Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/238/67/
Timestamp: 2020-02-18 01:19:41
Document Index: 101773295

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1110', '§ 1110', '§ 810', '§ 2614', '§ 1110', '§ 22', '§ 33', '§ 7']

Chicago & Alton R. Co. v. Tranbarger :: 238 U.S. 67 (1915) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 238 › Chicago & Alton R. Co. v. Tranbarger
Tranbarger, owner of 60 acres of farming land in Callaway County, Missouri, brought this action against the railroad company in a Missouri state court to recover damages and a penalty under § 1110 of the Missouri Revised Statutes of 1899, as amended by act of March 14, 1907, Sess.Acts, p. 169, of which the portion now pertinent is as follows:
The facts found by the Missouri Supreme Court to be within the pleadings and proofs, and to be sustained by the verdict of the jury, are these: plaintiff's lands lie in what are known as the Missouri River bottoms. It is the habit of that river to overflow the bottoms from the west to the east in times of high water. Defendant's railroad extends across the bottoms from southwest to northeast, and along the easterly boundary of plaintiff's land. The roadbed is constructed of a solid earth embankment, varying in height from 4 to 7 feet, and is not provided with transverse culverts, openings, or drains of any kind for the escape of surface water, but constitutes a solid barrier
The statutory requirement of "openings across and through the right of way and roadbed" originated in the 1907 amendment of § 1110. Before that, and dating from the year 1874, the statute merely required railroads to construct ditches along each side of the roadbed. Laws 1874, p. 121; Rev.Stat. 1879, § 810; Laws 1883, p. 50; Rev.Stat. 1889, § 2614; Laws 1891, p. 82; Rev.Stat. 1899, § 1110; Collier v. Chicago & Alton Ry. (1892), 48 Mo.App. 398, 402; Kenney v. Kansas City &c. R. Co. (1897), 69 Mo.App. 569, 571. It is upon the clause added in 1907 that the present action is founded, and upon that clause the questions before us are raised. It is attacked as an ex post facto law, as a law impairing the obligation of the contract between the state and the railroad company,
etc., seems to us to be more reasonably construed as prescribing the express limit of three months only with respect to railroads afterwards constructed, and as allowing to railroads already in existence a reasonable time after the passage of the enactment within which to construct the openings. In adopting this meaning, we have regard not merely to the phrases employed, but to the previous course of legislation, which is set forth in the briefs, but need not be here repeated. Whether we are
(2) Upon the question of impairment of contract, it appears that the railroad in question was constructed and afterwards leased to plaintiff in error in perpetuity by virtue of a charter and franchise granted to the Louisiana & Missouri River Railroad Company in the year 1870 (Laws, p. 93, §§ 22, 23, 43), by § 33 of which the company was exempted from the provisions of § 7 of Article I. of the General Corporation Act of 1855 (Rev.Stat. 1855, p. 371), and thereby, it is claimed, relieved from the legislative power of alteration, suspension, and repeal. And while by the Constitution of 1865 (in force at the time the railroad in question was authorized and constructed), railroad corporations could be formed only under general laws subject to amendment or repeal, it is contended that this did not apply to subsequent amendments of charters previously granted (State ex Rel. Circuit Attorney v. Railroad, 48 Mo. 468; St. Joseph & Iowa Ry. v. Shambaugh, 106 Mo. 557, 569), and it is pointed out that the charter of 1870 is an amendment of one enacted in 1868 (Laws, p. 97), and this, in turn, an amendment of
Of the cases cited in support of this contention, the only one that has a semblance of pertinency is Muhlker v. Harlem Railroad Co., 197 U. S. 544, and this is readily distinguishable. There, the right in question was the easement of light and air, which, of course, pertains closely to the use and enjoyment of the land. But the right to maintain a railroad embankment or other artificial structure in such a manner as to deflect surface water from its
It is established by repeated decisions of this Court that neither of these provisions of the federal Constitution
We deem it very clear that the act under consideration is a legitimate exercise of the police power, and not in any proper sense a taking of the property of plaintiff in error. The case is not at all analogous to those which have held that the taking of a right of way across one's land for a drainage ditch, where no water course exists, is a taking of property within the meaning of the Constitution. The present regulation is for the prevention of damage attributable to the railroad embankment itself, and amounts merely to an application of the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas. Of course, compliance with it involves the expenditure of money, but so does compliance with regulations requiring a railroad company to keep its roadbed and right of way free from combustible matters, to provide its locomotive engines with spark arresters, to fence its tracks, to provide cattle guards and gates at crossings, or bridges or viaducts, or the like. Such regulations as these are closely analogous in principle, and have been many times sustained as constitutional. Minneapolis Railway Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26, 129 U. S. 31; Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway v. Emmons, 149 U. S. 364, 149 U. S. 367; St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. v. Mathews, 165 U.S.
Page 238 U. S. 78
1; Chicago &c. Ry. v. Minneapolis, 232 U. S. 430, 232 U. S. 438; Atlantic Coast Line v. Goldsboro, 232 U. S. 548, 232 U. S. 560-561.