Pensacola & Atlantic Railroad v. State

Citations

• 25 Fla. 310

Syllabus

<p>1. The enforcement of a tariff of freight and passenger rates which will' not pay the expenses of operating a railroad, held, upon the pleadings, to show an abuse of the discretion given to Railroad Commissioners by the statute authorizing them to prescribe reasonable and just rates of freight and passenger transportation, and to amount to a taking of the railroad company’s property without just compensation.</p> <p>2. The effect of the provision of the Railroad Commission statute that the schedules of rates fixed by the Commissioners shall, in any action brought in the courts of this State against a railroad company, be deemed and taken as sufficient evidence that the rates fixed therein are iust and reasonable rates for the transportation of passengers and freights and cars, is not to make such schedules conclusivo ms against judicial inquiry, but is to provide a new mode of proving the reasonableness and just character of the rates fixed by the Commissioners, and make the schedules competent and adequate evidence of the correctness of the action of the Commissioners in the, absence of countervailing proof that they have exceeded their powers, or abased their discretion and invaded some right of the railroad company.</p> <p>3. Where a tariff of freight and passenger rates has been established by the Railroad Commissioners, and the railroad company and the Commissioners differ as to whether such rates, considered as a whole, will prove remunerative to the company and there is-room for a difference of intelligent opinion on the question, the-courts cannot interfere or substitute their judgment for that of the Commissioners, but the tariffs as fixed by the Commissioners must, in so far as the courts are concerned, be left to the test of experiment.</p> <p>4. The courts have no power to make freight of passenger tariffs.</p> <p>5. The courts will not interfere or grant any relief to a railroad company upon a complaint made as to one or several rates only, or where