1. A state statute extending the limits of a city and construed
as having the effect of rendering applicable to the added territory
maximum street railway rates fixed by an earlier contract between
the city and the street railway company impairs the obligation of
the contract by adding to its burdens. P. 442.
Georgia Ry.
& Power Co. v. Decatur, ante 262 U. S. 432.
2. A contract of a street railway company with a city to carry
passengers for a fare not greater than a stated maximum does not
oblige it to issue free transfers.
Id.
3. A contract of a street railway company with a city fixing a
maximum fare for passage from that city to another city
construed in accordance with the practice of the parties,
as applying to passage between the cities in either direction.
Id.
153 Ga. 329 reversed; certiorari denied.
Error to a decree of the Supreme Court of Georgia affirming a
decree for the City of College Park in its suit to enforce
compliance with a contract fixing street railway fares.
MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.
The facts in this case and the contentions to be considered,
with some exceptions presently to be stated, are essentially the
same as those involved in
Georgia Ry. & Power Co. v.
Decatur, just decided,
ante, 262 U. S. 432.
From their inception in the state courts, the two cases
Page 262 U. S. 442
have been considered together, and in each of the three
decisions referred to in the
Decatur case, the state
supreme court has disposed of them in a single opinion.
The contract here involved was made in 1905. It granted to the
electric company the right to convert its single track within the
limits of the municipality into a double track line of electric
railway and provided:
"That no greater fare than that of five cents for each passenger
be charged for passage from the southern limits of said City of
College Park to some central point in the city of Atlanta."
The contract, however, unlike the Decatur one, contains no
provision on the subject of transfers. Subsequently, by an act of
the legislature, the limits of College Park were extended so as to
take in a portion of the College Park line theretofore outside the
municipality. Upon the authority of the
Decatur case, we
hold that the application of the five-cent fare to the annexed
territory impairs the obligation of the contract. In addition to
that, the order of the commission requiring the issuance of free
transfers to College Park patrons was erroneous.
The state courts, in effect, construed the contract as obliging
defendant to carry passengers in both directions between College
Park and Atlanta at the stipulated rate, and with this construction
we agree. It cannot be supposed to have been within the intention
of the contracting parties that one rate of fare should be charged
for passage in one direction and a different rate in the opposite
direction, for the same distance, over the same line, under the
same conditions and entailing the same service. Such a construction
of the clause would subvert the plain purpose of the ordinance,
which was to fix a five-cent fare between the two cities. We
construe the phrase "from . . . College Park to . . . Atlanta" as
though it read "between College Park and Atlanta."
See State v.
Stone, 20 R.I. 269. This construction, moreover,
Page 262 U. S. 443
agrees with the practice of the appellant, extending over many
years in charging the same fare in each direction.
The decree of the state supreme court is reversed, and the cause
remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this
opinion.
Reversed.
Writ of certiorari denied.
