Although a carrier is under a duty to accept goods tendered at its station, it cannot be required, upon payment simply for the service of carriage, to accept cars offered at an arbitrary connection point near its terminus by a competing road seeking to reach and use the former's terminal facilities. Nor may a carrier be required to deliver its cars to connecting carriers without adequate protection from loss or undue detention or compensation for their use.[257] But a carrier may be compelled to interchange its freight cars with other carriers under reasonable terms,[258] and to accept, for reshipment over its lines to points within the State, cars already loaded and in suitable condition.[259]

Intercompany Discriminatory Railroad Service Charges.—Due process is not denied when two carriers, who wholly own and dominate a small connecting railroad, are prohibited from exacting higher charges from shippers accepting delivery over said connecting road than are collected from shippers taking delivery at the terminals of said carriers.[260] Nor is it "unreasonable" or "arbitrary" to require a railroad to desist from demanding freight in advance on merchandise received from one carrier while it accepts merchandise of the same character at the same point from another carrier without such prepayment.[261]

Safety Regulations Applicable to Railroads

The following regulations with reference to railroads have been upheld: a prohibition against operation on certain streets,[262] restrictions on speed, operations, etc., in business sections,[263] requirement of construction of a sidewalk across a right of way,[264] or removal of a track crossing a thoroughfare,[265] compelling the presence of a flagman at a crossing notwithstanding that automatic device might be cheaper and better,[266] compulsory examination of employees for color blindness,[267] full crews on certain trains,[268] specification of a type of locomotive headlight,[269] safety appliance regulations,[270] and a prohibition on the heating of passenger cars from stoves or furnaces inside or suspended from the cars.[271]

Liabilities and Penalties

A statute making the initial carrier[272] or the connecting or delivering carrier,[273] liable to the shipper for the nondelivery of goods is not unconstitutional; nor is a law which provides that a railroad shall be responsible in damages to the owner of property injured by fire communicated by its locomotive engines and which grants the railroad an insurable interest in such property along its route and authority to procure insurance against such liability.[274] Equally consistent with the requirements of due process are the following two enactments; the first, imposing on all common carriers a penalty for failure to settle within a reasonable specified period claims for freight lost or damaged in shipment and conditioning payment of that penalty upon recovery by the claimant in subsequent suit of more than the amount tendered,[275] and the second, levying double damages and an attorney's fee upon a railroad for failure to pay within a reasonable time after demand the amount claimed by an owner for stock injured or killed. However, only in the event that the application of the latter statute is limited to cases where the plaintiff has not demanded more than he recovered in court will its constitutionality be upheld;[276] but when the penalty allowed thereunder is exacted in a case in which the plaintiff demanded more than he sued for and recovered, a defendant railroad is arbitrarily deprived of its property without due process.[277] The requirements of fair play are similarly violated by a statute which, by imposing double liability for failure to pay the full amount of damages within 60 days after notice, unless the claimant recovers less than the amount offered in settlement, in effect penalizes a carrier for guessing incorrectly what a jury would award.[278]

To penalize a carrier which has collected transportation charges in excess of established maximum rates by permitting a person wronged to sue for and collect as liquidated damages $500 plus a reasonable attorney's fee is to subject the carrier to a requirement so unreasonable as to be repugnant to the due process clause; for such liability is not only disproportionate to actual damages, but is being exacted under conditions which do not afford the carrier an adequate opportunity for safely testing the validity of the rates before any liability for the penalty attaches.[279] Where it appears, however, that the carrier had an opportunity to test the reasonableness of the rate, and that its deviation therefrom, by collection of an overcharge, did not proceed from any belief that the rate was invalid, the validity of the penalty imposed is not to be tested by comparison with the amount of the overcharge. Inasmuch as it is imposed as punishment for violation of a law, the legislature may adjust its amount to the public wrong rather than the private injury, and the only limitation which the Fourteenth Amendment imposes is that the penalty prescribed shall not be "so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable." In accordance with the latter standard, a statute granting an aggrieved passenger (who recovered $100 for an overcharge of 60 cents) the right to recover in a civil suit not less than $50 nor more than $300 plus costs and a reasonable attorney's fee is constitutional.[280]

For like reasons, a statute requiring railroads to erect and maintain fences and cattle guards, and making them liable in double amount of damages for their failure to so maintain them is not unconstitutional.[281] Nor is a Nebraska law which establishes a minimum rate of speed for delivery of livestock and which requires every carrier violating the same to pay the owner of such livestock the sum of $10 per car per hour.[282] On the other hand, when a telephone company, in accordance with its established and uncontested regulations, suspends the service of a patron in arrears, infliction upon it of penalties aggregating $3,600, levied pursuant to a statute imposing fines of $100 per day for alleged discrimination, is so plainly arbitrary and oppressive as to take property without due process.[283]

REGULATION OF CORPORATIONS, BUSINESS, PROFESSIONS, AND TRADES

Domestic Corporations