People of Porto Rico v. American R.

254 F. 369, 165 C.C.A. 589, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1312
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedDecember 4, 1918
DocketNo. 1321
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 254 F. 369 (People of Porto Rico v. American R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People of Porto Rico v. American R., 254 F. 369, 165 C.C.A. 589, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1312 (1st Cir. 1918).

Opinion

AUDRICPI, District Judge.

[1] The central and substantial question in this case is whether, at the time in question, the supposed regulatory provision of section 7 of an act of the legislative assembly of Porto Rico dated March 12, 1908, and entitled “Public Service Corporations” (Comp. Stat. Porto Rico, p. 72), was operative and prohibi-

tive of railroad rate raising .without the consent or approval of the executive council of Porto Rico, and we think it was.

The Act of Congress of April 12, 1900, c. 191, 31 Stat. 77, entitled “An act temporarily to provide revenues and a civil government for Porto Rico, and for other purposes,” now known as the Eoraker Act, [370]*370and recognized as the Organic Raw of the island, created a local legislative assembly, to consist of two houses, and designated the two houses thus constituted as “the legislative assembly of Porto Rico,-” and provided the manner in which the members should be elected.

As Congress might well do, under its plenary power in respect to territories and possessions of the United States (Clinton v. Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434, 441, 20 L. Ed. 659; National Bank v. Yankton County, 101 U. S. 129, 25 L. Ed. 1046; Mormon Church v. United States, 136 U. S. 1, 10 Sup. Ct. 792, 34 L. Ed. 481; Dorr v. United States, 195 U. S. 138, 24 Sup. Ct. 808, 49 L. Ed. 128, 1 Ann. Cas. 697), it broadly and plainly delegated local legislative powers to the assembly which it thus created. The purpose is gathered from sections 8, 14, 15, 27, 32 (Comp. St. 1916, §§ 3755, 3762, 3763, 3776, 3781), and from the rather general scope of what was intended as an organic law, creating a temporary civil government to be administered under the auspices of the United States, and we think the plan of government contemplated that the legislative assembly which it created should take the initiative in respect to questions like those relating to local freight rates. Indeed, through section 32 of the act it is expressly declared “that the legislative authority herein provided shall extend to all matters of a legislative character not locally inapplicable.”

In a period in which considerations of public policy required government restraint and control in respect to railway rates, and acting under supposed delegated authority to legislate with respect to such a subject, the assembly of Porto Rico through the act of March 12, 1908, which was an act for'the regulation of public service corporations in Porto Rico, through section 7, declared that — '

“It snail be unlawful for any public corporation to charge, demand, collect or receive a greater or less compensation for any service performed by it than is specified in the tariff or schedules, rules and regulations approved by the executive council.” Comp. Stat. Porto Bieo, p. 72.

The railroad in question was a New York corporation and was operating a railway in Porto Rico, and although it had theretofore submitted its schedules to the-executive council, rather than to the Interstate Commerce Commission, and had been going along under a schedule of freight rates which had been approved by the executive council of Porto Rico, without authority from1 that body, and while its petition for permission and authority to increase its schedule of rates was pending before it, put into effect a schedule of freight tariffs for the transportation of sugar cane and its products, which increased the rates twenty per cent, above the schedule which had been approved and under which it had been operating. And the Porto Rican executive council thereafter, in the. pending proceeding of the railroad for permission to increase, ordered that no change should be made without its approval. • .

Upon the general question as to what of the general laws, if any, and upon the question as to which of the acts of Congress having particular reference to a civil government in Porto Rico were exclusively operative and effective there, there was considerable discussion at the arguments in respect to the character of the relation which the island [371]*371of Porto Rico sustains to the United States — whether it is that of a territory or that of a possession.

In Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244, 21 Sup. Ct. 770, 45 L Ed. 1088, which was a customs case, and in Kopel v. Bingham, 211 U. S. 468, 29 Sup. Ct. 190, 53 L. Ed. 286, which was a case for the extradition of a fugitive criminal, the relationship of Porto Rico apparently is not recognized as that of a territory fully incorporated into the United States. In Dorr v. United States, 195 U. S. 138, 24 Sup. Ct. 808, 49 L. Ed. 128, 1 Ann. Cas. 697, it was decided that the Philippine Islands were not incorporated into the United States, and it was said that until territory ceded by treaty has been incorporated into the United States, it is to he governed under Congress, without the restrictions which are imposed upon it when passing laws for the United States as a political body of states in union.

To sustain its contention that jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission was exclusive in the island of Porto Rico under the general provision of section 14 of the Eoraker Act of April 12, 1900, which declares that the statutory laws of the United States, not locally inapplicable, have the same force and effect in Porto Rico as in the United States, the appellee chieiiv relies upon American Railroad Co. v. Birch, 224 U. S. 547, 32 Sup. Ct. 603, 56 L. Ed. 879, and American Railroad Co. v. Didricksen, 227 U. S. 145, 33 Sup. Ct. 224, 57 L. Ed. 456.

The first of these was a case under the Employers’ Uiability Act (Act April 22, 1908, c. 149, 35 Stat. 65 [Comp. St. 1916, §§ 8657-8665]), and the decision was upon the ground that the act expressly applies to Porto Rico, and this, as we understand, was upon the theory that the act by its terms not only included all common carriers in die states, in the territories, the District of Columbia, the Panama Canal Zone, but “other possessions of the United States.” Thus the decision was based upon the scope of the statute rather than upon any strict interpretation of tire question whether Porto Rico is a territory of the United States, or a possession.

And in the second of these cases, that of Didricksen, involving the question whether the Safety Appliance Act of March 2, 1903 (Act March 2, 1903, c. 976, 32 Stat. 943 [Comp. St.

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Bluebook (online)
254 F. 369, 165 C.C.A. 589, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1312, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-of-porto-rico-v-american-r-ca1-1918.