mackey,
The statute now under consideration cannot be construed as applying to receivers operating railroads. Campbell v. Cook, supra.
It is clear, too, that it is penal in its nature and the rules of construction in such cases are applicable; also, that a corporation is a "person" within the meaning of the equal protection clause.
While the Legislature is vested with a very wide discretion in exercising its power of classification, yet this court is of the opinion that its power is undoubtedly subject to the limitation stated in the Ellis Case, otherwise it would follow that in the exercise of the police power the state would be wholly unrestrained by the fourteenth amendment, and we would be disposed to hold that the act in question violates the equal protection clause thereof because it is an arbitrary classification as against railroad corporations, in that it does not bring within the scope of its influence all those who are under the same conditions, and there is no difference between railroad corporations and receivers thereof which bears a reasonable, just, and proper relation to the classification made. That it would have been competent for the Legislature to have made *226
the act apply to receivers of railroads is clear. However, we do not feel ourselves at liberty to so hold in view of the decisions of our own Supreme Court, which, so far as we are advised, have uniformly applied the rule stated in the Mackey Case which practically confers upon the Legislature an unrestrained power of classification in exercising the police power. Campbell v. Cook,
The fellow servant act of 1891 (Acts 22d Leg. c.
In M., K. T. Ry. Co. v. State, 97 S.W. 720, Judge Bookhout expressly held that the act did not violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution, nor was it so vague and indefinite in its requirements as to render it invalid. Upon writ of error to Supreme Court (Ry. Co. v. State,
Answering the questions (Houston T. C. R. Co. v. State,
In view of the decisions of our own courts reviewed above, we hold the act in question is not subject to objections stated in appellee's first and second propositions.
The third position of appellee is untenable. The state is not liable for costs in prosecutions, civil or criminal. This exemption, whether it be called prerogative or privilege, is founded upon the sovereign character of the state, amenable to no judicial tribunal, subject to no process. Under the common law of England, the king neither paid nor received costs and upon the revolution the commonwealth stood in the place of the king, and was therefore not liable for costs, except when so directed by the Legislature. The rule above stated was announced by Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Commonwealth v. Commissioners of Philadelphia, 8 Serg. R. (Pa.) *153. The same principle is recognized by United States Supreme Court in United States v. Hooe, 3 Cranch, 92,
Such being the case, the contention of appellee, if carried to its logical conclusion, would render invalid any act authorizing suits by the state, unless at the same time provision was made for the payment of the costs incurred by the state.
Reversed and remanded.