Virden v. Board of Pilot Commissioners

Citations

• 8 Del. Ch. 1

Syllabus

<p>An injunction will be granted to restrain the Board of Pilot Commissioners created under the Pilotage Act of 1881, from the enforcement of its rules, against a duly licensed pilot:</p> <p>1. By the penalties of suspension and forfeiture of pilotage fees or either of them.</p> <p>2. By suspension or forteiture or deprivation of license.</p> <p>3. By any penalty whatsoever, except such as shall have been prescribed before the commission of the offense.</p> <p>The rules adopted in September, 1895, by the Board of Pilot Commissioners, regulating the boarding at other ports, of vessels bound for Delaware Bay and River, and forbidding licensed pilots from doing so, otherwise than in accordance with such rules, are reasonable and within the powers conferred by the Pilotage Act oi April 5, 1881.</p> <p>The penalty of forfeiture of pilotage fees for breach of the rules prescribed by the Board of Pilot Commissioners cannot be enforced for an offense committed after the rules were prescribed. As to such offense the rule and penalty are alike ex post facto.</p> <p>The fact that the Board of Pilot Commissioners has legislative power to establish rules for the government of pilots, and prescribe proper penalties for the violation of the same, and has also judicial power to try and determine charges of violations thereof, does not dispense with the necessity for the existence of the rule and the penalty, before the commission of the offence. These are distinct functions, and cannot be so blended as to make valid an ex post facto rule or an ex post facto penalty.</p> <p>When the Legislature has defined an offense and prescribed a penalty for the same, it is not competent for an inferior body, such as the Board of Pilot Commissioners, to add additional penalties, or substitute others for the commission of such statutory offense.</p> <p>The imposition by the Legislature of a specific penalty for certain offenses does not operate to preclude the Board of Pilot Commissioners from im