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[G.R. No. 8095. November 5, 1914 & March 31, 1915.]

F. C. FISHER,

plaintiff

. YANGCO STEAMSHIP COMPANY, J. S.

STANLEY, as Acting Collector of Custom of the Philippine Islands,

IGNACIO VILLAMOR, as Attorney-General of the Philippine Islands,

and W. H. BISHOP, as prosecuting attorney of the city of

Manila,

respondents

Haussermann, Cohn & Fisher,

for plaintiff.

Solicitor-General Harvey,

for respondents.

SYLLABUS

1.COMMON CARRIERS; PREFERENCES AND DISCRIMINATIONS. — Whatever may

have been the rule at common law, common carriers in this jurisdiction cannot lawfully

decline to accept a particular class of goods for carriage to the prejudice of the traffic in

those goods unless it appears that for some sufficient reason the discrimination against

the traffic in such goods is reasonable and necessary. Mere prejudice or whim will not

suffice. The grounds of the discrimination must be substantial ones, such as will justify the

courts in holding the discrimination to have been reasonable and necessary under all the

circumstances of the case.

2.ID.; ID.; PENAL PROVISIONS OF ACT NO. 98. — The penalties prescribed for

violations of Act No. 98 of the Philippine Commission are neither excessive nor cruel and

unusual in the sense in which those words are used in the organic legislation in force in

the Islands.

3.ID.; ID.; ID. — There is nothing in that statute which would deprive any person of

his liberty "by requiring him to engage in business against his will." The prohibition of the

statute against undue, unnecessary, or unreasonable preferences and discriminations are

merely the reasonable regulations which the legislator has seen fit to prescribe for the

conduct of the business in which the carrier is engaged of his own free will and accord.

4.ID.; CONTROL AND REGULATION OF CARRIERS. — The nature of the business of

a common carrier as a public employment is such that it is clearly within the power of the

state to impose such just and reasonable regulations thereon in the interest of the public

as the legislator may deem proper. Of course such regulations must not have the effect of

depriving an owner of his property without due course of law, nor of confiscating or

appropriating private property without just compensation, nor of limiting or prescribing

irrevocably vested rights or privileges lawfully acquired under a charter or franchise. But

aside from such constitutional limitations, the determination of the nature and extent of

the regulations which should be prescribed rests in the hands of the legislator.

5.ID.; ID. — The right to enter the public employment as a common carrier and to

offer one's services to the public for hire does not carry with it the right to conduct that

business as one pleases, without regard to the interests of the public, and free from such

reasonable and just regulations as may be prescribed for the protection of the public from

the reckless or careless indifference of the carrier as to the public welfare and for the

prevention of unjust and unreasonable discriminations of any kind whatsoever in the

performance of the carrier's duties as a servant of the public.

6.ID.; ID.; JUDICIAL, INTERFERENCE. — The judiciary ought not to interfere with

such regulations established under legislative sanction unless they are so plainly and

palpably unreasonable as to make their enforcement equivalent to the taking of property

for public use without such compensation as under all the circumstances is just both to

the owner and to the public; that is, judicial interference should never occur unless the

case presents, clearly and beyond all doubt, such a flagrant attack upon the rights of

property under the guise of regulations as -to compel the court to say that the regulations

in question will have the effect to deny just compensation for private property taken for

the public use.

7.ID.; ID. — When one devotes his property to a use in which the public has an

interest, he, in effect, grants to the public an interest in that use and must submit to be

controlled by the public for the common good to the extent of the interest he has thus

created. He may withdraw his grant by discontinuing the use, but so long as he maintains

the use he must submit to control.

8.ID.; ID.; EXERCISE OF POWER THROUGH BOARDS OF COMMISSIONERS. — So

far beyond question is this right of regulation that it is well settled that the power of the

state to exercise legislative control over railroad companies and other common carriers "in

all respects necessary to protect the public against danger, injustice and oppression" may

be exercised through boards of commissioners.

9.ID.; ID.; ACT No. 98; STATUTORY PROVISIONS. — Correctly construed, the

provisions of the Philippine statute (Act No. 98) do not force a common carrier to engage

in any business against his will or to make use of his facilities in a manner or for a purpose

for which they are not reasonably adapted. It is only when he offers his facilities as a

common carrier to the public for hire, that the statute steps in and prescribes that he must

treat all alike, that he may not pick and choose which customer he will serve, and,

specifically, that he shall not make any undue or unreasonable preferences or

discriminations whatsoever to the prejudice not only of any person or locality, but also of

any particular kind of traffic.

10.ID.; PREFERENCES AND DISCRIMINATIONS; EXPLOSIVES. — It cannot be

doubted that the refusal of a "steamship company, the owner of a large number of

vessels" engaged in the coastwise trade of the Philippine Islands as a common carrier of

merchandise, to accept explosives for carriage on any of its vessels subjects the traffic in

such explosives to a manifest prejudice and discrimination, and in each case it is a

question of fact whether such prejudice or discrimination is undue, unnecessary or

unreasonable.

11.ID.; ID.; ID.; CONSIDERATION OF ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES. — The

making of a finding as to whether a refusal, by a steamship company engaged in the

coastwise trade in the Philippine Islands as a common carrier, to carry such products

subjects any person, locality, or the traffic in such products to an unnecessary, undue or

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[G.R. No. 8095. November 5, 1914 & March 31, 1915.] F. C. FISHER, plaintiff, vs. YANGCO STEAMSHIP COMPANY, J. S. STANLEY, as Acting Collector of Custom of the Philippine Islands, IGNACIO VILLAMOR, as Attorney-General of the Philippine Islands, and W. H. BISHOP, as prosecuting attorney of the city of Manila, respondents. Haussermann, Cohn & Fisher, for plaintiff. Solicitor-General Harvey, for respondents. SYLLABUS 1.COMMON CARRIERS; PREFERENCES AND DISCRIMINATIONS. — Whatever may have been the rule at common law, common carriers in this jurisdiction cannot lawfully decline to accept a particular class of goods for carriage to the prejudice of the traffic in those goods unless it appears that for some sufficient reason the discrimination against the traffic in such goods is reasonable and necessary. Mere prejudice or whim will not suffice. The grounds of the discrimination must be substantial ones, such as will justify the courts in holding the discrimination to have been reasonable and necessary under all the circumstances of the case. 2.ID.; ID.; PENAL PROVISIONS OF ACT NO. 98. — The penalties prescribed for violations of Act No. 98 of the Philippine Commission are neither excessive nor cruel and unusual in the sense in which those words are used in the organic legislation in force in the Islands. 3.ID.; ID.; ID. — There is nothing in that statute which would deprive any person of his liberty "by requiring him to engage in business against his will." The prohib ...
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