McCanless v. Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Inc.

162 S.W.2d 370, 178 Tenn. 614, 14 Beeler 614, 1941 Tenn. LEXIS 90
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedJune 2, 1942
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 162 S.W.2d 370 (McCanless v. Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McCanless v. Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Inc., 162 S.W.2d 370, 178 Tenn. 614, 14 Beeler 614, 1941 Tenn. LEXIS 90 (Tenn. 1942).

Opinion

Mb. Justice Chambliss

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this suit to recover sums paid under protest for interstate permits required by Section 14 of Chapter 119, Acts of 1933, brought into Williams Code as Section 5501.19, the Greyhound Bus Companies challenge the constitutionality of the Act on the ground that it contravenes (1) the commerce clause (Art. 1, sec. 8, cl. 3), and (2) the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The specific insistence is that (1) the “inspection, control and supervision” provided for by the Act, for which the “permit” charge is made, is a subject fully covered by the Federal Motor Carrier Act of 1935, 49 *617 .U. S. C. A., sec. 301 et seq., which, it is alleged supersedes and excludes any right of control or supervision by the State over the interstate operation of vehicles; and that (2) the sum exacted for the permits, if justifiable at all as an inspection charge, bears no relation to the service, is not compensatory only, but is arbitrary, discriminatory and excessive. The Chancellor sustained the contentions of the complainant companies and the State has appealed.

The question whether or not the State Motor Act conflicts with, or duplicates the coverage of, the Federal Motor Act of 1935-, turns chiefly on the construction of the State Act, a defining of the scope or contemplated coverage of its provisions for inspection, control and supervision. ’ ’

The pertinent part of this Section of the Tennessee Motor Act reads as follows: ‘ ‘ Every holder of a certificate of convenience and necessity, interstate permit, or contract hauler’s permit, shall pay to the State, at such time and in such installments as the Commission may require, a fee for the inspection, control and supervision of the business, equipment serivce [service] or act of such certificate or permit holder; and to provide a means for the State to exercise its police poioers in order to protect the highways and in order to promote the safety of the public by the regulation of the use of the highways.” (The italicized portion of this quotation was added by amendment in 1941, CPtib. Acts 1941, chap. 70, but may be looted to as a legislative declaration of the object of the Act.)

That the Congress has authority to regulate interstate transportation and that its authority is exclusive, when and to the extent it is exercised, is settled and *618 conceded, and is impliedly recognized in the State Motor Carrier Act, in Section 19, which provides that no provisions of the Act ‘ ‘ shall he construed to regulate or apply to commerce . . . among the several states . . . except insofar as the same may be permitted under the Constitution of the United States and the Acts of Congress.”

Here is a legislative declaration as to the construction to be given this Act, an expression of the intention of the Legislature to authorize only such “inspection, control and supervision” of the operations of complainant Bus Companies in this State as does not conflict with that now covered by the Federal Motor Carrier Act of 1935, and being exercised by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

However, it is also well settled that it is only when Congress has legislated specifically touching a given subject, that the State’s power to legislate touching the same subject is superseded. And, as was said by Me.. Justice Stone, speaking for an undivided Court, in the recent case of Maurer v. Hamilton, 309 U. S., 598, 60 S. Ct., 726, 734, 84 L. Ed., 969, 135 A. L. R., 1347, “As a matter of statutory construction Congressional intention to displace local laws in the exercise of its commerce power is not, in general, to be inferred unless clearly indicated by those considerations which are persuasive of the statutory purpose. This is especially the case when public safety and health [the field in which we construe the instant legislation to operate] are concerned. Kelly v. Washington, 302 U. S., 1, 10-14, 58 S. Ct., 87, 92, 94, 82 L. Ed., 3 [10-13]; H. P. Welch Co. v. New Hampshire, 306 U. S., 79, 85, 59 S. Ct., 438, 441, 83 L. Ed., 500 [505], and cases cited.”

*619 It must be conceded that, independent of the alleged application of the doctrine of supersedure, the State has broad police powers of supervision and control to promote safety and convenience in the use and conservation of its highways. And that these powers extend, in the absence of congressional conflicting action, to the use of its highways by vehicles engaged in interstate commerce, or transportation, has recently been reaffirmed in South Carolina State Highway Department v. Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S., 177, 625, 58 S. Ct., 510, 82 L. Ed., 734, cited ’ and approved in Maurer v. Hamilton, supra.

So that, bearing in mind the legislative disavowal of intention by anything in the Act to invade congre's-sionally covered domain, we come back to the determinative question, whether or not the challenged provisions requiring a permit and payment of an inspection fee do intrench upon the field now exclusively occupied by the Interstate Commerce Commission, administrators of the Federal Motor Act.

We inquire, first, what powers incident to the “inspection,” to which this “permit” may be referred, have been left to the State by the action of Congress and its agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission? Certainly the entire field has not been exclusively taken over by the Federal Act and its amendments. For example, inspection of vehicles moving interstate, for the purpose of appraising their weight and size, is left to the State, as held in Maurer v. Hamilton, supra. If it be conceded that inspection of the “equipment” of the vehicles is for the Federal authorities, the State authorities may inspect these vehicles to determine their fitness for use on the several highways, varying, as these ways do, in width and structure, with their bridges and tunnels of *620 differing dimensions and capacities. And these permits are issued to the holders of certificates of necessity and convenience as authority to operate vehicles of given type over designated and prescribed routes, as an' incident of the right also reserved to the State to minimize traffic congestion, as well as to confine them to routes of most suitable construction, all within the police power to supervise and control use of the State highways for the protection of the public from those hazards to persons and property inherently incident to the operation of motor vehicles, known to common experience and judicially recognized. See Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U. S., 352, 356, 47 S. Ct., 632, 71 L. Ed., 1091, 1094. Before issuing such certificates and permits the State Utilities Commission “inspects” the vehicles proposed for operation, taking into consideration the schedules to be followed, including elements of frequency and speed, comparative congestion and obstruction and relative inconvenience to other and general use of the particular route.

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Bluebook (online)
162 S.W.2d 370, 178 Tenn. 614, 14 Beeler 614, 1941 Tenn. LEXIS 90, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mccanless-v-southeastern-greyhound-lines-inc-tenn-1942.