Pierce Butler

“ Petitioner is not bound to permit persons having no business with it to enter its trains, stations or grounds to solicit trade or patronage for themselves; they have no right to use its property to carry on their own business. Petitioner had no contract relations with taxicabmen other than Welsh and owed them no duty because they did not have any business with it. The enforcement of the ordinance here assailed would operate to deprive petitioner of the use of the land in question and hand it over to be used as a public hack stand by the individual defendants and others. ”

“ The record shows that the service which Welsh can furnish is inadequate, that to grant him sufficient licenses to enable him to furnish such service would impair taxi service throughout the town, and that a taxi stand located elsewhere than on the driveway does not satisfy the needs of travelers leaving the station. If, under these circumstances, the town should pass an ordinance establishing, on the driveway, a taxi stand available only to incoming passengers, I see no reason why, under the contract between it and the railroad or under the general laws of New Jersey, it may not do so. ”

“ The duties of a rail carrier are not necessarily limited to transporting freight and passengers to and from its stations. It must, in connection with its stations, provide adequately for ingress and for egress. And if it does not itself provide the facilities essential for the convenient removal of freight and passengers from the station, it may be required to let others provide them. That a railroad's obligations may be extended beyond its rails, is settled by numerous decisions of this court. ”

“ In defense fense the respondents maintain that the establishment of the public hack stand does not amount to a taking of petitioner's property, but is a mere traffic regulation that the town is authorized to make under the track elevation agreement and also by the exertion of its police power. ”

“ About 3,000 passengers are handled in and out of the station each day. Continuously, for nearly 10 years after the elimination of the grade crossings, cabs had, under the direction of the town authorities and with the acquiescence of the railroad, parked at the place later assigned by the ordinance here in question. Then in 1922, arose the controversy which gave rise to the Welsh Case and to the case at bar. The bulk of the traffic passing through the station is composed of persons commuting to Newark and New York. ”

“ Compare Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co. v. State Road Commission (W. Va.) 139 S. E. 744.
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