A statute of a state requiring every railroad corporation to
stop all regular passenger trains running wholly within the state
at its stations at all county seats long enough to take on and
discharge passengers with safety is a reasonable exercise of the
police power of the state, and does.not take property of the
company without due process of law, nor does it, as applied to a
train connecting with a train of the same company running into
another state and carrying some interstate passengers and the
United States mail, unconstitutionally interfere with interstate
commerce, or with the transportation of the mails of the United
States.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE GRAY delivered the opinion of the Court.
This was a complaint to a justice of the peace of the County of
Pine and State of Minnesota by a passenger on a regular passenger
train of the St. Paul & Duluth Railroad Company running between
the Cities of St. Paul and Duluth in the state,
Page 166 U. S. 428
and not being "a train entering this state from another state,
or going from this state to another state, to a transcontinental
train," against the engineer of the train for not stopping it on
July 22, 1893, at the station the the Village of Pine City, the
county seat of Pine County, as required by the statute of Minnesota
of March 31, 1893, c. 60, by which it was enacted as follows:
"All regular passenger trains run by any common carrier
operating a railway in this state or by any receiver, agent, lessee
or trustee of said common carrier shall stop a sufficient length of
time at its stations at all county seats within this state to take
on and discharge passengers from such trains with safety, and any
engineer, conductor or other agent, servant, or employee of, or any
person acting for, such common carrier or for any receiver, agent,
lessee or trustee of such common carrier who violates any provision
of this act is guilty of a misdemeanor and is punishable by a fine
of not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than one hundred
dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail for not less than
ten days nor more than three months, provided, however, that this
act shall not apply to through railroad trains entering this state
from any other state or to transcontinental trains of any
railroad."
Minnesota Laws of 1893, p. 173.
The defendant was convicted before the justice of the peace, and
appealed to the District Court for the county. Upon the trial in
that court, the case appeared to be as follows:
The St. Paul & Duluth Railroad Company was a corporation of
the State of Minnesota, and had become vested under the laws of the
state with the lands received by the state under the Act of
Congress of May 5, 1864, c. 79, "making a grant of lands to the
State of Minnesota to aid in the construction of the railroad from
St. Paul to Lake Superior," and providing that
"the said railroad shall be and remain a public highway for the
use of the government of the United States, free from all toll or
other charge, for the transportation of any property or troops of
the United States;"
that "the United States mail shall be transported over said
road, under the direction of the Post Office Department," at prices
to be fixed
Page 166 U. S. 429
by Congress or by the Postmaster General, and that
"any railroad which may hereafter be constructed from any point
on the Bay of Superior in the State of Wisconsin shall be permitted
to connect with the said railroad."
13 Stat. 64, 65; Minnesota Special Laws of 1865, p. 19, c. 2;
State v. Luther, 56 Minn. 156.
On the afternoon of July 2, 1893, the complainant was a
passenger on a train of the company running from St. Paul to
Duluth, and held a ticket for a passage from Rush City to Pine
City, both being stations on the line between St. Paul and Duluth,
and Pine City being a village of 800 inhabitants and the county
seat of Pine County, but, although he showed his ticket to the
conductor, the train was not stopped at Pine City. The train was a
fast express train, known as "The Limited," carrying passengers and
the United States mail, running daily from St. Paul to Duluth only,
stopping for wood and water at Hinckley, and at railroad crossings
and junctions at Rush City and elsewhere, but not scheduled to stop
nor actually stopping at Pine City or other stations on the way.
The mail and about one-third of the passengers, on the average,
were destined for West Superior, and were transferred at West
Duluth, in the State of Minnesota, to another train of the same
company running thence to the City of West Superior in the State of
Wisconsin, just across the line between the two states. To have
stopped the train at Pine City would have caused a loss of time of
from five to seven minutes, and an expense of from $1.20 to $1.60.
Two passenger trains and a mixed train passed daily each way over
the road from St. Paul to Duluth, stopping at Pine City.
The defendant, as stated in his bill of exceptions,
"moved the court for his discharge on the ground that the
statute under which the complaint is made is unconstitutional on
its face, not falling within the legitimate scope of the police
power of the state, consequently being a taking of the property of
this railroad company without due process of law; that, even if it
is not unconstitutional on its face, it is unconstitutional as
applied to the train in controversy -- in the first place being an
attempt on the part of the state to regulate
Page 166 U. S. 430
interstate commerce, and secondly being an unlawful interference
with and an attempt to regulate the United States mail."
The court denied the motion, and submitted the case to the jury,
who returned a verdict of guilty, upon which judgment was rendered.
The defendant appealed to the supreme court of the state, which
affirmed the judgment. 57 Minn. 390. The defendant sued out this
writ of error.
The principles of law which govern this case are familiar, and
have been often affirmed by this Court. A railroad corporation
created by a state is, for all purposes of local government, a
domestic corporation, and its railroad within the state is a matter
of domestic concern. Even when its road connects, as most railroads
do, with railroads in other states, the state which created the
corporation may make all needful regulations of a police character
for the government of the company while operating its road in that
jurisdiction. It may prescribe the location and the plan of
construction of the road, the rate of speed at which the trains
shall run, and the places at which they shall stop, and may make
any other reasonable regulations for their management in order to
secure the objects of the incorporation and the safety, good order,
convenience, and comfort of the passengers and of the public. All
such regulations are strictly within the police power of the state.
They are not in themselves regulations of interstate commerce, and
it is only when they operate as such in the circumstances of their
application, and conflict with the express or presumed will of
Congress exerted upon the same subject that they can be required to
give way to the paramount authority of the Constitution of the
United States.
Stone v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.,
116 U. S. 307,
116 U. S.
333-334;
Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.
S. 465,
124 U. S.
481,-482;
Hennington v. Georgia, 163 U.
S. 299,
163 U. S. 308,
163 U. S. 317;
New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad v. New York,
165 U. S. 628,
165 U. S.
632.
In Minnesota, as in other states, the county seat of each county
is the place appointed for holding the meeting of the county
commissioners and the sessions of the district court, and for
keeping the offices of the clerk of that court, the
Page 166 U. S. 431
judge of probate, the county auditor, the county treasurer, the
sheriff, and the register of deeds. Minnesota Gen.Stat. 1878, c. 8.
ยงยง 102, 129, 148, 174, 195, 220, 227, 258.
The legislature of the state may well treat it as one important
object of establishing a railroad within the state that public
officers, parties to actions, jurors, witnesses, and citizens
generally, should be enabled the more promptly to reach and leave
the centers to which their duties or business may call them. To
require every regular passenger train running wholly within the
limits of the state to stop at all stations at county seats
directly in its course, for the few minutes and at the trifling
expense needed to take on and discharge passengers with safety, is
a reasonable exercise of the police power of the state, and cannot
be considered a taking of property of the company without due
process of law, nor an unconstitutional interference with
interstate commerce or with the transportation of the mails of the
United States.
The recent case of
Illinois Central Railroad v.
Illinois, 163 U. S. 142,
cited by the plaintiff in error, was essentially different from the
present case.
In that case, the statute of the State of Illinois, as construed
and applied by the supreme court of the state, required a fast
train, carrying interstate passengers and the United States mail
from Chicago, in the State of Illinois, to places in other states
south of the Ohio River, over an interstate highway established by
authority of Congress, to delay the transportation of such
passengers and mails by turning aside from the direct interstate
route, and running to a station three miles and a half away from a
point on that route and back again to the same point, and thus
traveling seven miles which formed no part of its course, before
proceeding on its way, and, as the court observed, the question
whether a statute which merely required interstate railroad trains,
without going out of their course, to stop at county seats would be
within the constitutional power of the state was not presented and
could not be decided upon the record in that case. 163 U.S.
163 U. S.
153-154.
But in the case at bar, the train in question ran wholly
Page 166 U. S. 432
within the State of Minnesota, and could have stopped at the
county seat of Pine County without deviating from its course, and
the statute of Minnesota expressly provides that "this act shall
not apply to through railroad trains entering this state from any
other state, or to transcontinental trains of any railroad."
Judgment affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BREWER did not hear the argument, and took no part
in the decision of this case.