Opinion ID: 1093456
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Unreasonable Allocation of Cost

Text: Plaintiff complains that the order of the Public Service Commission and the opinion of the district court are devoid of any finding as to the reasonableness of the allocation of the cost. R.S. 33:3701 does not require an allocation of costs according to the benefit to the municipality on the one hand and the railroad on the other. Under that statute, a city is permitted to require the railroad to pay at least one-half the cost of constructing a viaduct. The legislature is presumed to have considered that one-half the cost of the crossing is not an unreasonable burden for the railroad to bear. This court held in 1953 in Illinois Central Railroad v. Louisiana Public Service Commission, 224 La. 279, 69 So.2d 43, a case in which the railroad had been ordered by the Public Service Commission to construct a highway crossing over its tracks under R. S. 45:841, that by virtue of the nature of a railroad and the business it is engaged in, its right of way was impressed with a public interest which permitted the State to require the railroad to construct and maintain crossings: We do not think that the position of the railroad is well founded. The fact that the company holds an unencumbered paper title to the land which it uses as its right of way does not warrant the conclusion that it has a perfect ownership as defined by Article 490 of the LSA-Civil Code. On the contrary, by the very nature of the business in which it engages, the right of way is impressed with a public interest and is declared to be a public highway by Section 3 of Article 13 of our Constitution. Therefore, LSA-R.S. 45:841 is not violative of Section 2 of Article 1 of the Constitution as the prohibition contained therein forbids only the taking of private property for public purposes without adequate compensation. Implicit in the charter and franchise of the railroad company is the implied condition that it is granted subject to the right of the State, in the exercise of its police power, to establish and authorize new works necessary and subservient to the convenience and safety of its citizens which might cause damage to the property of the railroad. To this end, the State has the power to require of the railroad the uncompensated duty of constructing and maintaining all such crossings over its right of way as are reasonable and necessary for the public. (69 So.2d at page 46). Governmental action compelling railroads to spend money to improve intersections between railroads and streets or highways has been insulated from constitutional claims by the railroad in this State for many years. In City of Shreveport v. Kansas City, S. & G. Ry. Co., 167 La. 771, 120 So. 290, 293 (1929), an ordinance required the railroad to remove certain piers supporting its overhead bridge when the piers interfered with vehicular traffic on the street below. This court denied that the Fourteenth Amendment prevented the action of the city, and, in addition, stated: No principle of constitutional law is better settled in this country than the principle that neither the Legislature nor the people themselves, much less their servants, can bargain away the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, since government is organized with a view to their preservation, and cannot divest itself of the power to provide for them. We do not find that the 50% ceiling on the costs of an overpass or underpass is either arbitrary or confiscatory. It appears that the legislature in enacting 33:3701 chose to place a ceiling on the contribution a municipality might require for the construction of overpasses or underpasses. The record before us does not demonstrate that the burden of sharing in the construction of this overpass will damage the financial structure of the railroad.