Lusk v. Public Service Commission

210 S.W. 72, 277 Mo. 264, 1919 Mo. LEXIS 24
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMarch 15, 1919
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 210 S.W. 72 (Lusk v. Public Service Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lusk v. Public Service Commission, 210 S.W. 72, 277 Mo. 264, 1919 Mo. LEXIS 24 (Mo. 1919).

Opinions

LAMM, Special Judge.

A statement of the facts pertinent to the decision of questions raised on this appeal will appear in connection with rulings on those questions. However, it has seemed sensible to fetch a small compass by way of ,qn outline of the case in limine, to the end that it may have an understandable setting for discussion, thus:

The mayor and aldermen of Caruthersville, on behalf of that city and its people (and virtute officii), filed a complaint with respondent Commission of three specifications, in substance, to-wit:

First: It was charged that appellants, unmindful of the safety of the people, operate certain passenger trains into and out of Caruthersville, by baching them. (After complaint filed, this method of train operation was discontinued, as we gather, hence the foregoing was abandoned at the hearing and will not be further noticed).
Second: It was charged that a certain local passenger train, operating from Kennett, Missouri, to Memphis, Tennessee via Caruthersville, was run on a schedule creating unnecessary lay-overs, inconveniences and reductions of traffic. (The grievances complained of in this specification seem to relate to conditions in Arkansas, hence the finding of respondent Commission was against complainants thereon, and, as no appeal was taken by the mayor and board of aldermen, it drops out of the case and will not be further noticed).
Third: It-was charged (and on this charge the live issues seem to hang) that certain day trains between St. Louis and Memphis, known as 801 and 802, no longer stopped at Caruthersville, but were diverted through a cut-off, to the inconvenience, loss and injury of the'business and inhabitants of said city. That said failure to stop there was without meritorious cause, etc. Complainants prayed an order requiring said trains to [270]*270run into and stop at Caruthersville as they had formerly done, thereby correcting the alleged wrongs.

It seems the railroad company itself was made a party defendant, together with said receivers, in the original proceedings before the Commission. Accordingly, on the coming in of said complaint, the railroad company filed its separate answer setting up the fact that its co-defendants were acting as receivers under the appointment of the United States District Court for the Eastern Division of the Eastern District of Missouri; and that since their appointment said receivers have had full possession and operative control of its railroad and properties.

By their answer, the receivers denied the charges made in the complaint, admitted they had charge of and were operating the road and its properties and that they had in August, 1913, discontinued the operation of trains 801 and 802 by the way of Cauthersville for the purpose, they allege, of reducing expense and making connections at St. Louis and Memphis, and they further averred that they are furnishing reasonable passenger facilities to Caruthersville.

On issues thus joined a hearing was had before respondent Commission, on testimony taken and duly preserved, with the result that the Commission found in favor of the complainants as to said trains 801 and 802, that the passenger service at Caruthersville was insufficient and inadequate, and an order was passed and served on appellants in effect to run said two passenger trains through Caruthersville and stop them at the depot there to receive and discharge passengers and their baggage, and appellants were given until August 2,1915 (about six months), to comply with such order. (Vide Byrd v. St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad, 2 P. S. C. 430).

Denied a rehearing, appellants in statutory form sued out a writ of certiorari, in the Cole Circuit Court. On a new hearing in that court, on the same record before the Commission, it was adjudged that the order of [271]*271respondent Commission be affirmed. From that judgment, on due intermediate steps taken, the canse came np on appeal to this conrt, was heard first in Division and then in Banc with- a special judge on the bench in place of Judge Faeis, who declined to sit. .

The case was submitted in Banc on the admission that in due time appellants complied with the order and are now running and ever since the time limited in the order have run said trains in compliance therewith.

Recognizing that refusing to stop day trains 801 and 802 at Caruthersville and that by re-routing them through the cut-off, aforesaid, and leaving that city to one side, would seriously affect the convenience of its inhabitants and of the passengers destined to or from that point and the business of the city, appellants attempted to remedy the inconvenience and loss of facilities in ways that will appear later or when a statement of the facts is made and when the reasonableness of the order is up for judgment. So the facts relating to the inconvenience and loss to Caruthersville and its people and the traveling public by the substituted scheme of appellants, abrogated by the order of the Commission under review, will be sufficiently set forth.

On a record thus briefly outlined, learned counsel for appellants argue the judgment of the circuit court, affirming the order of the Commission, should be reversed; because, they say:

First: As to the railway company itself the order was error for that the receivers, not the company, operated the railroad when the complaint was filed.
Second: The court exceeded its power in affirming an order re-routing trains 801 and 802.
Third: The Order of the Commission affirmed by the court, was arbitrary, unjust and unreasonable (and herein of the reasonableness and adequacy of he passenger train service existing at the time and of certain constitutional questions sprung).
[272]*272Fourth: Such order was void for that it interfered with interstate commerce by impinging on named constitutional guaranties in that behalf.

Of these in their order.

I. Of the alleged error in the inclusion of the St. Louis & San Francisco- Railroad Company in the order of the Commission and the judgment affirming the same.

Appellants assign error for that the railroad company was included in the order when, as here, the road and its properties were in the hands of receivers. The assignment justifies the following observations:

(a) While it is clear from the abstract that the railroad company was >a party below and was affected by the order and judgment, yet it is far from clear whether the company did or did not appeal jointly with the receivers. There are indicia in the record (as well as in briefs) pointing both ways. Now, if it be true that the company did not appeal, then it is also true the, the receivers cannot be allowed to stand in its shoes in so far forth as to make such point in the company’s behalf; for in an appellate court the' fetching and stirring motto of Dumas’ Three Guardsmen, “One for all and all for one,” is not practically applied in settling the right of one appellant to make a point that concerns another party, who was a co-defendant and did not appeal but abided the judgment. The statutes of the State ordain that error to be reversible must be “error . . . against the appellant or plaintiff in error.” [R. S. 1909, sec. 2082.]

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Bluebook (online)
210 S.W. 72, 277 Mo. 264, 1919 Mo. LEXIS 24, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lusk-v-public-service-commission-mo-1919.