What Is a Common Carrier?

A common carrier is defined by U.S. law as a private or public entity that transports goods or
people from one place to another for a fee. The term is also used to
describe telecommunications services and public utilities.

The word "common" is an important distinction here. A common carrier, such as a bus service,
offers its services to the general public, unlike a private carrier that might be available to specific
clients on a contractual basis.

A utility may be considered a common carrier because it makes no distinction in its customers. It
is available to anyone in its coverage area who is willing to pay the fee..

Some businesses that may be classified as common carriers include taxi services, trucking
companies, rail freight services, waste removal services, couriers, vehicle towing services, and air
freight services.

Under U.S. law, telecommunications services are classified as common carriers, as are many oil
and gas pipeline operators. Common carriers provide essential public services and thus can face
more state and interstate regulations and more government scrutiny. Generally, a common
carrier is one that must provide its services to anyone willing to pay its fees unless it has good
grounds to refuse.

Under the Philippine laws, the New Civil Code provides that:
Article 1732. Common carriers are persons, corporations, firms or associations
engaged in the business of carrying or transporting passengers or goods or both,
by land, water, or air, for compensation, offering their services to the public.
Complementary to the codal definition is Section 13, paragraph (b), of the Public Service Act; it
defines "public service" to be –
"x x x every person that now or hereafter may own, operate, manage, or control
in the Philippines, for hire or compensation, with general or limited clientele,
whether permanent, occasional or accidental, and done for general business
purposes, any common carrier, railroad, street railway, subway motor vehicle,
either for freight or passenger, or both, with or without fixed route and whatever
may be its classification, freight or carrier service of any class, express service,
steamboat, or steamship, or steamship line, pontines, ferries and water craft,
engaged in the transportation of passengers or freight or both, shipyard, marine
repair shop, wharf or dock, ice plant, ice refrigeration plant, canal, irrigation
system, gas, electric light, heat and power, water supply and power petroleum,
sewerage system, wire or wireless communication systems, wire or wireless
broadcasting stations and other similar public services. x x x. (Underscoring
supplied)."
The prevailing doctrine on the question is that enunciated in the leading case of De Guzman vs.
Court of Appeals. [2] Applying Article 1732 of the Code, in conjunction with Section 13(b) of the
Public Service Act, this Court has held:
"The above article makes no distinction between one whose principal business
activity is the carrying of persons or goods or both, and one who does such
carrying only as an ancillary activity (in local idiom, as `a sideline’). Article 1732
also carefully avoids making any distinction between a person or enterprise
offering transportation service on a regular or scheduled basis and one offering
such service on an occasional, episodic or unscheduled basis. Neither does Article
1732 distinguish between a carrier offering its services to the `general public,’ i.e.,
the general community or population, and one who offers services or solicits
business only from a narrow segment of the general population. We think that
Article 1732 deliberately refrained from making such distinctions.
"So understood, the concept of `common carrier’ under Article 1732 may be seen
to coincide neatly with the notion of `public service,’ under the Public Service Act
(Commonwealth Act No. 1416, as amended) which at least partially supplements
the law on common carriers set forth in the Civil Code."
The term "common carrier" has been considered in many decisions of this court. In one of them
it was said: "In [36 Cal. 2d 729] his work on Carriers, Mr. Moore, at page 20 (volume 1), defines a
common carrier as one who 'holds himself out as such to the world; that he undertakes generally
and for all persons indifferently to carry goods and deliver them for hire; and that his public
profession of his employment be such that if he refuse, without some just ground, to carry goods
for any one, in the course of his employment and for a reasonable and customary price, he will
be liable to an action.' It is one who offers to carry goods for any person between certain termini
and who is bound to carry for all who tender their goods and the price of carriage ... The record
discloses no action on the part of either petitioner which constitutes an irrevocable dedication
of its property to a public use, such as the exercise of the sovereign power of the state in eminent
domain ... Hence, in order to bring petitioners within the purview of the provisions under
consideration, it must have been made to appear that they had voluntarily devoted their
transportation facilities to the indiscriminate use of the public for hire, thus constituting them
common carriers." (Associated Pipe Line Co. v. Railroad Com., 176 Cal. 518, 522, 523 [169 P. 62,
L.R.A. 1918C 849].) To the same effect is Forsyth v. San Joaquin Light etc. Corp., 208 Cal. 397, 404
[281 P. 620].