Chicago, M. & St. P. R.R. v. Minn.: Mr. Justice MILLER concurring

MR. JUSTICE MILLER concurring.

Chicago, M. & St. P. R.R. v. Minn.

MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD delivered the opinion of the court.

Justice Bradley joined by Justice Gray and Justice Lamar dissenting in a separate opinion.

MR. JUSTICE MILLER concurring

I concur with some hesitation in the judgment of the court, but wish to make a few suggestions of the principles which I think should govern this class of questions in the courts. Not desiring to make a dissent, nor a prolonged argument in favor of any views I may have, I will state them in the form of propositions.

1. In regard to the business of common carriers limited to points within a single State, that State has the legislative power to establish the rates of compensation for such carriage.

2. The power which the legislature has to do this can be exercised through a commission which it may authorize to act in the matter, such as the one appointed by the legislature of Minnesota by the act now under consideration.

3. Neither the legislature nor such commission acting under the authority of the legislature, can establish arbitrarily and without regard to justice and right a tariff of rates for such transportation, which is so unreasonable as to practically destroy the value of property of persons engaged in the carrying business on the one hand, nor so exorbitant and extravagant as to be in utter disregard of the rights of the public for the use of such transportation on the other.

4. In either of these classes of cases there is an ultimate remedy by the parties aggrieved, in the courts, for relief against such oppressive legislation, and especially in the courts of the United States, where the tariff of rates established either by the legislature or by the commission is such as to deprive a party of his property without due process of law.

5. But until the judiciary has been appealed to to declare the regulations made, whether by the legislature or by the commission, voidable for the reasons mentioned, the tariff of rates so fixed is the law of the land, and must be submitted to both by the carrier and the parties with whom he deals.

6. That the proper, if not the only, mode of judicial relief against the tariff of rates established by the legislature or by its commission, is by a bill in chancery asserting its unreasonable character and its conflict with the Constitution of the United States, and asking a decree of court forbidding the corporation from exacting such fare as excessive, or establishing its right to collect the rates as being within the limits of a just compensation for the service rendered.

7. That until this is done it is not competent for each individual having dealings with the carrying corporation, or for the corporation with regard to each individual who demands its services, to raise a contest in the courts over the questions which ought to be settled in this general and conclusive method.

8. But in the present case, where an application is made to the Supreme Court of the State to compel the common carriers, namely, the railroad companies, to perform the services which their duty requires them to do for the general public, which is equivalent to establishing by judicial proceeding the reasonableness of the charges fixed by the commission, I think the court has the same right and duty to inquire into the reasonableness of the tariff of rates established by the commission before granting such relief, that it would have if called upon so to do by a bill in chancery.

9. I do not agree that it was necessary to the validity of the action of the commission that previous notice should have been given to all common carriers interested in the rates to be established, nor to any particular one of them, any more than it would have been necessary, which I think it is not, for the legislature to have given such notice if it had established such rates by legislative enactment.

10. But when the question becomes a judicial one, and the validity and justice of these rates are to be established or rejected by the judgment of a court, it is necessary that the railroad corporations interested in the fare to be considered should have notice and have a right to be heard on the question relating to such fare, which I have pointed out as judicial questions. For the refusal of the Supreme Court of Minnesota to receive evidence on this subject, I think the case ought to be reversed on the ground that this is a denial of due process of law in a proceeding which takes the property of the company, and if this be a just construction of the statute of Minnesota it is for that reason void.