Court Opinion

ID: 92444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:05:48+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:10:30.953415
License: Public Domain

130 U.S. 1 (1889)
OREGON RAILWAY AND NAVIGATION COMPANY
v.
OREGONIAN RAILWAY COMPANY, LIMITED.
No. 26.
Supreme Court of United States.
Argued April 27, 30, May 1, 1888.
Decided March 5, 1889.
ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON.
*14 Mr. J.N. Dolph and Mr. James C. Carter for plaintiff in error.
Mr. Sidney Bartlett also filed a brief for plaintiff in error.
Mr. Attorney General and Mr. George F. Edmunds (with whom was Mr. Edmund Robertson on the brief) for defendant in error.
*19 MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.
The two questions presented on this demurrer, and the only ones necessary to be considered, are:
First. Whether the plaintiff, the Oregonian Railway Company, Limited, organized under the laws of Great Britain, *20 with such aid as the statute of Oregon gives to it in reference to business done in that State, had the power to lease its railroad to the defendant company; and,
Second. Whether the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, the defendant in the action, organized under the laws of the State of Oregon, had the legal capacity and lawful power to make said lease on its part.
Although the lease itself, which is the foundation of this action, is not found in the pleadings, nor in the record, the statements in regard to it made by the petition, amended petition and answers leave no question as to its nature or character so far as it affects the two questions here suggested.
It may be considered as the established doctrine of this court in regard to the powers of corporations, that they are such and such only as are conferred upon them by the acts of the legislatures of the several States under which they are organized. A corporation in this country, whatever it may have been in England at a time when the crown exercised the right of creating such bodies, can only have an existence under the express law of the State or sovereignty by which it is created. And these powers, where they do not relate to municipal corporations exercising authority conferred solely for the benefit of the public, and in some sense parts of the body politic of the State, have in this country until within recent years always been conferred by special acts of the legislative body under which they claim to exist. But the rapid growth of corporations, which have come to take a part in all or nearly all of the business operations of the country, and especially in enterprises requiring large aggregations of capital and individual energy, as well as their success in meeting the needs of a vast number of most important commercial relations, have demanded the serious attention and consideration of law makers. And while valuable services have been rendered to the public by this class of organizations, which have stimulated their formation by numerous special acts, it came at last to be perceived that they were attended by many evils in their operation as well as much good, and that the hasty manner in which they were created by the legislatures, sometimes with *21 exclusive privileges, often without due consideration and under the influence of improper motives, frequently led to bad results.
Whether it was this consideration, or mainly the desire to fix some more uniform rule by which the rights and powers of private corporations, or those for pecuniary profit, should come into existence, it is certain that not many years ago state constitutions which were formed or remodelled came to have in them a provision like that which is now to be found in the constitution of the State of Oregon, article 11, § 2:
"Corporations may be formed under general laws, but shall not be created by special laws, except for municipal purposes. All laws passed pursuant to this section may be altered, amended, or repealed, but not so as to impair or destroy any vested corporate rights."
Outside of the powers conferred and the privileges granted to those organizations by the statutes under which they exist, they are in all the States of the Union, which like Oregon have the common law as the foundation of their jurisprudence, governed by that common law; and it is the established doctrine of this court, and, with some exceptions, of the States in which that common law prevails, as well as of Great Britain, from which it is derived, that such a corporation can exercise no power or authority which is not granted to it by the charter under which it exists, or by some other act of the legislature which granted that charter.
This proposition has been before this court more than once in recent years. It was very fully considered in Thomas v. Railroad Co., 101 U.S. 71, which resembled the case before us in several important features.
The Millville and Glassboro Railroad Company, incorporated under the laws of New Jersey, entered into an agreement with Thomas and others for the lease of its railroad to them for twenty years. It was agreed that the company might at any time terminate the lease and retake possession of the railroad; in which case any loss or damage incurred by the lessees should be equitably adjusted by arbitration, and the amount be paid by the company. This contract was made in 1859, and the lessees *22 took control of the property and used it until 1867, when they were served with a notice by the lessor terminating the lease. A suit was brought to recover the damages mentioned in the contract, which came from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to this court, where it was very elaborately argued, and received the earnest consideration of the court, as may be perceived from the report of the case. The opinion, which was concurred in by all the judges who sat in the case, contains a full review of the decisions of the English courts on the subject discussed, and also of previous decisions of this court.
The question turned altogether upon the power of the railroad company, under its charter and the laws of New Jersey, to make the lease by which its road was turned over for twenty years to the absolute control of other parties. The right to do this was asserted under the following language in the charter of the company:
"That it shall be lawful for the said company, at any time during the continuance of its charter, to make contracts and engagements with any other corporation, or with individuals, for the transporting or conveying any kind of goods, produce, merchandise, freight, or passengers, and to enforce the fulfilment of such contracts."
But the court said it was impossible under any sound rule of construction to find in this language a permission to sell, lease, or transfer to others the entire railroad and the rights and franchises of the corporation.
The cases of The Asbury Railway Carriage & Iron Co. v. Riche, L.R. 7 H.L. 653, decided in the House of Lords in 1875, and The East Anglian Railways Co. v. The Eastern Counties Railway Co., 11 C.B. 775, were also reviewed, with several others of a similar character from the reports of the highest courts of England, in which, as this court said:
"The broad doctrine was established that a contract not within the scope of the powers conferred on the corporation cannot be made valid by the assent of every one of the shareholders, nor can it by any partial performance become the foundation of a right of action."
*23 Reference was also made in the same opinion to the case of The York & Maryland Line Railroad Co. v. Winans, 17 How. 30, which held that a corporation which has undertaken to construct and operate a railroad cannot, by alienating its right to use and its powers of control and supervision, avoid the responsibility that it assumed in accepting the charter. The court said: "The corporation cannot absolve itself from the performance of its obligations without the consent of the legislature." To this effect were cited Beman v. Rufford, 1 Sim. (N.S.) 550, and Winch v. Birkenhead & Lancaster Railway Co., 6 Jurist, 1035; S.C. 13 Eng. L. & Eq. 506.
Afterwards, in Green Bay & Minnesota Railroad v. Union Steamboat Co., 107 U.S. 98, the case of Thomas v. Railroad Co., supra, was referred to with approbation.
Still later, in the case of Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. St. Louis &c. Railroad Co., 118 U.S. 290, 309, where the whole question was reconsidered after a full argument, the conclusion was stated in the following language:
"We think it may be stated, as the just result of these cases and on sound principle, that unless specially authorized by its charter, or aided by some other legislative action, a railroad company cannot, by lease or any other contract, turn over to another company, for a long period of time, its road and all its appurtenances, the use of its franchises, and the exercise of its powers, nor can any other railroad company without similar authority make a contract to receive and operate such road, franchises and property of the first corporation, and that such a contract is not among the ordinary powers of a railroad company, and is not to be presumed from the usual grant of powers in a railroad charter."
It may be considered that this is the law of the State of Oregon, except as it has been altered or modified by its constitution and statutes.
We are here met with an embarrassment arising out of the circumstance that neither the plaintiff nor the defendant in the present case professes to exercise its powers under any special charter conferred on it by the legislature of Oregon. That State, in accordance with the principle laid down in its constitution, *24 to which we have already referred, passed general laws for the formation of private corporations. See Laws of Oregon, (Deady's Comp.) c. 8. Under title 1, § 1 reads as follows:
"Whenever three or more persons shall desire to incorporate themselves for the purpose of engaging in any lawful enterprise, business, pursuit, or occupation, they may do so in the manner provided in this act."
Provision is then made for the manner in which these persons shall constitute themselves a corporation, by filing articles of association, acknowledged before a proper officer, in the office of the Secretary of State and in that of the clerk of the county where the business is to be carried on. What these articles shall contain is specified with some particularity. But title 2 of this same chapter is more important in regard to the matter at issue, because it relates, among other things, to corporations which are organized for the construction of railroads. The mode of their formation is the same as that of those coming under title 1, but the declaration of the powers which may be exercised by railroad corporations may become important in the consideration of the present case.
By the act of the legislature of October 21, 1878, Session Laws, 95, it is provided "that any foreign corporation incorporated for the purpose of constructing, or constructing and operating, or for the purpose of, or with the power of, acquiring and operating any railway, ... shall, on compliance with the laws of this State for the regulation of foreign corporations transacting business therein, have the same rights, powers and privileges" as a domestic corporation formed for such purpose, and no more.
When we have found, therefore, what powers were conferred by the laws of Oregon on the defendant corporation in this case we shall also have determined that the powers of the plaintiff corporation were no greater with regard to the same subject matter, so far as the statutes are concerned, except as it may be shown that other powers are given by some express statute.
It may also be conceded, at the outset of the argument, that the memorandum made under the Companies' Act of 1862 by *25 the plaintiff, and the articles of association made under the laws of Oregon by the defendant, both contain declarations of the powers of these companies and of each of them to buy or sell or lease railroads. The only question, therefore, to be considered is whether this declaration of power is authorized by the laws of Oregon.
It is argued that the articles of association, under the Oregon law, and the memorandum of association, under the Companies' Acts of Great Britain, are themselves the equivalent of an act of incorporation by the legislature, and that whatever is found as a grant of power, or description of the purpose of the company, set forth in such articles or memorandum, is tantamount to a legislative act. A phrase in the opinion of the court in Thomas v. Railroad Co., supra, is cited as supporting this proposition, namely, "The memorandum of association, as Lord Cairns said, stands in place of a legislative charter." But what was meant, both by Lord Cairns and by this court, was that anything not claimed, granted, or described in such instrument in relation to the powers and business of the corporation could not be held to be a part of them by construction; in other words that its powers could not exceed those enumerated therein. It was necessarily implied in such a remark that anything in such articles or memorandum not warranted by the statutes in question, authorizing the formation of corporate bodies, was void for want of authority.
Of course any authority for the exercise of corporate powers, derived from the laws of Oregon, must be in accord with the constitution of that State and its statutes upon that subject. The constitutional provision, above quoted, that corporations shall not be created by special laws, but may be formed under general laws, implies that no private corporation could be created thereafter until such general law had been enacted, and that it thereupon became the fundamental law of the State in regard to all corporations formed under it. It is idle to say, therefore, that any corporation could assume to itself powers of action by the mere declaration in its articles or memorandum that it possessed them.
We have examined with much care the two statutes already *26 referred to concerning incorporation, enacted in accordance with that constitutional provision, and do not find any express authority for a railroad company to lease its road for an indefinite period, or for it to take such a lease; nor are we able to find any general language in those statutes, or either of them, in relation to the powers that may be conferred upon corporations which justifies a departure from the principles laid down in Thomas v. Railroad Co.
It is to be remembered that where a statute making a grant of property, or of powers, or of franchises, to a private individual, or a private corporation, becomes the subject of construction as regards the extent of the grant, the universal rule is that in doubtful points the construction shall be against the grantee and in favor of the government or the general public. As was said in the case of Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 420, "in this court the principle is recognized that in grants by the public nothing passes by implication." See also Dubuque and Pacific Railroad Co. v. Litchfield, 23 How. 66; Turnpike Co. v. Illinois, 96 U.S. 63.
Therefore if the articles of association of these two corporations, instead of being the mere adoption by the corporators themselves of the declaration of their own purposes and powers, had been an act of the legislature of Oregon conferring such powers on the corporations, they would be subject to the rule above stated and to rigid construction in regard to the powers granted. How much more, then, should this rule be applied, and with how much more reason should a court, called upon to determine the powers granted by these articles of association, construe them rigidly, with the stronger leaning in doubtful cases in favor of the public and against the private corporation.
We have to consider, when such articles become the subject of construction, that they are in a sense ex parte; their formation and execution  what shall be put into them as well as what shall be left out  do not take place under the supervision of any official authority whatever. They are the production of private citizens, gotten up in the interest of the parties who propose to become corporators, and stimulated by their zeal *27 for the personal advantage of the parties concerned rather than the general good.
These articles, when signed by the corporators, acknowledged before any justice of the peace or notary public, and filed in the office of the Secretary of State and the clerk of the proper county, become complete and operative. They are, so far as framed in accordance with law, a substitute for legislation, put in the place of the will of the people of the State, formerly expressed by acts of the legislature. Neither the officer who takes such acknowledgment, nor those who file the articles, have any power of criticism or rejection. The duty of the first is to certify to the fact, and of the second to simply mark them filed as public documents, in their respective offices.
These articles, which necessarily assume by the sole action of the corporators enormous powers, many of which have been heretofore considered of a public character, sometimes affecting the interests of the public very largely and very seriously, do not commend themselves to the judicial mind as a class of instruments requiring or justifying any very liberal construction. Where the question is whether they conform to the authority given by statute in regard to corporate organizations, it is always to be determined upon just construction of the powers granted therein, with a due regard for all the other laws of the State upon that subject, and the rule stated above.
It is not urged with much apparent confidence that there is anything in the general provisions of the laws of Oregon, in relation to the formation of private corporations, which are to be found in c. 8, titles 1 and 2, Deady's Comp., which by express terms authorizes a corporation to include within the powers enumerated in its articles of association that of making such a lease as the one which is the subject of this action. Arguments based upon these laws are founded upon the implication that building railroads is, within the meaning of § 1 of title 1, a "lawful enterprise, business, pursuit or occupation;" and the further inference that the power of leasing a railroad, either as a lessor or a lessee, is one which is incident and proper to the pursuit of the lawful business of *28 constructing and operating a railroad. The same argument is drawn from the general fact that title 2 recognizes the authority of corporations organized for the construction of railroads, macadamized roads, plank roads, clay roads, canals or bridges, to appropriate lands for their necessary uses by the exercise of the right of eminent domain, in the manner pointed out.
The language of the statute of New Jersey, (quoted in Thomas v. Railroad Co., supra,) under which it was urged that the railroad company had authority to make the lease in controversy, was quite as general and as liberal in its description of the powers which that corporation was authorized to exercise as anything to be found in the Oregon statutes. In fact, in the authority which was given to that company in regard to making contracts for the transportation of passengers and freight, and the doing of a general railroad business with other corporations and private persons, it approaches nearer the power to make leases than anything which is to be found in the laws of Oregon; yet this court held that although it was a direct authority from the legislature itself, and not subject to the restrictive criticisms above suggested, the lease made in that case was ultra vires, and without authority on the part of the company.
Another important consideration to be observed, peculiarly applicable to the acts of corporations formed by the corporators themselves, declaring what business they are about to pursue, and the powers which they purpose to exercise in carrying it on, is, that while the thing to be done may be lawful in a general way, there are and must be limitations upon the means by which it is to be done or the purpose carried out, which the articles of incorporation cannot remove or violate. A company might be authorized by its articles to establish a large manufactory in a particular locality, and might be held to be a valid incorporation with sufficient powers to prosecute the business described; but such articles, although mentioning the particular place, would not empower the company, in the exercise of the power thus conferred, to carry on a business injurious to the health or comfort of those living in that vicinity.
*29 Instances might be multiplied in which powers described in general terms as belonging to the objects of the parties who thus become incorporated would be valid; but the corporation, in carrying out this general purpose, would not be authorized to exercise the powers necessary for so doing in any mode which the law of the State would not justify in any private person or any unincorporated body. The manner in which these powers shall be exercised, and their subjection to the restraint of the general laws of the State and its general principles of public policy, are not in any sense enlarged by inserting in the articles of association the authority to depart therefrom.
In the absence of anything in the general incorporation act, we are referred to several statutes of the State of Oregon, which, while not specifically granting to railroad companies the right to lease their property or to take other railroads under lease from their owners, are supposed by implication to recognize such right in all railroad companies. We are furnished with a list of statutes of that State in which the word "assigns" is used in regard to corporations, generally in the phrase "successors or assigns," from which it is sought to imply the general proposition that a corporation may assign all its property. A special reference is made to the act of October 22, 1880, by which the legislature granted to the "Oregonian Railway Company, Limited, the right of way and station grounds over the state lands, and terminal facilities upon the public grounds at the city of Portland."
The preamble to this statute is quite lengthy, and, taken in connection with the enacting clause, shows very plainly that the principal object aimed at was to give to that company, so far as the legislature could do so, certain rights, privileges and easements upon the public grounds, streets and levee in that city, on and near the banks of the Willamette River, for its depots and wharves and the operation of its railroad. After these are fully specified, a proviso is added, "That the said Oregonian Railway Company, Limited, or its assigns, shall have no power to sell, convey, or assign the premises or rights hereby granted, or any part or parcel thereof, to any person, *30 persons, firm or corporation, save only with and as part and parcel of and as appurtenant to the railway now built and owned by said company and now in process of construction by it."
It is strenuously argued, and with some degree of plausibility, that the language of this proviso, and the use of the words "successors" and "assigns" in other statutes, which are referred to, imply that by the law of Oregon railroad companies may make, and must be supposed to be capable of making, assignments. But whatever may have been the intent in the minds of the legislators in using these words, it is not precisely the form in which we would expect to find a grant of the power to sell, to lease, or to transfer the title, ownership, or use of railroad lines, the property belonging thereto, and the franchises necessary to carry them on, by one corporation to another.
One of the most important powers with which a corporation can be invested is the right to sell out its whole property together with the franchises under which it is operated, or the authority to lease its property for a long term of years. In the case of a railroad company these privileges, next to the right to build and operate its railroad, would be the most important which could be given it, and this idea would impress itself upon the legislature. Naturally, we would look for the authority to do these things in some express provision of law. We would suppose that if the legislature saw fit to confer such rights it would do so in terms which could not be misunderstood. To infer, on the contrary, that it either intended to confer them or to recognize that they already existed, by the simple use of the word "assigns," a very loose and indefinite term, is a stretch of the power of the court in making implications which we do not feel to be justified.
The legislators who enacted these statutes may have had an idea that there were certain things which corporations could assign; they may have used the expressions to which we have referred in a very loose instead of a technical sense; or they may have supposed that cases might arise where railroad property going by some operation of law, as bankruptcy or foreclosure, *31 from the hands of its original owners into the possession of other persons, would justify the description of the latter by the words "successors or assigns." In using these terms they may have thought that authority might be given by future statutes, either generally to all corporations or to some special organization, to sell or transfer the corporate property or some part of it. But whatever may have been their purpose, we think the argument is a forced one, which would vest in railroad companies the general power to sell or lease their property or franchises, or to make contracts to buy or take leases of the same from other railroad corporations, from the use which is made of these indefinite terms "successors or assigns."
This question came up in Thomas v. Railroad Company, supra, in which, as already stated, a lease by the railroad company of its road and corporate franchises was held to be void. While the lease was in full operation, an act was passed by the legislature of New Jersey declaring it unlawful for the directors, lessees, or agents of that railroad company to charge more than three and a half cents per mile for the carrying of passengers. It was insisted that this use of the word "lessees" applied to the then existing lessees of that road, and operated as a ratification by the state legislature of the lease under which they held it. In discussing this subject the court said:
"It may be fairly inferred that the legislature knew at the time the statute was passed that the plaintiffs were running the road, and claiming to do so as lessees of the corporation. It was not important for the purpose of the act to decide whether this was done under a lawful contract or not. No inquiry was probably made as to the terms of that lease, as no information on that subject was needed.
"The legislature was determined that whoever did run the road and exercise the franchises conferred on the company, and under whatever claim of right this was done, should be bound by the rates of fare established by the act. Hence, without undertaking to decide in whom was the right to the control of the road, language was used which included the directors, lessees and agents of the railroad.
*32 "The mention of the lessees no more implies a ratification of the contract of lease than the word `directors' would imply a disapproval of the contract. It is not by such an incidental use of the word `lessees,' in an effort to make sure that all who collected fares should be bound by the law, that a contract unauthorized by the charter, and forbidden by public policy, is to be made valid and ratified by the State." p. 85.
This language applies with great force to the attempt which is made in this case to deduce from the use of the word "assign" in the act of October 22, 1880, a recognition of the power of the railroad company to sell or assign its entire property and rights. The object of the legislature in making the proviso to that statute was to make sure that the grant given to the Oregonian Company of terminal facilities as they are called, with the right to wharves, depots, and access to the river for the use of the road, should never be separated by sale, assignment, or otherwise from the road itself, and that into whosesoever hands the road went should also go the rights, powers and privileges conveyed by the grant. Without these prohibitory words it is possible the company might have had power to sell or assign the depot or wharves granted, while without the authority to do either in regard to the rights or franchises of which they were already possessed. Hence, they used a term which they supposed in a general way might cover any transfer of the ownership by the railroad company of the grants made to it by the statute, whether by operation of law or otherwise. If the property should be sold out under a mortgage or deed of trust, or any other instrument which the company might possibly have had the power to make to purchasers who might be called "assigns" under such proceedings, there should also go with it the grant made by the statute.
The language used in the statute in question in this case is stronger than that in other cases cited to us by counsel, and we are of opinion that they do not, any of them, nor do they collectively, establish the proposition, that by the laws of Oregon a railroad company could sell or lease its entire property, franchises and powers to another company, or take a *33 grant or lease of similar property or franchises from any other person or company.
The attempt is made to sustain the proposition here contended for in regard to the power to lease, by another inferential process of reasoning which we think equally untenable.
The following provision is found in c. 8, title 1:
"SEC. 20. Any corporation formed for the purpose of navigating any stream or other water may, by virtue of such incorporation, construct any railroad, macadamized road, plank road, or clay road, or canal or bridge, necessary and convenient for the purpose of transporting freight or passengers across any portages on the line of such navigation, occasioned by any rapids or other obstructions to the navigation of such stream or other water, in like manner and with like effect as if such corporation had been specially formed for such purpose; but no corporation formed under this act or heretofore or hereafter incorporated by any special act of incorporation, passed by the legislative assembly of this State or otherwise, for the purpose of navigating any stream or other water of this State, or forming the boundary thereof in whole or in part, nor any stockholder in such corporation, shall ever take or hold stock, or any interest directly or indirectly in the stock of any corporation which may be formed under this act, for the purpose of building or constructing any road in this act mentioned; nor shall any such corporation ever purchase, lease, or in any way control such road or the corporate rights of such last-named corporation."
It is argued that this prohibition against leasing the railroad is a recognition of the fact that such a power would have existed if it had not been forbidden by this statute; but as the language of the whole section relates to the competition which may exist or arise between corporations organized for the purpose of navigating streams or other waters, when they may find it convenient to construct a road across such portages on the line of their navigation as may be required to carry over goods and property from one navigable water to another, we do not see that it has any effect in establishing such a general principle.
*34 From the simple fact that in the revision of this law all reference to leases was omitted, it is argued that the general power of leasing one road by another wherever situated, without reference to its competition with roads owned by navigation companies, amounts to a restoration of the power to lease or accept leases on the part of any railroad company in the State, of all its road, of all its franchises, of all its property, for an indefinite length of time.
As to this we can only say that the original section, relating solely to a peculiar class of objects, namely, the construction of roads across portages by corporations navigating the waters of the State, and forbidding by its last clause the purchase, lease, or control of such portage road or the corporate rights acquired by them, was necessarily limited to that class of roads, and the repeal or modification of so much of the section as related to the power to lease could have no effect to declare that all railroads in the State of Oregon had the power to make contracts of lease, either as lessors or lessees.
One other provision of the laws of Oregon, immediately preceding the section just discussed, is also relied upon as establishing the right of a corporation to sell all of its property, and therefore its right to the smaller or subsidiary power of leasing it. It is found under c. 8, title 1, as follows:
"SEC. 19. Any corporation organized under the provisions of this act may, at any meeting of the stockholders which is called for such purpose, by a vote of the majority of the stock of such corporation, increase or diminish its capital stock or the amount of the shares thereof, or authorize the dissolution of such corporation and the settling of its business and disposing of its property and dividing its capital stock: Provided, however, That the capital stock of any corporation formed under this act, except corporations formed for the purpose of making and constructing a railroad, shall never exceed the sum of two million of dollars, and any corporation that shall violate this provision of this act shall forfeit its corporate rights."
It is argued that because a corporation has authority to put an end to its existence by a vote of the majority of its stockholders, *35 in which event it may proceed to settle up its affairs, dispose of its property, and divide its capital stock, therefore, a corporation in full operation, with no such purpose of terminating its existence, may, in the ordinary course of its business, sell all of its property, real and personal, and if it be a railroad company dispose of its road, its franchises, and the powers necessary to properly carry on the business of a carrier. It is insisted that if it can do this, it may, therefore, make a lease of such property and franchises, transferring all those powers, rights and privileges.
But it does not need argument to show that such provision, made for the dissolution of a corporation by the voluntary act of its incorporators, providing for the disposition of its property when the resolution to that effect has been adopted, whether by distribution of dividends on its profits or the sale of shares of stock, or for any other disposition of its effects compatible with law, is not applicable to and cannot be intended to confer upon corporations continuing in existence, or which, like these companies, contemplate in the very contract entered into a continuance of more than ninety-six years, the power to dispose of their corporate powers and franchises, much less the authority to lease them for an indefinite period to others.
In the case before us both corporations continued to exist; they both entered into contracts covering a period of ninety-six years; and if the contract of lease be valid, one of them obtained thereby the right to the control and use of the property and franchises of the other, which on its part became bound for the payment of rent therefor, a supposed profit on the capital for the entire period of the term. We can see no reason why the powers conferred upon a corporation going out of existence, and dissolved by its own act, including the right to wind up its affairs and dispose of its property, can be held to confer any such power on a company which contemplates an existence of a hundred years to come.
Nor does there appear to be any force in the objection that if an Oregon corporation cannot acquire the right to take a lease of a railroad under the existing general laws, it cannot acquire *36 it at all, the legislature being prohibited by the constitution from granting special charters of incorporation, and therefore, it is said, it has no authority to grant special privileges to a particular corporation  a proposition we are not prepared to concede to its fullest extent. But assuming, without deciding, that it is true that the legislature cannot grant the right to a particular railroad company to make or to take a lease of the railroad of another company, it would be clearly within its power to confer by general laws on all railroad corporations within the State the powers to make and to take leases, which powers are claimed by the plaintiff to exist under the general law of Oregon as it now stands.
The reasons for holding that the Oregonian Company had no power to make the lease of its railroad are even stronger than those for holding that the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company had no power to take the lease.
In the first place, even if a domestic railroad corporation established under the general laws of Oregon could be construed as entitled to assume by its articles the power of taking leases of other railroads as incident to and in connection with operating its own road, it would by no means follow that such a corporation could assume the power of leasing its whole railroad for a term of years to another corporation, and thereby substantially abandon and transfer its whole corporate rights and franchises.
The Oregonian Company is a foreign corporation, and the general laws of Oregon do not give a foreign corporation the right to lease, but only to construct or acquire and operate a railroad within the State. The only statute relied on as giving the power to lease (except those already considered) is the general law of Oregon of 1878, Laws of Oregon, p. 95, which clearly does not include or touch that power. The first section, while it includes, among the classes of foreign corporations therein particularly enumerated, "any foreign incorporation incorporated for the purpose of constructing, or constructing and operating, or for the purpose of or with the power of acquiring and operating, any railway," significantly omits corporations established for the purpose of selling or leasing their *37 roads, instead of operating them themselves; and this section gives to those classes of foreign corporations therein enumerated only "the same rights, powers and privileges in the exercise of the rights of eminent domain, collection of tolls and other prerogative franchises as are given by the laws of this State to corporations organized within this State, for the purpose of constructing any railway," or for one of the other purposes already specified, of which the making of leases is not one. And the second section, merely providing that nothing in the act contained shall be so construed as to give to foreign corporations any other or further rights than may be acquired or exercised by domestic corporations, but only to give them the same as domestic corporations may acquire or exercise, is evidently limited to the classes, both of foreign and domestic corporations, specified in the first section.
Under this statute, in short, foreign corporations created for the purpose of leasing get no power at all, and no foreign corporation gets any power to sell or lease its road.
Another argument relied upon by counsel for the defendant in error is that, within the principles laid down in certain cases on the subject, the contract here is so far an executed one that the plaintiff in error is estopped to deny its validity and to refuse to continue its performance. As already stated, the contract was one by which the plaintiff demised its road, privileges and franchises, for a period of ninety-six years, from the 1st of August, 1881, to the defendant, who took possession of it, and used and occupied it, under the lease, until the 15th day of May, 1884, a period of less than three years. It then did what was equivalent to returning the property to the plaintiff, and refused to be further bound by the contract.
To say that a contract which runs for ninety-six years, and which requires of both parties to it continual and actual operations and performance under it, becomes an executed contract by such performance for less than three years of the term, is carrying the doctrine much farther than it has ever been carried, and is decidedly a misnomer. This class of cases is not governed by the doctrine of part performance in a suit in equity for specific performance, nor is this a suit for specific performance. *38 This is an action at law to recover money under a contract which is void, where for nearly three years the parties acted under it, but in which one of them refuses longer to be bound by its provisions; and the argument now set up is that because the defendant has paid for all the actual use it made of the road while engaged in the actual performance of the contract between the dates just given, it is thereby bound for more than ninety-three years longer by the contract which was made without lawful authority by its president and board of directors. We consider this proposition as needing no further consideration, except a reference to the discussion of the same subject in Thomas v. Railroad Company and Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. St. Louis &c. Railroad Co., already cited.
The judgment of the Circuit Court of Oregon is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court, with a direction to overrule the demurrer, and to take such further proceedings as shall be according to law, and not inconsistent with this opinion.
MR. JUSTICE FIELD dissenting.
I am not able to agree with the majority of the court in the decision of this case. It seems to me clear that a railway corporation of Oregon has the right under her laws to lease its road to another corporation of like character. A foreign corporation, as is the plaintiff below, is by the act of October 21st, 1878, placed on the same footing with a domestic corporation, upon complying with the laws passed for the regulation of such corporations transacting business in the State. That act declares that, upon such compliance, the foreign corporation shall have "the same rights, powers and privileges" as a domestic corporation.
Besides, the act of October 22, 1880, entitled "An act to grant the Oregonian Railway Company, Limited, the right of way and station grounds over the state lands, and terminal facilities upon the public grounds at the city of Portland," recognizes the plaintiff as an existing corporation, lawfully engaged in the construction and operation of a railway in *39 Oregon, "from Portland to the head of the Willamette Valley," and grants to it "and to its assigns" valuable "rights, privileges, easements and property," accompanied with a proviso that it shall have no power to sell, convey, or assign the premises or rights granted, or any part or parcel thereof, to any person or corporation, "save only with, and as a part and parcel of and as appurtenant to, the railway now built and owned by said company, and now in process of construction by it." As the court below observed, and it seems to me very justly, this implies that the plaintiff had the power to assign its road, and also the premises and rights thus granted to it in connection therewith, but not otherwise.
I cannot perceive what public policy of the State is sustained by denying to a foreign corporation, which has by her permission constructed a railway therein, the right to lease its road to a domestic corporation. It would rather seem, if any considerations of public policy are to control, that such policy would favor a transfer of the road from foreigners to her own citizens. When the transfer is made the State can exercise over the road, its management, and the charges for its use, the same authority which she could have previously exercised. And there is nothing in the articles of association which forbids the directors of the plaintiff from making such a transfer if the laws of Oregon permit it.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER was not a member of the court when this case was argued, and took no part in this decision.