IS THIS ADMINISTERING JUSTICE? ARTICLE 2
Orton, Jesse F.
Is this Administering Justice? Article 2: Another Amazing Decison in the Philadelphia Traction Case By JESSE F. ORTON, A. M., LL. B. IN THE ISSUE of La Follette's for September 10, 1910, the...
...In 1910 the court will not "arbitrarily make a new contract" for the parties by giving the words that same meaning...
...That the expression, "present rates of fare," included the wholesale rate, twenty-five cents for six rides, as well as the retail rate, five cents for one ride, could not be doubted, we think, by any normal, unbiased person desiring to reach a just conclusion...
...Strictly speaking," said the court, "the traction company had no established rates of fare when it entered into this contract...
...Traction Company's "Respect for the Courts" IT WOULD SEEM that the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company was somewhat lacking in "respect for the courts...
...In the Supreme Court the only dissent from the opinion of Justice John P. Elkin was that of Justice S. Leslie Mestrezat...
...The court said: "In ordinary signification a rate of fare is the unit or basic price upon which the total charge is based...
...The court was in effect notified that while its decision was acceptable, its reasoning was at a tremendous discount...
...The gist of the court's reasoning was that, although the city and the company plainly intended to include both the wholesale and the retail rate when they referred to "the present rates of fare," yet the company was at liberty to stop selling the tickets because there was really no difference between the two rates...
...The court thought twenty-five cents, paid in advance for six rides, would be just as good for the company as thirty cents, paid in five-cent cash fares for the same rides, because the company got the benefit of the interest on ike money until the rides were delivered...
...In fact, there is little risk in saying that so human and variable a thing as a little indigestion in the physical economy of a judge, has many times turned the tide of justice to the right or left...
...73 Atl...
...A rate of fare is the measure of a thing by its ratio or proportion to some fixed standard...
...It was plain that if the city brought another suit to enforce its contract rights, the court would have to find a different reason for its conclusion...
...and six out of the seven justices promptly did so...
...and the same must be said of every other fare it required...
...In the former case the court upheld the right of the traction monopoly of Philadelphia to cease giving transfers on six-for-a-quarter tickets, and even to stop the sale of the tickets, although the company had been selling them and giving transfers when it made an agreement with the city that "the present rates of fare" should not be changed without the city's consent...
...Rapid Transit Co...
...All the remaining members of the court, Chief Justice D. Newlin Fell and Justices J. Hay Brown, William P. Potter, John Stewart and Robert Moschzisker, took part in hearing the case...
...Therefore, the twenty-five-cent "price" or "charge" for six tickets would be one of the company's "rates of fare," even if it did not "suggest proportion...
...2. In deciding the former case, the court said that the five-cent charge for a single ride was not a "rate" in the proper sense of that word, any more than was the twenty-five-cent charge for six rides...
...Judge William W. Wiltbank dissented...
...Besides the meaning which "suggests proportion," the word "rate" also means "price," "charge," "cost," "value,""settled sum or amount," if we are to place confidence in such authorities as Webster, Worcester, the Standard Dictionary, the Imperial Dictionary, Anderson's Dictionary of Law, Black's Law Dictionary, the Cyclopedia of Law and Procedure, and the American and English Encyclopedia of Law...
...its deductions are inevitable, and the judges must be free from any dependence upon the people, lest "popular clamor" influence them to pollute the pure waters of justice...
...In such cases no one would seriously contend that the rate of fare or the freight rate was the total charge determined upon the basis of the miles traveled or the number of pounds carried...
...This will necessitate the revision of all text-books on mathematics in the State of Pennsylvania...
...The language of the court was emphatic...
...It is quite evident, however," reads the opinion, "that the reference in the proviso (concerning "present rates of fare") was to the charges and fares the company was receiving at the date of the contract...
...224 Pa...
...B. IN THE ISSUE of La Follette's for September 10, 1910, the writer analyzed the remarkable decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the case of Philadelphia vs...
...4. In support of its narrow and exclusive definition of the word "rate," the court cites no authority, "etymological or legal" or otherwise...
...for within a week from the day on which the court said the company might stop the sale of tickets because it lost no money and the public saved none by their use, the company bluntly announced that it would thereafter accept nothing but five-cent cash fares, in order that it might get the $2,000,000 of revenue lost each year through the sale of tickets...
...The five-cent fare for one continuous ride was not measured by distance traveled or anything else that would suggest proportion...
...This suit was brought in the Court of Common Pleas for Philadelphia County, where a decree was given in favor of the company by Judges Mayer Sulzberger and Norris S. Barratt...
...Some of these authorities were presented to the court, but were ignored...
...1. According to the court's definition of the word "rate," there was only one rate of fare in existence, the five-cent cash rate, when the contract between the city and the company was made...
...According to this view, law is something like an exact science...
...Note the language used: "The contracting parties failed to define in their written agreement the meaning of these words (rates of fare), and the courts are not at liberty to arbitrarily make a new contract for them or by construction to adopt a meaning not imported by the language used...
...Whether this decision was unjust and absurd, the reader may determine from the leading facts in the case...
...In 1909 these words could refer "to nothing else" than what the city claimed to be their meaning...
...In the carrying of passengers by street railway companies the rate is fixed at a flat price per ride, without reference to the distance traveled, and this basic price for a single ride in the ordinary and legal signification of the term is the rate of fare...
...The most casual examination of the standard authorities would have shown the court's definition to be wholly inadequate...
...New Attitude of Court NOW THE COURT discovers that the five-cent charge does "suggest proportion" and is a "rate," while the sale of tickets at the rate of six for twenty-five cents has nothing to do with proportion or ratio...
...228 Pa...
...None of them was determined by ratio...
...The dissenting opinions filed by Justice Mestrezat and Judge Wiltbank appear to be logical and just on the merits of the case, but hardly logical in the contention that the right to discontinue the sale of tickets was not adjudicated in the former case...
...3. In deciding the former case, the court squarely admitted that when the city and the company used in their contract the words, "present rates of fare," they intended them to mean the various charges or prices then being collected from passengers, including the charge of twenty-five cents for six rides...
...When the people awake to the truth that their judges are about the most effective legislators and constitution makers in the country, they may begin to sense the fact that the antecedents of these men and the methods of choosing them—and of getting rid of them—are of transcendent importance...
...but in this, as in many other things, it is "better late than never...
...Elmhurst, N. Y...
...Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company.* Another amazing decision, made by that court at a later stage of the same controversy, now challenges attention...
...How much more will personal or political friendships, business or class interests, prejudices due to education or associations, to say nothing of more sordid motives, consciously or unconsciously sway the minds of judges...
...In the transportation of passengers by railroads the rate is fixed at so much per mile and the total charge depends upon the number of miles traveled, while in the transportation of freight the rate is usually fixed at so much per 100 pounds and the total charge is calculated upon this basis...
...The court now substitutes another meaning not intended by the parties...
...77 Atl...
...To show the height and depth and the length and breadth of the absurdities in this reasoning of the court, was the purpose of our previous article...
...and the company's counsel presented no authorities to the court, so far as can be learned from the official report...
...It is an elementary rule of law that when it is known in what sense the parties to a contract used a particular word, their intention will determine the meaning of the word in that contract...
...Although Justice Mestrezat did not specifically concur in the opinion of Justice Stewart in that case, it is unfortunate that he did not dissent then, when the vital step was taken...
...Philadelphia vs...
...But the language of the contract was, "present rates of fare," plainly referring to more than one...
...Dyspepsia and Judicial Decisions IT SEEMS to be the accepted theory in certain quarters that the law declared by the courts comes down from above, as it were, and is gathered in by judicial minds specially fitted to perceive its truths, who hand it down to the people...
...When Justice John P. Elkin handed down the second decision,† the new reason appeared thus: "A total charge of twenty-five cents for six rides is not a rate of fare either in the etymological or legal sense...
...it could be to nothing else...
Vol. 3 • April 1911 • No. 14
