The Railway Library, 1909: A Collection of Noteworthy Chapters, Addresses, and Papers Relating to Railways, Mostly Published During the Year
History
The Railway Library, 1909: A Collection of Noteworthy Chapters, Addresses, and Papers Relating to Railways, Mostly Published During the Year
Railroads -- United States -- Periodicals
It is claimed that the indefinite suspension of the rate until
final hearing is to deprive the carrier, if the rate advanced is
reasonable, of its right of property during the period of suspension,
without having given it any opportunity to be heard prior to the
act of suspension. Due process of law must precede, and should not
follow, the suspension. To set aside the carrier's act in fixing
the rate pending the investigation required by due process of law
is to deprive the carrier, pro tanto, of its property right to
charge a reasonable rate. The fact that the statute requires an
investigation after the suspension of the rate does not avoid the
constitutional inhibition, as that provision can only be satisfied
when the investigation precedes any disturbance of property rights.
The carrier is entitled to the investigation before it is restrained
in the _exercise_ of its property rights; the theory of the amendment
suggested is that the shipper is entitled to an investigation before
the carrier can _exercise_ its property rights.
Those contending for this objection to the amendment assumed that
the indefinite suspension without hearing of the act of the carrier
which deprived it, beyond a reasonable time, of the benefit of the
advanced rate, was in effect the same as that which was condemned by
the Supreme Court in the case of the Chicago, M. & St. P. R. R. Co.
against Minnesota. Under the statute of that State, a carrier had
the right to initiate the rate, and to put it in effect, and, under
the law, the commission was authorized to make such changes as it
deemed proper in the schedule so filed, and to direct the carrier
to modify or change the schedule in accordance with the decision of
the tribunal. In the one case the going into effect of the rate is
suspended indefinitely without notice or hearing; in the other, the
rate is changed or modified without hearing. On page 418 the court
condemns this in the following language:
"No hearing is provided for, no summons or notice to the
company before the commission has found what it is to find and
declared what it is to declare, no opportunity provided for the
company to introduce witnesses before the commission, in fact,
nothing which has the semblance of the process of law."
On page 458 the court said:
"If the company is deprived of the power of charging reasonable
rates for the use of its property, and such deprivation takes
place in the absence of an investigation by judicial machinery,
it is deprived of the lawful use of its property, and thus, in
substance and effect of the property itself without due process
of law and in violation of the Constitution of the United
States."
This view of the law as announced in 134 U. S. was affirmed by the
Supreme Court in the case of Louisville and Nashville Co. against
Kentucky, 183 U. S., 510.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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