Public Service Commission v. Sun Cab Co.

Sloan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The Public Service Commission of Maryland, composed of Harold E. West, J. Frank Harper and Steuart Purcell, appellant, by an order (Ho. 16043), passed August 20th, 1930, required the Sun Cab Company, which operates about two hundred taxicabs in Baltimore, “to take out and carry public liability insurance in a responsible insurance company or companies and in form satisfactory to the Commission, and in the amount of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) for any one person, and twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) for any one accident for each cab operated by the said company or by any lessee^ licensee or permissive user of the said company.” In lieu of this requirement the company was authorized to provide and maintain an indemnity reserve fund of not less than $100,000. A petition for a rehearing was filed, and thereafter, on September 5th, 1930, an order (Ho. 16104) was passed in the original form, but with reduction in the liability for each cab to $5,000 and $10,000, ⁴⁷⁸ or, in. lieu thereof, a cash indemnity reserve to $60,000. Thereupon the appellee filed a bill for injunction, denying the authority of the commission to> pass such an order, and praying a preliminary injunction or staying order pending the termination of the equity, proceeding, on which a restraining order was passed as prayed.

The commission answered and demurred, and the evidence taken before the commission was the only evidence submitted to the chancellor. There is no need to repeat the allegations of the bill or of the answer, nor to rehearse the evidence, as there is only one question involved, and that is the power of the commission to require taxicab owners to take out indemnity insurance as a prerequisite to a permit to operate cabs, in this state. The appellant admits there is no’ statutory provision which in terms authorize® it to impose on any taxicab' owner the condition that, before he can engage in the business of conveying passengers for hire, he must take out indemnity insurance, but contends that the authority is among the implied powers of the commission, and that the logical and reasonable construction of the Act' of 1910, ch. 180 (Code, art. 23, sec. 3-19 et seq.), warrants the passage of the orders in this case as conducive to the safety of passengers and others using the public streets. There is no dispute of the authority of the commission over the operation of taxicabs.

It is provided by article 23, section 379, that “No common carrier, * * * shall * * * exercise any franchise or right * * * without first having obtained the permission and approval of the commission. The commission shall have power to grant the permission'and approval herein specified whenever it shall, after due hearing, determine that * * * such exercise of the franchise or privilege is necessary or convenient for the public service”; and, by section 373, that, “whenever the commission shall be of the opinion, after a hearing, had upon its own motion or upon complaint, that the regulations, practices, equipment, appliances or services, of any common carrier or other such corporation in respect to any services, transportation of persons, freight or prop ⁴⁷⁹ erty within this state, are unjust, unreasonable, unsafe, unreasonably improper or inadequate, the commission shall determine ihe just, reasonable, safe, reasonably adequate and proper regulations, practices, equipment, appliances and service to be in force and to be observed in respect to such transportation of persons, freight and property, and so fix and prescribe the same by order to be served upon every common carrier or other corporation to be bound thereby”; and, by section 362, that “every corporation, person or common carrier performing the services designated in the preceding sections shall furnish, with respect thereto, such service and facilities as shall be safe and adequate and in all respects just and reasonable.” There were other sections quoted in the appellant’s brief, but it is unnecessary to refer to them here, as the commission derives its authority from the sections here quoted, or it does not have any such power as it here undertakes to exert. The powers of the commission are such as are conferred by the Act of 1910, ch. 180, and amendments, known as the Public Service Commission Law, and all its acts are legislative; but, unlike the Legislature, it is limited strictly to the powers so delegated. Gregg v. Public Service Commn., 121 Md. 1 , 87 A. 1111 .

As stated by Judge Offutt in Public Service Commn. v. Phila., B. & W. R. Co., 155 Md. 104, 114 , 141 A. 509 , 514: “It exercises a naked statutory authority, .and has no power save such as were expressly granted to it by the Legislature and such implied powers as are necessary to enable it to exert its express powers.” The appellant cites and quotes Opinion of the Justices, 251 Mass. 569 , 147 N. E. 681 ; Opinion of the Justices, 81 N. H. 566, 129 A. 117 , 39 A. L. R. 1023; Sprout v. City of South Bend, 277 U. S. 163 , 48 S. Ct. 502 , 72 L. Ed. 833 ; People v. Martin, 203 App. Div. 423 , 197 N. Y. S. 28; Weksler v. Collins, 317 Ill. 132 , 147 N. E. 797 ; Commonwealth v. Slocum, 230 Mass. 180 , 119 N. E. 687 , and Lutz v. New Orleans (D. C.), 235 Fed. 978 , as authorities for the constitutionality of statutes mid ordinances requiring taxicab owners to take out indemnity insurance as a prerequisite to a license to operate cabs. ⁴⁸⁰ Conceding this to be true, and the authorities almost without exception so hold (see note to Packard v. Banton, 264 U. S. 142 , 44 S. Ct. 257 , 68 L. Ed. 596 ), we have no such statute here, unless the legislative requirement of such security be read into- the- Act of 1910 and is one of the instances of an implied power “necessary to enable it (the commission) to exert its express powers.” For its contention that such an order as the one here contested is justified as a “practice” conducive to the safety of passengers, and which would make the streets safer for those using them, the appellant’s