Chiles+v.+Chesapeake+&+Ohio+Railway+Co.

=Chiles v. Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co.= 218 U.S. 71 (1910)

The plaintiff in this case was an African-American passenger of the railway, traveling from Washington, D.C. to Lexington, Kentucky. The interstate railway line did not have a stop in Lexington, so Plaintiff boarded a local train to travel from Ashland, Kentucky to Lexington.

On this local train, Plaintiff attempted to sit in a car reserved exclusively for white persons. When the conductor attempted to move him to a compartment designated for blacks, Plaintiff refused, asserting his rights as an interstate passenger. The conductor nevertheless removed him, declaring that he was doing so under mandate of a Kentucky statute requiring segregation of railway cars. The plaintiff sued the railway company for deprivation of his civil rights.

The Supreme Court disregarded the Kentucky statute requiring segregation of railway cars as irrelevant; at issue was the railroad company's own policy and enforcement of segregation. When focus was removed from the statute, any distinction between local and interstate travel became irrelevant. "[T]he interstate commerce clause of the Constitution does not constrain the actions of carriers, but on the contrary leaves them to adopt rules and regulations for the government of their business, free from any interference except by Congress. Such rules and regulations, of course, must be //reasonable//, but whether they be such cannot depend upon a passenger being state or interstate." (emphasis added)

With the "interstate" consideration aside, the Court turned to the reasonableness of the statute. It cited //Plessy v. Ferguson// and held that if it was reasonable, under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, for a legislature to mandate segregation of railway cars, then "this must also be the test of the reasonableness of the regulations of a carrier, made for like purpose and to secure like results."

The railway company's policy was upheld and relief was denied to the plaintiff.