Chapter 159

Section 1. Every common carrier of merchandise or other property shall receive, transport and forward all property offered for such purposes by other such carriers as promptly, faithfully and impartially, at as low rates of charge, and in a manner and on terms and conditions as f…

Section 10. The department of telecommunications and cable shall enforce this chapter to the extent that it relates to telecommunications. The department of public utilities shall enforce all other provisions.

Section 100. Such action shall not be maintained unless begun within sixty days after the plaintiff ceased to perform such labor or to furnish such materials.

Section 101. (a) Whoever fraudulently evades or attempts to evade the payment of a fare lawfully established by a railroad corporation or railway company, either by giving a false answer to the collector of the fare, by traveling beyond the point to which the person has paid the …

Section 102. No railroad corporation or railway company or any officer or employee thereof shall use or deposit a torpedo or other explosive upon or near the tracks of any railroad or railway for the purpose of signaling or otherwise, unless there is plainly and conspicuously sta…

Section 103. Whoever unlawfully and intentionally injures, molests or destroys any signal of a railroad corporation or railway company, or any line, wire, post or other structure or mechanism used in connection with such signal, or prevents or in any way interferes with the prope…

Section 104. Whoever wilfully throws or shoots a missile at a locomotive engine, or railroad or railway car or train, or at a motor bus or trackless trolley vehicle, or at a school bus, or at a person on such engine, car, train, motor bus or trackless trolley vehicle, or school b…

Section 105. The jurisdiction, powers, authority and discretion delegated to the department by sections ten to twenty-six, inclusive, of this chapter and section one hundred and eighty-five of chapter one hundred and sixty shall not be limited by other provisions of law contained…

Section 11. Every vote, recommendation and order of the department relative to common carriers shall be entered of record.

Section 12. The department shall, so far as may be necessary for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of law relative thereto, have general supervision and regulation of, and jurisdiction and control over, the following services, when furnished or rendered for public use wi…

Section 12E. (a) (1) A company that provides third party verification services pursuant to section 109 of chapter 93 shall apply for registration with the department. (2) The department shall allow a company to register as a third party verification service provider only if it: (…

Section 13. The department may inquire into the rates, charges, regulations, practices, equipment and services of common carriers in this commonwealth, and elsewhere, rendering any service of a kind subject to its jurisdiction.

Section 14. Whenever the department shall be of opinion, after a hearing had upon its own motion or upon complaint, that any of the rates, fares or charges of any common carrier for any services to be performed within the commonwealth, or the regulations or practices of such comm…

Section 15. Except as provided by section two hundred of chapter one hundred and sixty, no common carrier shall, directly or indirectly, issue or give any free service, free tickets, free pass or free transportation for passengers or property between points within the commonwealt…

Section 16. If the department is of opinion, after a hearing had upon its own motion or upon complaint, that the regulations, practices, equipment, appliances or service of any common carrier are unjust, unreasonable, unsafe, improper or inadequate, the department shall determine…

Section 16A. The department before authorizing any railroad to discontinue or abandon any of its lines, stations or other service, may consider, in addition to other facts, the revenues of said railroad from all sources.

Section 17. All charges made, demanded or received by any common carrier for any service rendered or performed, or to be rendered or performed by it or in connection therewith in the conduct of its common carrier business, or made, demanded or received by any two or more common c…

Section 18. Subject to the powers of the department to regulate and prescribe rates and charges, a common carrier may make commodity, transit or other classes of rates. The furnishing by any common carrier of any service at the rates and upon the terms and conditions provided for…

Section 19. Every common carrier shall file with the department and shall plainly print and keep open to public inspection schedules showing all rates, joint rates, fares, telephone rentals, tolls, classifications and charges for any service, of every kind rendered or furnished, …

Section 19A. The department may approve a rate, fare, toll or charge for directory assistance service pursuant to schedules filed with the department; provided, however, that for each business or residence line and for each private branch exchange trunk line to which a customer s…

Section 19B. As used in sections nineteen C and nineteen D, the following words shall, unless the context requires otherwise, have the following meanings:— ''Automatic telephone dialing system'', any automatic terminal equipment which is capable of storing numbers to be called or…

Section 19C. Any person who is a customer of a common carrier and who wishes not to receive telephone calls from an automatic telephone dialing system may notify such common carrier which provides telephone exchange service that he does not wish to receive such calls. The departm…

Section 19D. Any automatic telephone dialing system sold in the commonwealth shall be designed to prevent the selection or dialing of any telephone numbers listed pursuant to section nineteen C. Any person using an automatic telephone dialing system shall prevent such system from…

Section 19E. No person shall solicit a sale or order for sale of goods or services at the residence of a prospective buyer by means of a telephone without expressly revealing at the time the person initially contacts the prospective buyer, and before making any other statement, e…

Section 19F. (a) Notwithstanding section 19, a common carrier furnishing service described in clause (d) of section 12 may post on its website the rates, terms and conditions of any retail service it offers, renders or furnishes within the commonwealth. Section 19 shall not apply…

Section 2. Every such carrier who wilfully neglects or refuses to comply with the preceding section shall forfeit not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars, to the person offering the property for transportation.

Section 20. Whenever the department receives notice of any changes proposed to be made in any schedule filed by any common carrier not furnishing the service of transmission of intelligence by electricity under this chapter, it may, either upon complaint or upon its own motion, a…

Section 21. Wherever there is no satisfactory through route for the transportation of passengers or freight at a reasonable rate, the department may order, after notice and a public hearing had upon complaint, any two or more railroad or railway companies whose lines, owned, oper…

Section 22. The department may from time to time require railroad and railway corporations to install and maintain at such places upon the railroad or railway premises as it shall designate such block or other signals or devices as it shall approve for the purpose of safeguarding…

Section 23. If the department is of opinion that repairs are necessary upon any railroad or railway, or that an addition to its rolling stock, or an addition to or change or relocation of its stations or station houses or waiting rooms, or a change in its rates of fares for trans…

Section 24. Upon written complaint, relative to the service or charges for service in, to or from any city or town as rendered or made by any company engaged therein in the transmission of intelligence by electricity, by the mayor or selectmen, or by twenty customers of the compa…

Section 25. The department shall give seasonable notice by mail to any member of the general court of any hearing before the department concerning common carriers upon a matter affecting the interests of the district represented by him.

Section 26. The department may investigate and determine the fair value for any purpose of all the property of any common carrier rendering a public service subject to the supervision of the department, actually used or useful for the convenience of the public, whenever it deems …

Section 27. The department may, either through its members or responsible agents, engineers, inspectors or examiners duly authorized by it, enter upon any premises occupied by any carrier subject to its jurisdiction for any purpose consistent with this chapter. It may inspect the…

Section 28. Every railroad corporation, railway company and carrier of passengers for hire by motor vehicle under the jurisdiction of the department shall give immediate notice of an accident on its railroad or railway or on or connected with a motor vehicle belonging to it, resu…

Section 29. An inspector shall, under the direction of the department, investigate as promptly as may be any accident upon a railroad, railway or motor vehicle of a carrier of passengers under the jurisdiction of the department, or in which such railroad, railway or motor vehicle…

Section 3. No common carrier of passengers shall, by rule, regulation, sign or otherwise, require passengers whom it suffers to enter, or leave by, a door of its car or train, to do so at their own risk; and no such passenger shall be prevented from recovering compensation in dam…

Section 30. An employee may make written complaint to the department of a defect in the ways, works, machinery or appliances, or any car or vehicle, of a railroad, railway or other carrier of passengers under its jurisdiction, and the name of the complainant shall not be divulged…

Section 31. The department may, from time to time, prescribe forms of accounts, records and memoranda for the common carriers under its supervision, or for such classes of common carriers as it shall establish. The forms shall conform as nearly as may be to those established by t…

Section 32. The department shall prescribe the forms for the annual returns to be made to it by the several kinds of common carriers and may from time to time make changes and additions in any such form; provided, that changes therein or additions thereto requiring any alteration…

Section 33. Every person doing an express business upon either a railroad or railway in the commonwealth shall annually transmit to the department a return on oath of his doings setting forth copies of all contracts made during the year with other persons doing a transportation o…

Section 34. The department, through its commissioners or by employees duly authorized, may examine all books, contracts, records, documents, papers and memoranda of any common carrier, and by subpoena duces tecum compel the production thereof, or of duly verified copies of the sa…

Section 34A. (a) The department shall have general supervision of every affiliated company, as hereinafter defined, with respect to all relations, transactions and dealings, direct or indirect, with the carrier with which it is affiliated which affect the operations of such carri…

Section 35. Upon the written application of a director, or of any person owning one fiftieth part of the paid-in capital stock of a corporation or company operating a railroad or railway, or who owns the bonds or other evidences of indebtedness of such corporation or company equa…

Section 36. The department may provide for an annual audit by employees duly authorized by it of all accounts of any common carrier or class of common carriers.

Section 37. Every order of the department shall be served upon every person or corporation to be affected thereby, either by personal delivery of a certified copy thereof, or by mailing a certified copy thereof, in a sealed package, postage prepaid, to the person to be affected t…

Section 38. No request or advice of the department shall in any manner impair the legal duties and obligations of a railroad corporation or railway company or its legal liability for the consequences of its acts or of the neglect or mismanagement of any of its agents or servants.

Section 39. If in the judgment of the department any common carrier violates or neglects in any respect to comply with the provisions of any law, and after written notice by the department continues such violation or neglect, or neglects to make returns as required by law, or to …

Section 4. A corporation engaged in carrying passengers or in transporting freight for hire shall not require or receive from a person who is employed or about to be employed by it a bond or other security, either with or without surety, to indemnify such corporation against loss…

Section 40. Whenever the department is of opinion that a common carrier subject to its supervision is failing or omitting or about to fail or omit to do anything required of it by law or by order of the department, or is doing anything or about to do anything or permitting anythi…