Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/228/596/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 14:44:08+00:00

Document:
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 228 › Consolidated Turnpike Co. v. Norfolk &c. Ry. Co.
Petition for rehearing granted, not because of doubt of correctness of the decree, but to prevent misconception concerning the reasons for dismissing the writ of error in this case, ante, p. 229 U. S. 326.
The certificate of the judge of the court below that a federal question was raised and passed upon is not, in the absence of any journal entry, a certificate of the court, but this Court may, if there is a recital in the certificate that the court orders the certificate to be made, accept it as incorporating into the record the necessary proof of existence of a federal question. Marvin v. Trout, 199 U. S. 212, distinguished.
Where the judgment of the state court rests upon a question of general law broad enough to support the decision, this Court will not consider the federal question, although it may have been raised in, and passed upon by, the court below. Gaar, Scott & Co. v. Shannon, 223 U. S. 468.
court below, reciting that a federal question was raised and passed upon by the court when it considered and disposed of the petition to rehear, was plainly not the certificate of the judge alone, but that of the court itself, and therefore was sufficient to demonstrate the existence of jurisdiction under the ruling in Marvin v. Trout, 199 U. S. 212.
Assuming, therefore, that this certificate operates to show that some federal question was decided when the petition to rehear was refused, yet, if it also appears that the judgment of the state court against the plaintiff in error was based upon a question of general law broad enough to support the decision, this Court will not consider the federal question, though it was considered and determined by the court below adversely to the plaintiff in error. Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 87 U. S. 636; Hale v. Akers, 132 U. S. 554; Gaar, Scott & Co. v. Shannon, 223 U. S. 468.
The rule of the common law, to which the plaintiffs in error refer, that fixtures annexed to realty become a part thereof and subject to existing liens thereon, is one subject to many exceptions. One of these is that applied by the Virginia court -- namely, that when a corporation possessing the right of eminent domain enters upon lands necessary for its public purposes, under the deed of a mortgagor in possession, and places permanent improvements thereon in good faith, it may later condemn the interest and title of the mortgagee without being required to pay more than the value of the land without the improvements placed thereon with intent to acquire the entire title. Searl v. School District, 133 U. S. 561; St. Johnsbury &c. R. Co. v. Willard, 61 Vt. 134; Jones v. N.O. R. Co., 70 Ala. 232; Justice v. Valley &c. R. Co., 87 Pa. 28; 2 Lewis, Em. Dom., § 759, 3d ed.

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 § 759