1. A state may make reasonable regulations as to the use of its
highways by private contract carriers, interstate or intrastate,
requiring them to pay reasonable license fees and to provide
insurance to compensate third persons for injuries caused by
negligent operations of such carriers. P.
290 U. S.
171.
2. The South Carolina statute here involved does not compel
private contract carriers to become common carriers.
Id.
3. Construction of this statute by the state court to the effect
that private contract carriers are not required by it to furnish
"cargo insurance"
held conclusive in this Court. P.
290 U. S.
172.
4. Objection that the statute is fatally indefinite
held untenable, its requirements of the party complaining
having been defined by construction by the state supreme court.
Id.
5. The Court will not pass upon a suggested construction of a
state statute and its validity if so construed when the questions,
upon the showing made, are purely academic.
Id.
Page 290 U. S. 170
6. Fees of reasonable amount, exacted by a private contract
carriers using state highways in interstate commerce, for
maintaining those highways and as compensation for their use, and
which are segregated for that purpose, are not objectionable as
placing an undue burden on interstate commerce. P.
290 U. S.
173.
7. Such fees may properly be adjusted according to the carrying
capacities of the vehicles.
Id.
8. The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does
not forbid discriminations in a state statute whereby those who use
the state highways in the regular business of transporting goods
for hire are brought under regulations which do not apply (a) to
persons whose chief business is farming or dairying and who,
occasionally and not as a regular business, haul farm and dairy
products for compensation, and (b) to lumber haulers engaged in
transporting lumber or logs from the forests to the shipping
points.
Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U. S. 553,
distinguished. Pp.
290 U. S. 173,
290 U. S. 177.
168 S.C. 440, 167 S.E. 674, affirmed.
Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court of South Carolina in
a proceeding brought originally in that court, by the state
Railroad Commission, to require the present appellants to conform
to the state laws and regulations conditioning their right to use
the state highways in the business of hauling freight under private
contracts for carriage.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Railroad Commission of South Carolina brought this suit in
the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the state seeking
the enforcement of the state statutes regulating transportation by
motor vehicles. [
Footnote 1]
The petition
Page 290 U. S. 171
alleged that the respondents below, including the present
appellant, fell within Class F of motor vehicle carriers -- that
is, those known as contract carriers of property, not proposing to
operate upon a regular schedule or over a regular route -- and that
they were carrying on their business on the public highways without
having obtained the required certificates or paying the prescribed
license fees. Appellant demurred to the petition and also made
return and answer. The petitioners filed reply. Appellant contended
that the statutory requirements, as applied to him as a private
contract carrier, denied the equal protection of the laws and
deprived him of due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment, and also, as he was engaged in interstate
transportation, were repugnant to the Commerce Clause of the
Federal Constitution. The supreme court of the state decided the
federal questions adversely to these contentions. 168 S.C. 440, 167
S.E. 674, 679.
First. It was competent for the state, in exercising
its control over the use of the highways, to make reasonable
regulations governing that use by private contract carriers. These
regulations may require on the part of interstate as well as
intrastate carriers the payment of reasonable license fees and the
filing of insurance policies to protect the interests of the public
by securing compensation for injuries to third persons and their
property from the negligent operations of such carriers.
Continental Baking Co. v. Woodring, 286 U.
S. 352,
286 U. S.
365-366;
Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U.
S. 251,
287 U. S. 274,
287 U. S. 277.
The statutory requirements, in this instance, do not compel private
contract carriers to become common carriers.
Stephenson v.
Binford, supra, pp.
287 U. S. 265,
287 U. S. 275.
The contention that private contract carriers are required to carry
"cargo insurance" (
Michigan Commission v. Duke,
266 U. S. 570,
266 U. S. 577)
is unavailing in view of the construction to the contrary placed
upon the statute by the state court. That court said (p. 455):
Page 290 U. S. 172
"Our statute, however, like that construed in the
Stephenson case, expressly recognizes the distinction
between common carriers and private contract carriers, and from an
examination of the entire Act it is clear that the Legislature did
not intend to put common carriers and private contract carriers on
the same footing with regard to the matters here complained of. We
think, and so hold, that in the case of private carriers, or
contract carriers, the provisions of § 8511 extend no further than
to require such carriers to execute an indemnity bond, as the
commission may prescribe under the provisions of the Act, for the
protection of the public receiving injury, either in person or in
property, by reason of any act of negligence of such private or
contract carriers. We do not think it was the intent of the
legislature, in the passage of the Act, to require contract
carriers to obtain and carry cargo insurance, and we construe the
Act as not imposing upon them such requirement."
Appellant complains of this construction of the statute as being
contrary to its terms, but that question is not for us. The
decision of the state court is controlling as to the meaning and
extent of the statutory requirements.
St. Louis, S.W. Ry. Co.
v. Arkansas, 235 U. S. 350,
235 U. S. 362;
Supreme Lodge, Knights of Pythias v. Meyer, 265 U. S.
30,
265 U. S. 32-33;
American Railway Express Co. v. F. S. Royster Guano Co.,
273 U. S. 274,
273 U. S. 280. Nor
does the statute as construed exhibit a fatal defect of
indefiniteness. Its requirements as to the appellant, as the state
court has defined them, are not uncertain.
Another objection, that the Railroad Commission was authorized
to regulate the rates of private contract carriers, was answered by
the state court in saying that the Commission had never exercised
such a power, "if any it has under the Act," and hence that
appellant had no ground for complaint. This is an adequate answer
here,
Page 290 U. S. 173
on the present showing, as the Court does not deal with academic
contentions.
Stephenson v. Binford, supra, p.
287 U. S.
277.
Second. Appellant insists that an undue burden is
placed upon interstate commerce because the license fees are based
on the "carrying capacity" of the vehicles. The state court held
that the fees
"are collected, as provided for by § 8517, for the purpose of
maintaining the public highways over which such motor vehicles
shall operate, as compensation for their use."
The statute provides for the segregation, for this purpose, of
the moneys collected.
See Clark v. Poor, 274 U.
S. 554,
274 U. S.
555-557. In this view, the fees are not open to the
objection raised in
Interstate Transit, Inc. v. Lindsey,
283 U. S. 183,
283 U. S.
186-188. Carrying capacity, the size and weight of
trucks, unquestionably have a direct relation to the wear and
hazards of the highways. It is for this reason that the authority
of the state to impose directly reasonable limitations on the
weight and size of vehicles, although applicable to interstate
carriers, has been sustained.
Morris v. Duby, 274 U.
S. 135,
274 U. S. 143;
Sproles v. Binford, 286 U. S. 374,
286 U. S.
388-389. As the state may establish such regulations
directly, the state may adjust its license fees, otherwise valid as
being reasonable and exacted as compensation for the use of the
highways, according to carrying capacity in furtherance of the same
purpose.
Clark v. Poor, supra.
Third. The contention that appellant has been denied
the equal protection of the laws is based on the discrimination
resulting from the exemption of
"farmers or dairymen, hauling dairy or farm products; or lumber
haulers engaged in transporting lumber and logs from the forest to
the shipping points."
Section 8508. Reliance is placed on our decision in
Smith v.
Cahoon, 283 U. S. 553. In
that case, the statute applied to all carriers for compensation
over regular routes and exempted from its provisions
"any
Page 290 U. S. 174
transportation company engaged exclusively in the transporting
agricultural, horticultural, dairy or other farm products and fresh
and Salt Fish and Oysters and Shrimp from the point of production
to the assembling or shipping point enroute to primary market, or
to motor vehicles used exclusively in transporting or delivering
dairy products."
This distinction was thus established between all carriers, and
between private carriers, notwithstanding the fact that they were
"alike engaged in transporting property for compensation over
public highways between fixed termini or over a regular route." The
court was unable to find any justification for this discrimination
between carriers in the same business and operating under like
circumstances -- that is, between those who carried for hire farm
products, or milk or butter, or fish or oysters and those who
carried for hire bread or sugar, or tea or coffee, or groceries in
general, or other useful commodities.
Id., pp.
283 U. S.
566-567.
In
Continental Baking Co. v. Woodring, supra, pp.
286 U. S.
372-373, the statutory exemption ran to one "who is
carrying his own livestock and farm products to market or supplies
for his own use in his own motor vehicle." Attention was called to
the factual basis for the distinction as it had been pointed out by
the District Court, which found a practical difference between the
case of those "who operate fleets of trucks in the conduct of their
business and who use the highways daily in the delivery of their
products to their customers" and that of "a farmer who hauls his
wheat or livestock to town once or twice a year." This Court said
that the legislature, in making its classification, was entitled to
consider frequency and character of use and to adapt its
regulations to the classes of operations which by reason of their
habitual and constant use of the highways brought about the
conditions making regulation imperative and created the necessity
for the imposition of a tax for maintenance and reconstruction. The
Court
Page 290 U. S. 175
quoted the observation in
Alward v. Johnson,
282 U. S. 509,
282 U. S.
513-514:
"The distinction between property employed in conducting a
business which requires constant and unusual use of the highways
and property not so employed is plain enough."
The exemptions in the instant case are not as limited as that in
Continental Baking Co. v. Woodring, but they differ
materially from that found to be objectionable in
Smith v.
Cahoon. The state court thus construed the scope, and
described the effect, of the exemption in favor of farmers and
dairymen:
"Unquestionably, the use by farmers and dairymen for the
transportation of farm and dairy products is seasonal and involves
only a moderate use of the highways, and the exemption here is
further limited by the fact that it can apply only to one whose
principal business is that of a farmer or dairyman and not to one
merely incidentally engaged in farming or dairying."
Further, in its pleading, the Railroad Commission averred that
it had uniformly construed the statute "as exempting farmers and
dairymen only when hauling their own product, or only when hauling
them occasionally and not as a regular business," and had adopted a
formal regulation to that effect. [
Footnote 2] In support of its pleading, and
Page 290 U. S. 176
made a part of it, the Commission presented an affidavit by the
Superintendent of the Motor Transportation Division of the
Commission showing the manner in which the statute had been
applied.
The state court in its opinion said that it reached its
conclusion as to the validity of the statutory provision
"independently of the construction placed by the Railroad
Commission upon the contested provision of the Act." And the Court
pointed out that that construction was "in part" unsound, inasmuch
as "one hauling his own products in his own motor vehicle" did not
come within the purview of the Act, and no provision for his
exemption was necessary. "The exemption," said the Court, "can
refer only to farmers and dairymen hauling farm and dairy products
for compensation." The state court, however, did not express
disagreement with the Commission's construction set forth in its
regulation, that the exemption applied
"to farmers and dairymen who occasionally, but do not regularly
as a part of an established business, haul farm and/or dairy
products for others for hire, but that persons who may also be
engaged in part in farming operations but who make a regular
business of transporting farm and/or dairy or other products for
others for hire are not to be deemed farmers or dairymen for the
purpose of this Act, and hence are required to comply with the Act
in all respects like other persons engaged in motor transportation
for hire."
Nor have we anything before us to show that the statute is being
enforced and the exemption construed in any other sense. Upon the
present record, it appears that the exemption is applied with two
limitations,
first, that, as construed by the state court,
it can refer only "to one whose principal business is that of a
farmer or dairyman, and not to one merely incidentally engaged in
farming or dairying," and,
second, under the construction
of the Commission in enforcing the statute -- a construction not
disapproved by
Page 290 U. S. 177
the state court -- that it applies only to farmers and dairymen
who occasionally, and not as a regular business, transport farm or
dairy products for compensation. We cannot say that a
classification based on such a use of the highways is an arbitrary
one, and thus encounters constitutional objection.
The exemption in favor of those hauling lumber and logs "from
the forest to the shipping points" relates to a limited class of
transportation simply to places of shipment and does not appear to
be unreasonable.
See Sproles v. Binford, supra, p.
286 U. S.
394.
The judgment of the state court is
Affirmed.
[
Footnote 1]
Section 8507 to 8530, chapter 162 of the Code of 1932; Acts of
1925, p. 252, of 1928, p. 1238, of 1930, pp. 1068, 1100, 1327, and
of 1931, p. 145.
[
Footnote 2]
This regulation is as follows:
"The proviso under Section 2 of Act No. 170 of the Acts of 1925,
as amended, providing that nothing contained in said section shall
apply to farmers or dairymen hauling dairy or farm products is
construed by the Railroad Commission in the performance of its
duties in the enforcement of said Act to mean that nothing in the
said section shall apply to farmers or dairymen hauling their own
dairy or farm products, or to farmers and dairymen who
occasionally, but do not regularly as a part of an established
business, haul farm and/or dairy products for others for hire, but
that persons who may also be engaged in part in farming operations,
but who make a regular business of transporting farm and/or dairy
or other products for others for hire, are not to be deemed farmers
or dairymen for the purpose of this Act, and hence are required to
comply with the Act in all respects like other persons engaged in
motor transportation for hire."