Pennsylvania Company v. Public Service Commission of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania/Opinion of the Court

This case was begun by a complaint to the Public Service Commission of Pennsylvania that the plaintiff in error, the Pennsylvania Railroad, ran a specified train the last car of which was not equipped at its rear end with a platform thirty inches in width, guard rails and steps, as required by a statute of Pennsylvania. Act of June 19, 1911 (P. L. 1054) § 7. The train was moving in interstate commerce. The Railroad Company admitted the facts but contended that it was not bound by the statute because the rear car was a mail car constructed in accordance with the regulations of the Post Office Department, and because the Government of the United States had assumed control of the matter so far as to exclude such intermeddling on the part of a State. The Commission made an order that the Rail road Company should operate its train with the rear end of the rear car equipped as required by the state law. The Railroad Company appealed to the Superior Court, setting up that the order violated the commerce clause of the Constitution (Art. 1, § 8) and that in view of the federal legislation and rules, including the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission dated March 13, 1911, and made under the Safety Appliance Act (Act March 2, 1893, c. 196, 27 Stat. 531 [Comp. St. §§ 8605-8612]), and other matters referred to, the State Commission had no power to do what it did.

The Superior Court sustained the order holding itself bound by what it took to be the decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. Ewing, 241 Pa. 581, 88 Atl. 775, 49 L. R. A. (N. S.) 977, Ann. Cas. 1915B, 157, to the effect that nothing had been done by the United States inconsistent with the continued effect of the state law. An appeal to the Supreme Court was refused. On the strength of this it now is argued that the refusal must have been upon the ground that the Commission was a purely administrative body; that it had no judicial power to declare the statute unconstitutional; that therefore no question of the constitutionality of the Act was before the Superior Court, and that this is implied because an appeal to the Supreme Court was a matter of right if the case had involved such a question. But whatever powers a State may deny to its commissions it cannot give them power to do what the laws of the United States forbid, whether they call their action administrative or judicial. The Superior Court treated the question as open. The Supreme Court merely denied an appeal upon a point that probably was thought to have been decided already by the Court.

We pass to the merits of the case. If all that had been done on behalf of the United States in the way of regulation had been to determine how mail cars should be built, and to exclude a thirty-inch platform, it might be said that the state law could be obeyed by putting a different car at the end of the train. It would be a tax upon the railroad when the company wished to run a mail train wholly made up of mail cars, but it could be done and it is not necessary to say that the State could not require it. But when the United States has exercised its exclusive powers over interstate commerce so far as to take possession of the field, the States no more can supplement its requirements than they can annul them. Southern Ry. Co. v. Railroad Commission of Indiana, 236 U.S. 439, 446, 35 Sup. Ct. 304, 59 L. Ed. 661; Charleston & Western Carolina Ry. Co. v. Varnville Furniture Co., 237 U.S. 597, 604, 35 Sup. Ct. 715, 59 L. Ed. 1137, Ann. Cas. 1916D, 333; New York Central R. R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 147, 37 Sup. Ct. 546, 57 L. Ed. 1045, L. R. A. 1918C, 439, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 1139. In the present instance the rules for the construction of mail cars, admitted to be valid, not only exclude the wide platform but provide an equipment for them when used as end cars. The Safety Appliance Act with its careful requirements for the safety of the men was followed by most elaborate regulations issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission which include three large pages of prescriptions for 'Caboose Cars without Platforms.' Caboose cars constantly are used as end cars and these pages like the Post Office order as to mail cars recognize the lawfulness of an end car such as the Pennsylvania statute forbids.

The question whether Congress and its commissions acting under it have so far exercised the exclusive jurisdiction that belongs to it as to exclude the State, must be answered by a judgment upon the particular case. The subject-matter in this instance is peculiarly one that calls for uniform law and in our opinion regulation by the paramount authority has gone so far that the statute of Pennsylvania cannot impose the additional obligation in issue here. The Interstate Commerce Commission is continually on the alert, and if the Pennsylvania law represents a real necessity, no doubt will take or recommend steps to meet the need.

Judgment reversed.

Mr. Justice CLARKE dissenting.