Lorraine Cab v. City of Detroit

98 N.W.2d 607, 357 Mich. 379
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 13, 1959
DocketDocket 31, Calendar 47,743
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 98 N.W.2d 607 (Lorraine Cab v. City of Detroit) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lorraine Cab v. City of Detroit, 98 N.W.2d 607, 357 Mich. 379 (Mich. 1959).

Opinion

*381 Smith, J.

This is a suit to restrain the city of Detroit and the Detroit police department from enforcing an ordinance regulating the operation of taxicabs (Municipal Code, City of Detroit [1945], p 349, ch 145, as amended). Plaintiffs, duly licensed in their home communities (Dearborn, Bedford, Crosse Pointe Park, and Harper Woods), provide suburban taxicab service. On numerous occasions, while driving patrons from points within Detroit to the suburbs, their drivers have been arrested for failure to comply with the licensing provisions of the Detroit ordinance. Some drivers have applied for taxicab drivers’ licenses and have been denied same. No appeals have been taken from such denials. It is agreed that the Detroit police department would now deny any application for such licenses, if applied for, on the ground that such drivers are not employed by a taxicab company licensed under Detroit’s taxicab ordinance.

There is no doubt that Detroit’s regulation of taxicabs is broad and comprehensive. In order to obtain a license to provide taxicab service under the ordinance, one must satisfy the mayor that public convenience and necessity require the additional service proposed. The driver must be of good moral character and the police commissioner must certify to his worth. The cab must be equipped with a properly inspected and regulated taximeter. Each licensee must name an agent for service of process. Insurance against death or personal injury must be assumed, or security bond posted. Drivers may not, without good reason, refuse a prospective customer for the service licensed. We need not recite the applicable regulations in full. We are impressed, as are appellants, with the need for regulation and control of the situation by the public authorities as we take judicial notice that the cabs operate day and night to proximate and remote parts of the area *382 carrying the innocent young, helpless old, strangers in the community, business travelers and others who, because of infirmity or for other reasons, cannot utilize public transportation. In fact, the legislative body, in the passage of the ordinance before us, has determined that such control by the municipality is necessary for the protection of the public. Is the city of Detroit without power to assert and enforce the prescribed control ?

The plaintiffs say that it is. Although they do not question the general authority of Detroit to regulate the operation of taxicabs on its streets they urge that, by adoption of the motor carrier act, CL 1948, § 475.1 et seq., as amended (Stat Ann § 22.531 et seq., as amended), the legislature intended to supersede municipal regulation respecting operations not exempted thereunder. Their argument rests upon the premise that plaintiffs are “common motor carriers of passengers” within the meaning of the act. Thus it is pointed out that article 1, § 1, of the act provides, in part, as follows:

“(g) The term ‘common motor carrier of passengers,’ when used in this act, shall mean any person who holds himself out to the public as willing to undertake for hire to transport by motor vehicle from place to place over the public highways of this State persons who may choose to employ him for such purpose or for the purpose of transporting package express, excess baggage, newspapers and/or United States mail in the same vehicle used to transport passengers.” (CL 1948, §475.1[g], [Stat Ann § 22.531 (g)]). *

*383 Tlie court helow concluded that plaintiffs were subject to regulation under the act, relying upon North Star Line, Inc., v. City of Grand Rapids, 259 Mich 654, and entered the injunction prayed.

Despite the generality of the language used, it does not suffice, for a proper interpretation of the act, that we confine our attention to the definition above quoted. “The entire act must be read,” as we held in City of Grand Rapids v. Crocker, 219 Mich 178, 182, 183, “and the interpretation to be given to a particular word in one section arrived at after due consideration of every other section so as to produce, if possible, a harmonious and consistent enactment as a whole.”

Turning, then, to the entire act we find that its provisions require carriers under the act to “keep open to public inspection in each of its depots and offices, schedules showing all rates, fares and charges for transportation of passengers and property between different points on its route.” 1 It is required also that the commission “regulate operating and time schedules so as to meet the needs of any community, and so as to insure adequate transportation service” to the area under consideration. 2 We find, in addition, that a common motor carrier of passengers shall have “ the right to do a charter or special coach business in the transporting of persons for hire from place to place, provided such charter or special coach business shall originate at one of their termini or on, or adjacent to, the route regularly served by such common carrier.” 3 The clear implication here (reinforced elsewhere in the act) is that a common car *384 rier of passengers shall operate between termini designated by the commission and shall provide regular service along designated routes. That it may, in addition to such service, engage in certain collateral operations does not suggest that authority might be conferred under a certificate to engage simply in those operations characteristic of taxicabs.

Viewing the act as a whole it would be difficult to frame a code less applicable to the operation of taxicabs. The above provisions relative to time tables for trips, to schedules of fares between “different points on the route,” to depots, and to termini, all of which are completely inapplicable to the operation of taxicabs, are not merely appurtenant to the act but are of its very essence. And while we are not bound by any administrative body’s interpretation of its own empowering act, we, in common with all modern courts, give it “respectful consideration” as one of the factors to be considered in arriving at the probable legislative intent. Howard Pore, Inc., v. State Commissioner of Revenue, 322 Mich 49 (4 ALR 2d 1041). It is with this canon of construction in mind that we observe that the rules and regulations of the public service commission, also, are utterly inconsistent with the notion that the common carrier of passengers referred to in the act embraces the operation of taxicabs. Thus we find that:

“Every common carrier doing a passenger business shall file with the commission a time table showing the time of arrival and departure of its bus or buses at each regular station or stop, and such time table shall further show the number of trips to be made daily over each route or routes.” (1954 Administrative Code, § R 460.109, p 5624.)

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Bluebook (online)
98 N.W.2d 607, 357 Mich. 379, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lorraine-cab-v-city-of-detroit-mich-1959.