Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/243/251/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 09:16:21+00:00

Document:
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 243 › Grays Harbor Logging Co. v. Coats-Fordney Logging Co.
Grays Harbor Logging Company v.
In a proceeding to condemn land for a private railway, based on Washington Constitution, Art. I, § 16, and Laws 1913, c. 133, p. 412; Rem. & Ball. Ann.Code, §§ 5857-1, et seq., and governed as to procedure by Rem. & Ball. Ann.Code, §§ 921-931, the Superior Court of Washington, after a hearing on the question of necessity, entered an order of condemnation and set down the cause for a jury trial to determine damages, etc.; thereupon, condemnees took the case to the supreme court of the state by certiorari, alleging, inter alia, that the Law of 1913 violates the federal Constitution; the supreme court entered judgment affirming the action of the superior court and remitting the cause thereto for further proceedings. Held that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Washington was interlocutory, and therefore not reviewable in this Court under § 237 of the Judicial Code. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Co. v. Wheeling Bridge Co., 138 U. S. 287, questioned, if not overruled.
Although a federal question involved in state court proceedings be settled by interlocutory judgment, so that the decision becomes binding on the state tribunals as the law of the case before a final judgment occurs, this Court is nonetheless free to determine the question when the final judgment is brought here by writ of error.
Writ of error to review 82 Wash. 503 dismissed.
"Private property shall not be taken for private use, except for private ways of necessity, and for drains, flumes, or ditches on or across the lands of others agricultural, domestic, or sanitary purposes. No private property shall be taken or damaged for public or private use without just compensation having been first made, or paid into court for the owner, and no right-of-way shall be appropriated to the use of any corporation other than municipal until full compensation therefor be first made in money, or ascertained and paid into court for the owner, irrespective of any benefit from any improvement proposed by such corporation, which compensation shall be ascertained by a jury, unless a jury be waived. . . ."
"Either party may appeal from the judgment for damages entered in the superior court to the supreme court of the state within thirty days after the entry of judgment as aforesaid, and such appeal shall bring before the supreme court the propriety and justness of the amount of damages in respect to the parties to the appeal."
Plaintiffs in error opposed the petition for condemnation upon the ground, among others, that the Act of 1913 was contrary to the Constitution of the United States, and that petitioner sought to take their property for a private use, and therefore without due process of law, in violation of that Constitution. After hearing testimony upon the question of necessity, the superior court entered an order of condemnation, and by the same order set the cause down for trial before a jury for the purpose of determining and assessing the damages and compensation. At this point, and before the cause could be brought to trial before a jury, plaintiffs in error applied for and obtained from the supreme court of the state a writ of certiorari for the purpose of reviewing the question of the constitutionality of the act and the right of petitioner to condemn their property for its right of way. The supreme court sustained the proceedings, 82 Wash. 503, and entered a judgment affirming the judgment of the superior court and remitting the cause to that court for further proceedings. A writ of error was then sued out from this Court under § 237, Jud. Code.
the decision in that case, we cannot regard a condemnation proceeding taken under the authority of the Constitution of Washington and the Act of 1913 as severable into two distinct branches. The Constitution forbids that the property be taken without compensation first made or ascertained and paid into court for the owner, and, of course, in case of controversy, compensation cannot be made to the owner until the amount of it has been ascertained. It follows that the judgment entered by the superior court to the effect that petitioner was entitled to condemn and appropriate the land in question for its right of way must be construed as being subject to a condition that the proper compensation be first ascertained and paid.
As we read the decisions of the supreme court of the state, such judgments are not interpreted in any other sense; they are not described as final, nor as independent judgments. In two cases, the term "order" and even "preliminary order" has been employed with respect to such judgments (State ex Rel. Pagett v. Superior Court, 46 Wash. 35, 36; Seattle, Port Angeles & Lake Crescent Ry. Co. v. Land, 81 Wash. 206, 209), and they are held reviewable by certiorari, and not by appeal, not because they are final, or are independent of the subsequent proceedings ascertaining the damages, but because in Washington proceedings by appeal are statutory, and no statute has been enacted giving an appeal from the order or judgment determining the questions of use and necessity; by reason of which, the writ of certiorari is employed as a means of exercising the constitutional power of review.
The judgment therefore seems to us to be interlocutory, and the case to be within the authority of Luxton v. North River Bridge Co., 147 U. S. 337, 147 U. S. 341; Southern Railway Co. v. Postal Telegraph-Cable Co., 179 U. S. 641, 179 U. S. 643, and United States v. Beatty, 232 U. S. 463, 232 U. S. 466.
conclusion, the case may be brought here upon the federal questions already raised, as well as any that may be raised hereafter, for, although the state courts, in the proceedings still to be taken, presumably will feel themselves bound by the decision heretofore made by the supreme court, 82 Wash. 503, as laying down the law of the case, this Court will not be thus bound. United States v. Denver & Rio Grand R. Co., 191 U. S. 84, 191 U. S. 93; Messenger v. Anderson, 225 U. S. 436, 225 U. S. 444; Coe v. Armour Fertilizer Works, 237 U. S. 413, 237 U. S. 418.
* The docket title of this case is Washington ex Rel. Grays Harbor Logging Company and W. E. Boeing v. Superior Court of Washington for Chehalis County, Mason Irwin, Judge Thereof, and Coats-Fordney Logging Company.

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