State ex rel. Great Northern Railway Co. v. Railroad Commission

110 P. 1075, 60 Wash. 218, 1910 Wash. LEXIS 1031
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 23, 1910
DocketNo. 8864
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 110 P. 1075 (State ex rel. Great Northern Railway Co. v. Railroad Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Great Northern Railway Co. v. Railroad Commission, 110 P. 1075, 60 Wash. 218, 1910 Wash. LEXIS 1031 (Wash. 1910).

Opinion

Parker, J.

The railroad commission instituted an inquiry upon its own motion against the Great Northern Railway Company, touching the adequacy of service rendered and facilities furnished at different stations and places upon its line of railway. Hearings were had and evidence adduced relative to the matters involved, and at the conclusion thereof the commission made orders requiring the. railway company to furnish certain services and facilities. The railway company, deeming itself aggrieved by certain of these orders, and desiring to have them reviewed and their reasonableness and lawfulness inquired into and determined, instituted proceedings in the superior court for King county for that purpose, as provided by § 8629, Rem. & Bal. Code. Thereupon that court, by writ of review, caused to be certified to it the orders and proceedings had before the commission relative thereto, including the evidence upon which such orders were based. Thereafter, upon a hearing in the superior court, it [221]*221rendered judgment reversing certain of the orders and affirming others made by the commission. Thereupon the commission appealed to this court from the judgment of the superior court reversing certain of its orders, and the railway company appealed to this court from the judgment of the superior court affirming other orders made by the commission. We will not attempt to state the issues involved except as they will appear in our discussion of the particular orders in question, which we will deal with separately, after noticing some matters we deem best to dispose of preliminary thereto.

We are first confronted with a motion of the railway company to dismiss the appeal of the commission, upon the ground that the commission has no right of appeal. The contentions of learned counsel for the railway company upon this motion may be reduced to two propositions: (1) That the law does not give any right of appeal from the superior court save to the corporation whose duty to the public is being inquired into; (2) that, in any event, the commission is not a party in the sense that it can be aggrieved by the decision of the superior court. The provisions of the railway commission law relating to appeals from the superior court are found in § 8629, Rem. & Bal. Code, as follows:

“Said railroad, express, telephone or telegraph company shall have the right of appeal or to prosecute by other appropriate proceedings, from the judgment of the superior court to the supreme court of the state of Washington, as in other civil .cases. In all such proceedings, however, bonds shall be required conditioned as hereinbefore provided in addition to the usual appeal bond.”

The additional bond here mentioned is the bond required by a preceding provision of this section as a condition precedent to the suspension of the orders of the commission pending a review thereof in the courts. Now, if the railway commission law was silent as to the matter of appeal from the superior court to the supreme court, it could hardly be seriously contended that the general law relating to appeals [222]*222was not ample to afford any aggrieved party the fight of appeal from a judgment rendered by a superior court upon a review of orders of the commission. By that law it is provided, in § 1716, Rem. & Bal. Code:

“Any party aggrieved may appeal to the supreme court in the mode prescribed in this title from any and every of the following determinations, and no others, made by the superior court, or a judge thereof, in any action or proceeding.

“(1) From the final judgment entered in any action or proceeding, . . . .”

In art, 4, § 4, of our constitution, it is provided:

“The supreme court shall have . . . appellate jurisdiction in all actions and proceedings, excepting that its appellate jurisdiction shall not extend to civil actions at law for the recovery of money or personal property when the original amount in controversy or the value of the property does not exceed the sum of two hundred dollars. . . .”

We do not quote this constitutional provision with a view to arguing that the state may not withhold the right of appeal from one of its officers or commissions when made a party to an action or proceeding involving a matter of public concern only, but only as indicating the general liberal policy of our laws in allowing appeals to our court of last resort. In view of these statutory and constitutional provisions, we are not inclined to deny the right of appeal to the commission, in the absence of some special statute clearly evidencing the legislative intent to that effect. The only evidence we have of such an intent by the legislature is the provisions of § 8629 above quoted, which in terms seems to give the right of appeal to the railway company, with no provision therein as to an appeal by the commission or other party that may have instituted the proceedings in the first instance. If we need to look for a reason for the mentioning of the appeal by the railway company to avoid the conclusion that it was not intended to accord this right to the commission or other original complainant, it may be found in the special provision relat[223]*223ing to giving bond other than the usual appeal bond in connection with the appeal by the railway company.

It may be well argued, as suggested by learned counsel for the commission, that the matter of appeal by the railway company was only mentioned in this statute for the purpose of prescribing the conditions upon which it might prosecute such appeal. It was certainly unnecessary to there give the right which was already so clearly given by the general appeal law. In any event, we are of the opinion that the mere absence of any express provision in the railway commission law giving the right of appeal to the commission, notwithstanding other provisions therein, does not give rise to an inference of sufficient strength to take from the commission the right of appeal so plainly given by the general law on that subject; providing, of course, the commission has such an interest in the matter as to be an aggrieved party.

It is argued by learned counsel for the railway company that the commission is not concerned officially or otherwise with the questions here involved; that while the law has conferred upon it the right to institute the inquiry by complaint before itself, and conduct the proceeding and make orders thereon, it can go no further, because the legislature has not in terms authorized it to do so. This argument, carried to its logical conclusion, would mean that, in a case where the inquiry was instituted at the instance of the commission, and its orders thereon were brought before the superior court for review, as they were in this case, the superior court would review such orders ex parte, hearing no one save the railway company. This is not analogous to a case appealed from a purely judicial tribunal where the tribunal appealed from has determined questions of private right between litigants. Of course, such a tribunal has no legal interest in maintaining its judgment. This commission is not such a tribunal. True, it acts in a sense judicially when it renders its decisions and makes its orders upon a hearing, but it acts in an altogether different capacity when it makes the preliminary complaint [224]*224and seeks to have its decisions and orders enforced.

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Bluebook (online)
110 P. 1075, 60 Wash. 218, 1910 Wash. LEXIS 1031, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-great-northern-railway-co-v-railroad-commission-wash-1910.