MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.
The questions presented on this writ of error relate to the jurisdiction of this court to reëxamine the final judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois, and to certain rulings of the state court which, it is alleged, were in disregard of that part of the Fourteenth Amendment declaring that no State shall deprive any person of his property without due process of law, or deny the equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction.
The constitution of Illinois provides that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." Art. 2, § 2. It also provides: "Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation. Such compensation, when not made by the State, shall be ascertained by a jury, as shall be prescribed by law. The fee of land taken for railroad tracks, without consent of the owners thereof, shall remain in such owners, subject to the use for which it is taken." Art. 2, § 13.
By the fifth article of the general statute, of Illinois, approved April 10, 1872, and relating to the incorporation of cities and villages, it was provided that "the city council shall have power, by condemnation or otherwise, to extend any street, alley or highway over or across, or to construct any sewer under or through any railroad track, right of way or land of any railroad company (within the corporate limits); but where no compensation is made to such railroad company, the city shall restore such railroad track, right of way or land
The ninth article of the same statute declared that when the corporate authorities of a city or village provided by ordinance for the making of any local improvement authorized to be made, the making of which would require that private property be taken or damaged for public use, the city or village should file in its name a petition in some court of record of the county praying "that the just compensation to be made for private property to be taken or damaged" for the improvement or purpose specified in the ordinance be ascertained by a jury.
That statute further provided: "§ 14. Any final judgment or judgments, rendered by said court, upon any finding or findings of any jury or juries, shall be a lawful and sufficient condemnation of the land or property to be taken upon the payment of the amount of such finding as hereinafter provided. It shall be final and conclusive as to the damages caused by such improvement, unless such judgment or judgments shall be appealed from; but no appeal or writ of error upon the same shall delay proceedings under said ordinance, if such city or village shall deposit, as directed by the court, the amount of the judgment and costs, and shall file a bond in the court in which such judgment was rendered, in a sum to be fixed, and with security to be approved by the judge of said court, which shall secure the payment of any future compensation which may at any time be finally awarded to such party so appealing or suing out such writ of error, and his or her costs. § 15. The court, upon proof that said just compensation so found by the jury has been paid to the person entitled thereto, or has been deposited as directed by the court (and bond given, in case of any appeal or writ of error), shall enter an order that the city or village shall have the right, at any time thereafter, to take possession of or damage the property, in respect to which such compensation shall have been so paid or deposited, as aforesaid." 1 Starr & Curtis, 487 et seq.
By an ordinance of the city council of Chicago approved October 9, 1880, it was ordained that Rockwell Street in that city be opened and widened from West 18th Street to West 19th Street by condemning therefor, in accordance with the above act of April 10, 1872, certain parcels of land owned by individuals, and also certain parts of the right of way in that city of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company, a corporation of Illinois.
In execution of that ordinance a petition was filed by the city, November 12, 1890, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, for the condemnation of the lots, pieces or parcels of land and property proposed to be taken or damaged for the proposed improvement, and praying that the just compensation required for private property taken or damaged be ascertained by a jury.
The parties interested in the property described in the petition, including the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company, were admitted as defendants in the proceeding.
In their verdict the jury fixed the just compensation to be paid to the respective individual owners of the lots, pieces and parcels of land and property sought to be taken or damaged by the proposed improvements, and fixed one dollar as just compensation to the railroad company in respect of those parts of its right of way described in the city's petition as necessary to be used for the purposes of the proposed street.
Thereupon the railroad company moved for a new trial. The motion was overruled, and a final judgment was rendered in execution of the award by the jury. That judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State. 149 Illinois, 457.
The motion by the city to dismiss the writ of error for want of jurisdiction will be first considered. If the right now asserted under the Constitution of the United States was specifically set up or claimed by the defendant in the state court, the motion to dismiss must be overruled. Rev. Stat. § 709.
It is not, therefore, important that the defendant neither filed nor offered to file an answer specially setting up or claiming a right under the Constitution of the United States. It is sufficient if it appears from the record that such right was specially set up or claimed in the state court in such manner as to bring it to the attention of that court.
Now the right in question was distinctly asserted by the defendant in its written motion to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial. Among the grounds for a new trial were the following: That the several rulings of the court in excluding proper evidence for the defendant, the statute under which the proceedings for condemnation were instituted, and the verdict of the jury and the judgment based upon it, were all contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment declaring that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its limits the equal protection of the laws.
When the trial court overruled the motion for a new trial and entered judgment it necessarily held adversely to these claims of Federal right.
But this is not all. In the assignment of errors filed by the defendant in the Supreme Court of Illinois, these claims of rights under the Constitution of the United States were distinctly reasserted.
It is true that the Supreme Court of Illinois did not in its opinion expressly refer to the Constitution of the United
The general contentions of the railroad company are —
That the judgment of the state court whereby a public street is opened across its land used for railroad purposes, and whereby compensation to the extent of one dollar only is awarded, deprives it of its property without due process of law contrary to the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment; and,
The city contends that the question as to the amount of compensation to be awarded to the railroad company was one of local law merely, and as that question was determined in the mode prescribed by the constitution and laws of Illinois, the company appearing and having full opportunity to be heard, the requirement of due process of law was observed. If this position be sound, it is an end of the case, and we need not determine whether the state court erred in not recognizing the principles of law embodied in the instructions asked by the railroad company.
It is, therefore, necessary to inquire at the outset whether "due process of law" requires compensation to be made or secured to the owner of private property taken for public use, and also as to the circumstances under which the final judgment of the highest court of a State in a proceeding instituted to condemn such property for public use may be reviewed by this court.
It is not contended, as it could not be, that the constitution of Illinois deprives the railroad company of any right secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. For the state constitution not only declares that no person shall be deprived of his property without due process of law, but that private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation. But it must be observed that the prohibitions of the amendment refer to all the instrumentalities of the State, to its legislative, executive and judicial authorities, and, therefore, whoever by virtue of public position under a state government deprives another of any right protected by that
Nor is the contention that the railroad company has been deprived of its property without due process of law entirely met by the suggestion that it had due notice of the proceedings for condemnation, appeared in court, and was admitted to make defence. It is true that this court has said that a trial in a court of justice according to the modes of proceeding applicable to such a case, secured by laws operating on all alike, and not subjecting the individual to the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government unrestrained by the established principles of private right and distributive justice — the court having jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the parties, and the defendant having full opportunity to be heard — met the requirement of due process of law. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 554; Leeper v. Texas, 139 U.S. 462, 468. But a State may not, by any of its agencies, disregard the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment. Its judicial authorities may keep within the letter of the statute prescribing forms of procedure in the courts and give the parties interested the fullest opportunity to be heard, and yet
It is proper now to inquire whether the due process of law enjoined by the Fourteenth Amendment requires compensation to be made or adequately secured to the owner of private property taken for public use under the authority of a State.
In Davidson v. New Orleans, above cited, it was said that a statute declaring in terms, without more, that the full and exclusive title to a described piece of land belonging to one person should be and is hereby vested in another person, would, if effectual, deprive the former of his property without due process of law, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. See also Missouri Pacific Railway v. Nebraska, 164 U.S. 403, 417. Such an enactment would not receive judicial sanction in any country having a written constitution distributing the powers of government among three coördinate departments, and committing to the judiciary, expressly or by implication, authority to enforce the provisions of such constitution. It would be treated not as an exertion of legislative power, but as a sentence — an act of spoliation. Due protection of the rights of property has been regarded as a vital principle of
But if, as this court has adjudged, a legislative enactment, assuming arbitrarily to take the property of one individual and give it to another individual, would not be due process of law as enjoined by the Fourteenth Amendment, it must be that the requirement of due process of law in that amendment is applicable to the direct appropriation by the State to public use and without compensation of the private property of the citizen. The legislature may prescribe a form of procedure to be observed in the taking of private property for public use, but it is not due process of law if provision be not made for compensation. Notice to the owner to appear in some judicial tribunal and show cause why his property shall not be taken for public use without compensation would be a mockery of justice. Due process of law as applied to judicial proceedings instituted for the taking of private property for public use means, therefore, such process as recognizes the right of the owner to be compensated if his property be wrested from him and transferred to the public. The mere form of the proceeding instituted against the owner, even if he be admitted to defend, cannot convert the process used
In Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87, 135-136, this court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, said: "It may well be doubted whether the nature of society and of government does not prescribe some limits to the legislative power; and if any be prescribed, where are they to be found, if the property of an individual fairly and honestly acquired, may be seized without compensation. To the legislature all legislative power is granted; but the question, whether the act of transferring the property of an individual to the public, be in the nature of legislative power, is well worthy of serious reflection."
In Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655, 663, Mr. Justice Miller, delivering the judgment of this court, after observing that there were private rights in every free government beyond the control of the State, and that a government, by whatever name it was called, under which the property of citizens was at the absolute disposition and unlimited control of any depository of power, was, after all, but a despotism, said: "The theory of our governments, state and national, is opposed to the deposit of unlimited power anywhere. The executive, the legislative and the judicial branches of these governments are all of limited and defined powers. There are limitations on such power which grow out of the essential nature of all free governments, implied reservations of individual rights, without which the social compact could not exist, and which are respected by all governments entitled to the name." No court, he said, would hesitate to adjudge void any statute declaring that "the homestead now owned by A should no longer be his, but should henceforth be the property of B." In accordance with these principles it was held, in that case, that the property of the citizen could not be taken, under the power of taxation to promote private objects, and, therefore, that a statute authorizing a town to issue its bonds in aid of a manufacturing enterprise of individuals was void because the object was a private, not a public, one. See also Cole v. La Grange, 113 U.S. 1.
In the early case of Gardner v. Newburgh, 2 Johns. Ch.
In Searl v. School District, 133 U.S. 553, 562, and in Sweet v. Rechel, 159 U.S. 380, 398, the court said that it was a condition precedent to the exercise of the power of eminent domain that the statute make provision for reasonable compensation to the owner.
In Scott v. Toledo, 36 Fed. Rep. 385, 395-396, the late Mr. Justice Jackson, while Circuit Judge, had occasion to consider this question. After full consideration that able judge said: "Whatever may have been the power of the States on this subject prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment
In Mount Hope Cemetery v. Boston, 158 Mass. 509, 519, in which the Fourteenth Amendment was invoked against a statute requiring the city of Boston to transfer certain cemetery property owned by it to a particular company, the court said: "The conclusion to which we have come is, that the cemetery falls within the class of property which the city owns in its private or proprietary character, as a private corporation might own it, and that its ownership is protected under the constitutions of Massachusetts and of the United States, so that the legislature has no power to require its transfer without compensation" — citing the constitution of Massachusetts, Declaration of Rights, Article X, and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
In our opinion, a judgment of a state court, even if it be authorized by statute, whereby private property is taken for the State or under its direction for public use, without compensation made or secured to the owner, is, upon principle and authority, wanting in the due process of law required by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and the affirmance of such judgment by the highest court of the State is a denial by that State of a right secured to the owner by that instrument.
It remains to inquire whether the necessary effect of the proceedings in the court below was to appropriate to the public use any property right of the railroad company without compensation being made or secured to the owner.
The contention of the railroad company is that the verdict and judgment for one dollar as the amount to be paid to it was, in effect, an appropriation of its property rights without any compensation whatever; that the judgment should be read as if in form as well as in fact it made no provision whatever for compensation for the property so appropriated.
Undoubtedly the verdict may not unreasonably be taken as meaning that, in the judgment of the jury, the company's property, proposed to be taken, was not materially damaged; that is, looking at the nature of the property and the purposes for which it was obtained and was being used, that which was taken from the company was not, in the judgment of the jury, of any substantial value in money. The owner of private property taken under the right of eminent domain obtains just compensation if he is awarded such sum as, under all the
If the opening of the street across the railroad tracks did not unduly interfere with the company's use of the right of way for legitimate railroad purposes, then its compensation would be nominal. But whether there was such an interference, what was its extent, and what was the value of that lost by the company as the direct result of such interference, were questions of fact which the State committed to the jury under such instructions touching the law as were proper and necessary. It was for the jury to determine the facts, but it belonged to the court to determine the legal principles by which they were to be governed in fixing the amount of compensation to the owner.
Whatever may have been the power of the trial court to set aside the verdict as not awarding just compensation, or the authority of the Supreme Court of Illinois under the constitution and laws of the State to review the facts, can this court go behind the final judgment of the state court for the purpose of reëxamining and weighing the evidence, and of determining whether, upon the facts, the jury erred in not returning a verdict in favor of the railroad company for a larger sum than one dollar? This question may be considered in two aspects: first, with reference to the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution, providing that "in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reëxamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law"; second, with reference to the statute, Rev. Stat. § 709, which provides that the final judgment of the highest court of a State in certain named cases may be reëxamined in this court upon writ of error.
It is clear that the last clause of the Seventh Amendment is not restricted in its application to suits at common law tried before juries in the courts of the United States. It applies equally to a case tried before a jury in a state court and brought here by writ of error from the highest court of the
In The Justices v. Murray, 9 Wall. 274, 278 — a case removed from a state court to a Circuit Court of the United States, after verdict in the state court, and brought from the latter court to this court by writ of error — the question was presented as to the constitutionality of so much of the 5th section of the act of March 3, 1863, c. 81, 12 Stat. 755, as authorized the removal of a judgment in a state court, in which the case was tried by a jury, to the Circuit Court of the United States for a retrial on the facts and the law. The argument was made that as by the construction uniformly given to the first clause of the amendment the suits there mentioned were only those in the Federal courts, the words "and no fact tried by a jury," mentioned in the second clause, relate to trial by jury only in such courts. But this court said: "It is admitted that the clause applies to the appellate powers of the Supreme Court of the United States in all common law cases coming up from an inferior Federal court, and also to the Circuit Court in like cases, in the exercise of its appellate powers. And why not, as it respects the exercise of these powers in cases of Federal cognizance coming up from a state court? The terms of the amendment are general, and contain no qualification in respect of the restriction
Upon the reasoning in the case just referred to, it would seem to be clear that the last clause of the Seventh Amendment forbids the retrial by this court of the facts tried by the jury in the present case. This conclusion is not affected by the circumstance that this proceeding is to be referred to the State's power of eminent domain, in which class of cases it has been held that, in the absence of express constitutional provisions on the subject, the owner of private property taken for public use cannot claim, as of right, that his compensation
To this may be added that Congress has provided that the final judgment of the highest court of a State in cases of which this court may take cognizance, shall be reëxamined upon writ of error, a process of common law origin, which removes nothing for reëxamination but questions of law arising upon the record. Egan v. Hart, 165 U.S. 188. Even if we were of opinion in view of the evidence that the jury erred in finding that no property right, of substantial value in money, had been taken from the railroad company, by reason of the opening of a street across its right of way, we cannot, on that ground, reëxamine the final judgment of the state court. We are permitted only to inquire whether the trial court prescribed any rule of law for the guidance of the jury that was in absolute disregard of the company's right to just compensation.
We say, "in absolute disregard of the company's right to just compensation," because we do not wish to be understood as holding that every order or ruling of the state court in a case like this may be reviewed here, notwithstanding our jurisdiction, for some purposes, is beyond question. Many matters may occur in the progress of such cases that do not necessarily involve, in any substantial sense, the Federal right alleged to have been denied; and in respect of such matters, that which is done or omitted to be done by the state court may constitute only error in the administration of the law under which the proceedings were instituted.
In harmony with those views, we may say in the present case that the state court having jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the parties, and being under a duty to guard and protect the constitutional right here asserted, the final judgment ought not to be held to be in violation of the due process of law enjoined by the Fourteenth Amendment, unless by its rulings upon questions of law the company was prevented from obtaining substantially any compensation. See also Marchant v. Pennsylvania Railroad, 153 U.S. 380.
The principal point of dispute between the parties was whether the railroad company, by reason of the opening of the street, was entitled to recover a sum equal to the difference
In its opinion in this case the Supreme Court of Illinois says that when a city council, under the authority of the act of April 10, 1872, extends a street across railroad tracks or right of way, "it does not condemn the land of the railroad company nor prevent the use of the tracks and right of way." 149 Illinois, 457. We take this to be a correct interpretation of the local statute, and as indicating not only the interest acquired by the public through proceedings instituted for the extension of a street across the tracks and right of way of the railroad company, but also the extent to which the company was deprived, by the proceedings for condemnation, of any right in respect of the land. Such being the law of the State, it would necessarily follow that the jury, in ascertaining the amount of compensation, could not properly take as a basis of calculation the market value of the land as land. The land as such was not taken, the railroad company was not prevented from using it, and its use for all the purposes for which it was held by the railroad company was interfered with only so far as its exclusive enjoyment for purposes of railroad tracks was diminished in value by subjecting the land within the crossing to public use as a street. The Supreme Court of Illinois well said that "the measure of compensation is the amount of decrease in the value of the use for railroad purposes caused by the use for purposes of a street, such use for the purposes of a street being exercised jointly with the use of the companies for railroad purposes. In other words, the company is to be compensated for the diminution in its right to use its tracks caused by the existence and use of the street." 149 Illinois, 457.
But it was contended in the court below, and is here contended, that the land was subject to sale by the company for any lawful use; that after being condemned for purposes of a public street it could not be sold as land held for private use could be sold in the market; consequently, its salable value,
But even if it were true that the company, so long as it operated its railroad, could without legislative permission take up its tracks placed across the land in question, and use the land for purposes other than for a right of way, the jury could not properly have taken into consideration the possibility that at some future time the company would adopt that course, and thereby put itself in condition, if no street were opened across it, to sell its land for what it was worth as land, freed from any public easement. Such a possibility was too remote and contingent to have been taken into account. There was nothing in the evidence, introduced or
The company must be deemed to have laid its tracks within the corporate limits of the city subject to the condition — not, it is true, expressed, but necessarily implied — that new streets of the city might be opened and extended from time to time across its tracks as the public convenience required, and under such restrictions as might be prescribed by statute. Suppose the city had many years ago acquired the land in question by purchase or condemnation for the purpose of extending and had extended a street over it, and that the railroad company had thereafter acquired by condemnation the right to lay its tracks across the street upon making just compensation to the city. In ascertaining, in such a case, the compensation due the city, would it not be assumed, the street having once been opened, that the convenience of the public would always require it to be kept open, and that, therefore, compensation was to be ascertained, not upon the basis of the value of the city's land, as land, when crossed by the railroad tracks, but upon the basis that the land would always be a part of a public street? Both branches of this question must be answered in the affirmative. But they should not be so answered if the position of the railroad company be sound; for, according to its contention, the jury, in the case supposed, must have taken into account the possibility that the city might at some future
It is next contended that error of law was committed by the refusal of the court to allow the company to prove that in the event of the opening of the street it would be necessary, in order that the railroad be properly and safely operated, to construct gates and a tower for operating them, plank the crossing, fill between the rails, put in an extra rail, and to incur an annual expense of depreciations, maintenance,
The plaintiff in error took its charter subject to the power of the State to provide for the safety of the public, in so far as the safety of the lives and persons of the people were involved in the operation of the railroad. The company laid its tracks subject to the condition necessarily implied that their use could be so regulated by competent authority as to insure the public safety. And as all property, whether owned by private persons or by corporations, is held subject to the authority of the State to regulate its use in such manner as not to unnecessarily endanger the lives and the personal safety of the people, it is not a condition of the exercise of that authority that the State shall indemnify the owners of property for the damage or injury resulting from its exercise. Property thus damaged or injured is not, within the meaning of the Constitution, taken for public use, nor is the owner deprived of it without due process of law. The requirement that compensation be made for private property taken for public use imposes no restriction upon the inherent power of the State by reasonable regulations to protect the lives and secure the safety of the people. In the recent case of N.Y. & N.E. Railroad v. Bristol, 151 U.S. 556, 567, this court declared it to be thoroughly established that the inhibitions of the Constitution of the United States upon the impairment of the obligation of contracts, or the deprivation of property without due process or of the equal protection of the laws, by the States, are not violated by the legitimate exercise of legislative power in securing the public safety, health and morals. "The governmental power of self-protection," the court said, "cannot be contracted away, nor can the exercise of rights granted, nor the use of property be withdrawn from the implied
In Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Railway v. Deacon, 63 Illinois, 91, the Supreme Court of Illinois said: "The State has reserved to itself the power to enact all police laws necessary and proper to secure and protect the life and property of the citizen. Prominent among the rights reserved, and which must inhere in the State, is the power to regulate the approaches to and the crossing of public highways, and the passage through cities and villages, where life and property are constantly in imminent danger by the rapid and fearful speed of railway trains. The exercise of their franchises by corporations must yield to the public exigencies and the safety of the community." And in Illinois Central Railroad v. Willenborg, 117 Illinois, 203, where the question was whether a railroad company could be required to construct a farm crossing over its road years after the road had been built, the court said: "The point is made, however, that these provisions are not obligatory on this corporation because they were enacted many years since it received its charter from the State. This is a misapprehension of the law. The regulations in regard to fencing railroad tracks, and the construction of farm crossings for the use of adjoining land owners, are police regulations in the strict sense of those terms, and apply with equal force to corporations whose tracks are already built, as well as to those to be thereafter constructed. They have reference to the public security both as to persons and to property... . No reason is perceived why, upon the same principle on which a railroad corporation may be required to fence its track and construct cattle guards, it may not be required also to construct farm crossings."
In Chicago & Northwestern Railway Co. v. Chicago, 140 Illinois, 309, 317-319, the question was whether, in a case where a city institutes a condemnation proceeding to open or extend a street across a railroad already constructed, the company owning such railroad was entitled to be allowed, as a
We concur in these views. The expenses that will be incurred by the railroad company in erecting gates, planking the crossing, and maintaining flagmen, in order that its road may be safely operated — if all that should be required — necessarily result from the maintenance of a public highway, under legislative sanction, and must be deemed to have been taken by the company into account when it accepted the privileges and franchises granted by the State. Such expenses must be regarded as incidental to the exercise of the police powers of the State. What was obtained, and all that
One of the instructions asked by the company, and refused by the court, was to the effect that if the land to be crossed by the proposed street was of such width and dimensions that it would be practicable for the company or those acquiring title under it to lay and operate other railroad tracks in addition to those already placed thereon, the company was entitled to recover as part of the compensation to be awarded the difference, if any, between the value of the strip for railroad purposes with the right to lay and operate thereon such additional tracks, and the value of the same for railroad purposes with the right to use and operate only the railroad tracks now on the same. This instruction was properly refused, because it assumed, as matter of law, that the opening of the street across the existing railroad tracks prevented the company from laying additional tracks across the land within the crossing, if there was room for such tracks. The right of the company to use the land or its right of way for as many tracks as it reasonably required for its business — if such right it had when the present proceedings were instituted — is not affected by the opening of the street in question. The opening of the street across the company's land — the city not acquiring the
Another instruction asked by the company, and to the refusal of which it excepted, was to the effect that if the land of the railroad company to be crossed by the proposed street was used by it for railroad purposes as part of "its railroad and terminal facilities," and the value of such railroad and terminal facilities would be depreciated and lessened by the use of the land by the public for the purposes of a street (such use for the purposes of a street being subject, however, to the use of the land by the company for railroad purposes), then the railroad company was entitled to recover from the city a sum equal to such depreciation in value as damages to part of its land not taken or crossed by the proposed street. This instruction was properly refused. It was objectionable for the reason, if there were no other, that it was too general. The words "its railroad and terminal facilities" included the company's entire line of road and terminal facilities within, at least, the corporate limits of the city. The land within the crossing is three miles inside the city limits, about four miles from the passenger depot of the company and a thousand feet from its nearest freight depot. If the instruction last referred to had been given, the range of inquiry as to the sum due the company for what was taken from it would have been extended far beyond what was required or permissible in order to ascertain the amount of compensation.
It is further contended that the railroad company was denied the equal protection of the laws in that by the final judgment individual property owners were awarded, as compensation for contiguous property appropriated to the public use by the same proceeding, the value of their land taken, while only nominal compensation was given to the company — the value of its land, simply as land, across which the street was opened, not being taken into account. This contention is without merit. Compensation was awarded to individual owners upon the basis of the value of the property actually taken, having regard to the uses for which it was best adapted
We have examined all the questions of law arising on the record of which this court may take cognizance, and which, in our opinion, are of sufficient importance to require notice at our hands, and finding no error, the judgment is
Affirmed.
Comment
User Comments