578
THE GREEN BAG
Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, and Mon tana.1 There seems to be a violation of the duty owed by the carrier to the passenger to per mit free egress by these special privileges at the station which prevent the passenger from having equal access to all who wish to put themselves at their disposal. The right of the passenger to have ingress to the station by any carriage that he chooses to employ nobody dares to deny; it is very hard to see any essential difference from the obligation to give egress without discrimination. More over, to allow the grant of exclusive privi lege permits the exploitation of the passen ger by this monopoly; for monopoly price is always higher than competitive price; as may be shown by the fact that the favored lines are always willing to pay roundly for the exclusive privilege, even when maxi mum fares are fixed by local ordinance. IX A case since the express cases which came up for decision in the Supreme Court of the United States really involves the same general issue — Chicago etc. R. R. v. Pull man Southern Car Co. (139 U. S., 79). The facts so far as they are material to the present issue are these : An exclusive con tract was entered into between a railroad company and a palace-car company where by the latter company was to have the exclusive right for fifteen years to furnish parlor and sleeping-cars on all passenger trains of the railroad company, the railroad company binding itself not to contract with any other company to run the same 1 Indian River S. B. Co. v. East Coast Transp. Co., 28 Fla. 387; Penna. Ry. Co. v. Chicago, 181 Ill. 289; Indianapolis Ry. v. Dohn, 153 Ind. 10; McConnell v. Pedigo, 92 Ky. 465; State v. Reed, 76 Miss. 211, Kalamazoo Hack & Bus Co. v. Sootsma, 84 Mich. 194; Cravens v. Rodgers, 101 Mo. 247; Montana Ry. v. Langlois, 9 Mont. 419. In the following cases, among others, reasonable regulations governing carriage stands at railway stations were held valid upon the ground that no discrimination was involved: Cole v. Rowen, 88 Mich. 219; Smith v. R. R., 149 Pa. St. 249.
class of cars over its lines during that period. Now, if this be considered an arrangement within a field not covered by public duty there is really no objection to such a trans action; for such arrangements for exclu sive dealings between two private parties are properly not considered objectionable. But if there is a public duty in the premises then such a contract should be held void as against public policy. The court disposed of the case by denying that there was any public duty to take on competing lines of palace cars. An extract from the opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan fol lows: "The defendant was under a duty arising from the public nature of its em ployment to furnish for the use of passen gers upon its lines, such accommodations as were reasonably required by the existing conditions of passenger traffic. Its duty, as a carrier of passengers, was to make suitable provisions for their comfort and safety. In stead of furnishing its own drawing-room and sleeping-cars, as it might have done, it employed the plaintiff, whose special busi ness was to provide cars of that character. to supply as many as were necessary to meet the requirements of travel. It thus used the instrumentality of another corpo ration in order that it might properly dis charge its duty to the public. So long as the defendants' lines were supplied with the requisite number of drawing-room and sleep ing-cars, it was a matter of indifference to the public who owned them." l The argument for the conservative view is undoubtedly put most attractively when it is phrased in terms of public duty. It is squarely averred in this case, and in others which follow its line of thought, that the duty to the public is fully performed when the railroad makes provision for the subor dinate service by entering into an arrange ment with an independent company to do it, and that the public stand indifferent as to who shall serve them, provided that service 1 Accord, Worcester Excursion Car Co. v. Pa. Ry., 2 Int. Com. Rep. 792.
