Show e JUSTICE FOR RAILROADS The decision by the supreme court of Florida in the case of the Pensacola Atlantic I At-lantic railway company noted in our dispatches dis-patches the other day is somewhat remarkable re-markable from the fact that it recognizes that a railroad has some rights which should be respected It has come to be the rule among people and too often with the courts to at once decide that railwaj company is wrong whatever may be the controversy No matter how impudent or unjust the claim one need only go to an American jury with his case a verdict is next to certain Legislatures enact railroad laws at the demand of unreasonable constituents which contain none of the elements of justice jus-tice and only no wand then do courts possess pos-sess the courage to stand between the railway rail-way companies and those who assume that it is legitimate and lawful to prey upon the corporations The Florida supreme court is a worthy exception A statute confers on the state board of railroad commissioners commission-ers the power to fix rates and in the exercise exer-cise of that power the board named rates for the road mentioned which the latter refused re-fused to accept on the ground that the road could not earn operating expenses The state thereupon instituted suit for the recovery of the statutory penalties and as a matter of course obtained a verdict for the full amount asked aggregating several thousand dollars The company appealed and last week the supreme court reversed the judgment judg-ment of the lower court holding that the reduction by the commissioners of rates to a point too low to permit the company to earn enough to pay expenses was a deprivation of property without due process of law and without just compensation compensa-tion and was therefore in conflict with the state and federal constitutions The decision is just and should become a precedent for those courts which hesitate between justice and the unreasonable popular pop-ular clamor against railway corporations |