276 P. 858 | Wash. | 1929
This appeal is from a judgment of the superior court for King county, granting a temporary injunction restraining appellant, as the director of public works, from enforcing against respondents any of the provisions of the auto transportation act, being chapter 111, Laws of 1921, p. 338 (Rem. Comp. Stat., § 6387), with amendments. The matter was heard upon the pleadings and affidavits. From admitted or undenied statements in the pleadings and affidavits the following facts are shown:
On or about June 23, 1928, each of the respondents was arrested in King county, Washington. The complaints were filed in a justice court, charging each of them with operating as an auto transportation company without a certificate of public convenience and necessity.
At the time of the arrest, each of them had a sedan car carrying only a California motor vehicle license. Each of them was operating, and purposed to continue to operate, ordinary motor vehicles as a common carrier. After their arrest, they employed counsel, who, with them, called upon appellant and stated to appellant that they desired to operate as auto transportation companies in exclusively interstate service between Seattle and California, but that they would not file any insurance policy or bond as required by the auto transportation act. They were informed that a certificate would be issued as a matter of course upon filing application, paying filing fee of twenty-five dollars each, and each filing insurance policy, but that no certificate would be issued until such insurance policies were filed.
Appellants showed that respondents could have obtained insurance of the character required by statute at a cost of $291.
Respondents made no further effort to comply with *632 the law, but promptly filed their action in equity in King county, seeking an injunction to restrain appellant from interfering with their operation as motor vehicle common carriers between Seattle and California over the Pacific Highway through this state, it being a Federal aided road.
The complaint alleges a willingness to comply with all of the provisions of the auto transportation act, except the filing of an insurance policy or bond. The complaint avers that such requirement would be violative of the Federal aid legislation and of the commerce clause of the United States constitution. (Art. I, § 8, Clause 3.)
The superior court issued a restraining order, immediately restraining appellant from interfering with the operation of respondents pending a hearing on the application for a temporary injunction. Appellant was ordered to show cause on a day certain why a temporary injunction should not be granted. He made return to the show cause order in opposition to its issuance, filed affidavits in support thereof, and on a later date the matter came on for hearing in the court below.
It was also shown by the pleadings and by uncontradicted affidavits that, since the decision in Buck v. Kuykendall,
The lower court refused to quash the restraining order, and held that the temporary injunction should be granted, solely upon the ground that the requirement *633 of the Washington statute for such bond or liability insurance was violative of the commerce clause of the Federal constitution.
In deciding the case, the trial court said:
"The plaintiffs, as the owners of certain automobiles and desiring to operate the vehicles for the transportation of passengers in interstate commerce between the city of Seattle and points in Oregon and California, applied to the director of public works for a permit provided for under the amendment of 1921 to the public utilities act. No formal written application was made, no license fee tendered for the reason that the director stated to the applicants (the plaintiffs here) that no such application would be considered until and unless the applicants furnished the liability insurance provided for under chapter 111, Laws of 1921. It would therefore follow that the making of the formal application and tender of the license fee would have been useless and not essential to the relief demanded if the insurance provision infringes upon the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution. . . .
"It is, therefore, my conclusion that the motion to quash must be denied and the temporary injunction granted. In passing upon this question my opinion is limited strictly to the interference with interstate commerce by the exaction of the insurance required under the statute."
Section 5, chapter 111, Laws of 1921, p. 341, (Rem. Comp. Stat., § 6391) provides:
"The commission shall in the granting of certificates to operate any auto transportation company, for transporting persons, and/or property, for compensation require the owner or operator to first procure liability and property damage insurance from a company licensed to make liability insurance in the state of Washington or a surety bond of a company licensed to write surety bonds in the state of Washington on each motor propelled vehicle used or to be used in transporting persons, and/or property, for compensation, *634 in the amount of not to exceed five thousand dollars for any recovery for personal injury by one person and not less than ten thousand dollars, and in such additional amount as the commission shall determine, for all persons receiving personal injury by reason of one act of negligence and not to exceed one thousand dollars for damage to property of any person other than the assured, and maintain such liability and property damage insurance or surety bond in force on each motor propelled vehicle while so used, each policy for liability or property damage insurance or surety bond required herein, shall be filed with the commission and kept in full force and effect, and failure so to do shall be cause for the revocation of the certificate."
Respondents contend that chapter 111, Laws of 1921, p. 338, as amended, and all its provisions are unconstitutional, being contrary to the commerce clause of the Federal constitution and the Federal aid legislation.
[1] Nothing but the mere assertion and the allegations of the complaint are urged here to the effect that the statute is in violation of the Federal aid legislation. We shall therefore content ourselves by saying that we see nothing in the Federal aid legislation of Congress and its acceptance by this state that is in any way infringed by the legislation in question.
In a case appealed from an inferior Federal court, reported in
We shall also brush aside the minor features urged by appellants in urging that the temporary injunction entered by the trial court should not have been granted *635 until the applicant had complied as fully as possible with valid portions of the law, which was admittedly not done; and that the temporary injunction granted is more comprehensive than the injunction prayed by respondents, and pass at once to determine the validity of our statute under the commerce clause of the Federal constitution.
[2] This court has held in Northern Pacific R. Co. v.Schoenfeldt,
The Buck case, supra, did not decide, however, that a state could not make reasonable regulations of interstate commerce carriers. Apparently, that court has not been disposed to further extend the application of the decision in the Buck
case. Under many other decisions of that court, there seems to be left to the states some latitude in the control and regulation of its own highways and the users thereof, even in interstate commerce. That court has held that a requirement of liability insurance does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal constitution. Packard v. Banton,
It was recently held in Clark v. Poor,
In the Clark case, supra, the requirement of liability insurance by the statute of Ohio, from which the *636 case came, was abandoned by the attorney general of Ohio and the court said there was no occasion to consider the question.
In Sprout v. City of South Bend,
"Objection under the commerce clause is made also to the requirement of liability insurance. There being grave dangers incident to the operation of motor vehicles, a state may require users of such vehicles on the public highways to file contracts providing adequate insurance for the payment of judgments recovered for certain injuries, resulting from their operation.Packard v. Banton,
We call attention to the above case citations, and shall not recite or discuss them.
Whether or not the above quotation constitutes dictum, apparently that court intimates the validity of legislation requiring users of motor vehicles engaged in interstate commerce to file contracts providing adequate insurance for the payment of judgments, if limited to damages suffered within the state by persons other than the passenger.
Why there should be such distinction, we are unable to perceive. Certainly those being carried through the state in interstate commerce by such common carriers as those in question are as greatly affected and as deeply concerned in the question, whether, if injured by their carrier, they may obtain financial relief, as are those suffering damages "other than the passenger."
Interstate railway carriers have property within the state available for the recovery of damages, and such carriers have always been held liable for negligent injury within a state of interstate passengers as well as intrastate passengers if jurisdiction could be obtained of such carrier in such state.
These interstate busses are often comparatively irresponsible financially, frequently incurring liabilities wholly incomparable to their available assets. *638
"Legal liability without financial responsibility is a barren right to one who sustains injury by the wrongful act of another.
"A peremptory requirement that, before one brings a dangerous instrumentality into public places, the owner must first provide adequate security that those who suffer personal injury through the negligent use thereof shall be assured of recompense, would be no greater interference with fundamental rights than the instances just cited." In re Opinion of the Justices,
Upon the general question of the validity of this legislation, we know of no better reasoning, or more weighty authority, except the authority of the supreme court of the United States, upon this question than that of the supreme court of Massachusetts, in a very well considered opinion cited above, to the legislative body of Massachusetts. We quote with high approval what was said upon this question:
"Regulations of the kind prescribed by the proposed bill may apply to interstate commerce on the same terms as to domestic travelers. The states cannot enact laws for the specific end of regulating interstate commerce; but they may enact laws for the protection of the general public, against apprehended harm including that caused by those engaged in interstate commerce. The power of the several states to `provide for the establishment, maintenance, and control of public highways, turnpike roads' and like conveniences and necessities has been recognized in numerous decisions of the United States supreme court. New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co.,
"There is nothing inconsistent with the conclusion that the proposed statute would be valid in this respect in the recent decisions of Michigan Public Utilities Commission v. Duke,
Respondents also cite International Motor Transit Co. v.Seattle,
The requirements of our statute are reasonable as regulations under the police power of the state, and not obstructive of, nor undue burdens upon, interstate commerce. Northern Pacific R. Co.v. Schoenfeldt, supra.
Since Congress has not occupied the field in question by controlling legislation, in which case the state would be excluded, we are of the opinion that our regulations in no way contravene the commerce clause of the Federal constitution.
The judgment of the lower court is therefore reversed, and the action dismissed.
MITCHELL, C.J., TOLMAN, FULLERTON, and BEALS, JJ., concur. *641