Southern Pac. Co. v. Bartine

170 F. 725, 1909 U.S. App. LEXIS 5548
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Nevada
DecidedMarch 3, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 170 F. 725 (Southern Pac. Co. v. Bartine) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Nevada primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Southern Pac. Co. v. Bartine, 170 F. 725, 1909 U.S. App. LEXIS 5548 (circtdnv 1909).

Opinion

FARRINGTON, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above), 'filíese suits were brought to prevent enforcement of the so-called “Railroad Commission Law” on the ground that it is repugnant to the federal and to the state Constitutions. Substantially the same issues are raised in each case, therefore all will be considered together. 1. The title of the act (St. 1Í307, p. 73, c. 44) is as follows:

“An act to regulate railroads, telegraph and telephone companies and other common carriers in this state, creating a liailroad Commission, constituting the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, and the Attorney-General a railroad board for the appointment and removal of the railroad commissioners. prevent the imposition of unreasonable rates, prevent unjust discrimination, insure an adequate railway service, and fixing máximum freight charges.”

[736]*736In brief, the act provides for the creation of a Railroad Commission, charges it with the administration and enforcement of the law, defines its powers and duties, fixes the compensation of its members, fixes maximum freight rates, empowers the commission, to establish rates after investigation, prohibits unjust discrimination, provides methods of procedure to enforce the law, and fixes penalties for its violation. It empowers the' commission to investigate infractions of the interstate commerce law, and apply to the railroads and to the Interstate Commerce Commission for relief. It also empowers the commission to investigate fatal accidents in railroad service. In section 37 it attempts to control the interpretation of the act itself by declaring that each section and every part of each section is independent, and the invalidity of any section or any part thereof shall not be deemed to affect any other section or part thereof. And finally, in section 38, it states that “All acts and parts of acts in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.”

The act is unquestionably in conflict with previous legislation on the same subject. Thus the maximum compensation of 20 cents per ton mile provided in section 51 of the act of 1865 (St. 1865, p. 427, c. 146) is not in harmony with the elaborate scheme of maximum freight charges set out in section 7 of the act of 1907, where the rates range from one-half of one cent per mile for transporting one ton of rough stone to 20 cents per mile for hauling each ton of four times first-class freight.

The act of 1879 provides that' each and every railroad shall fix its own rates, and that the rates so fixed shall not govern or affect the rate or rates of any other railroad company, provided such rates shall not exceed the rates now allowed by law. The act of 1907 permits the Railroad Commission, after investigation and a finding that former rates are unreasonable or unjustly discriminatory, to fix new rates, .which must be reasonable but cannot exceed the prescribed maxima. Again, several sections of the act of 1907 cover practically the same ground embraced in the act of 1879, but with substantially different methods of procedure and different penalties.

Section 17 of article 4 of the Constitution of Nevada reads thus:

“Each law enacted by tbe Legislature shall embrace but one subject and matters property connected therewith, which subject shall be briefly expressed in the title; and no law shall be revised or amended by reference to its title only; but, in such case, the act as revised, or section as amended, shall be re-enacted and published at length.”

The design of the first of these provisions is not to contract the field of legislation, but to prevent the union in the same act of subjects having no necessary or proper connection.. Each subject of legislation must stand alone, and, if enacted into law, it should succeed by reason of its own merits. Otherwise, by bringing into one bill divers disconnected subjects, and by combining the advocates of e.ach in support of all, it might be possible to force the adoption of measures no one of which could pass on its own merits.

If it were permissible to insert in the same statute incongruous matters, some of which need not be expressed in the title, legislators might inadvertently vote for measures which they pould not and would not [737]*737kr.'nvingly approve. So, also, unwise and vicious schemes might thus become law before there was opportunity to oppose them by protest or petition, or through the public press. The people are entitled to timely and adequate notice of all contemplated legislation. State v. Ah Sam, 15 Nev. 27, 32, 27 Am. Rep. 454; State v. Com’rs Humboldt Co., 21 Nev. 235, 237, 29 Pac. 974; People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481, 494; State v. Hyde, 129 Ind. 296, 28 N. E. 186, 13 L. R. A. 79, 80.

In the title of the act of 1907 there is no suggestion of revising, amending, or repealing earlier legislation. The railroad acts of 1865 and 1879 are not referred to, nor is there any mention of the rule of construction formulated in section 37 of the act. In this the act is said to violate the first clause of the constitutional provision above recited. In other words, the act embraces not one, but several subjects, of which two are not expressed in the title.

A valid statute may embrace many matters and a multitude of details, but they must all relate to one general subject, which must itself be expressed in the title. Whether this subj ect shall be comprehensive or restrictive rests with the Legislature. The subject and the title may he broad enough to embrace the whole field of criminal law. In such a case the definition and punishment of larceny, embezzlement, and burglary might properly be included in the same act, but, if the act be entitled “An act to define and punish larceny,” any attempt to include therein a definition of murder would be improper.

The details of a legislative act need not be specifically stated in its title, but matter germane to the subject as expressed in the title, and adapted to the accomplishment of the object in view, may properly be included in tne act. State v. Atherton, 19 Nev. 332, 344, 10 Pac. 901. Thus it is proper to create in the same act the machinery by which the act is to be enforced, to prescribe the penalties for its infraction, and to remove obstacles in the way of its execution. If such matters are properly connected with the subject as expressed in the title, it is unnecessary that they should also have special mention in the title. It would be difficult to conceive of a matter more germane to an act and to the object to be accomplished thereby than the repeal of conflicting legislation. In such a case the practical working of the new statute would be aided by repeal of the old law.

Where a statute by implication amends or repeals a former law, such repeal is the effect and not the subject of the statute; and it is the subject, not the effect of a law, which is required to be briefly expressed in its title. If the necessary effect of the statute is to repeal previous legislation on the same subject, it does no violence to the Constitution by failing to express specifically such repeal in its title. 1 Lewis’ Sutherland, Stat. Constr. pp. 223, 224; Cooley, Const. I,im. (ith Ed.) p. 208; People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481, 494; Timm v. Harrison, 109 Ill. 593, 596; City of Winona v. School Dist., 40 Minn. 13, 41 N. W. 539, 3 L. R. A. 46, 12 Am. St. Rep. 687; Gabbert v. Jeffersonville R. R. Co., 11 Ind. 365, 71 Am. Dec. 358; Yellow River Imp. Co. v. Arnold, 46 Wis. 214, 232, 49 N. W. 971; Union Trust Co. v. Trumbull, 137 Ill. 146, 27 N. E. 24; Crookston v. Bd. of Co.

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170 F. 725, 1909 U.S. App. LEXIS 5548, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/southern-pac-co-v-bartine-circtdnv-1909.