Gulf Ry Co v. Ellis

• Citation: 17 S.Ct. 255,41 L.Ed. 666,165 U.S. 150
• Decision Date: 18 January 1897
• Docket Number: No. 133,133
• Parties: GULF, C. & S. F. RY. CO. v. ELLIS
• Court: United States Supreme Court

165 U.S. 150

17 S.Ct. 255

41 L.Ed. 666

GULF, C. & S. F. RY. CO.

v ELLIS.

No. 133.

January 18, 1897.

[Syllabus from pages 150-152 intentionally omitted] E. D. Kenna and J. W. Terry, for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Justice BREWER, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.

The single question in this case is the constitutionality of the act allowing attorney fees. The contention is that it operates to deprive the railroad companies of property with- out due process of law, and denies to them the equal protection of the law, in that it singles them out of all citizens and corporations, and requires them to pay in certain cases attorney fees to the parties successfully suing them, while it gives to them no like or corresponding benefit. Only against railroad companies is such exaction made, and only in certain cases.

We have not been favored with any argument or brief from the defendant in error. Doubtless he believed, and justly, that nothing could be added to the arguments so fully and strongly made in support of the constitutionality of this law in the respective opinions of the two highest courts of the state.

The supreme ourt of the state considered this statute as a whole, and held it valid, and as such it is presented to us for consideration. Considered as such, it is simply a statute imposing a penalty upon railroad corporations for a failure to pay certain debts. No individuals are thus punished, and no other corporations. The act singles out a certain class of debtors, and punishes them when, for like delinquencies, it punishes no others. They are not treated as other debtors, or equally with other debtors. They cannot appeal to the courts, as other litigants, under like conditions, and with like protection. If litigation terminates adversely to them, they are mulcted in the attorney's fees of the successful plaintiff; if it terminates in their favor, they recover no attorney's fees. It is no sufficient answer to say that they are punished only when adjudged to be in the wrong. They do not enter the courts upon equal terms. They must pay attorney's fees if wrong. They do not recover any if right; while their adversaries recover if right, and pay nothing if wrong. In the suits, therefore, to which they are parties, they are discriminated against, and are not treated as others. They do not stand equal before the law. They do not receive its equal protection. All this is obvious from a mere inspection of the statute.

It is true, the amount of the attornery's fee which may be charged is small, but, if the state has the power to thus mulct them in a small amount, it has equal power to do so in a larger sum. The matter of amount does not determine the question of right, and the party who has a legal right may insist upon it, if only a shilling be involved. As well said by Mr. Justice Bradley in Boyd v. U. S., 116 U. S. 616, 635, 6 Sup. Ct. 524, 535: 'Illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely, by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure. This can only be obviated by adhering to the rule that constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. A close and literal construction deprives them of half their efficacy, and leads to gradual depreciation of the right, as if it consisted more in sound than in substance. It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizens and against any stealthy encroachments thereon. Their motto should be obsta principiis.'

While good faith and a knowledge of existing conditions on the part of a legislature are to be presumed, yet to carry that presumption to the extent of always holding that there must be some undisclosed and unknown reason for subjecting certain individuals or corporations to hostile and discriminating legislation is to make the protecting clauses of the fourteenth amendment a mere rope of sand, in no manner restraining state action.

It is well settled that corporations are persons within the provisions of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States. Santa Clara Co. v. Southern Pac. R. Co., 118 U. S. 394, 6 Sup. Ct. 1132; Pembina Consol. Silver Min., etc., Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U. S. 181, 189, 8 Sup. Ct. 737; Railway Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205, 8 Sup. Ct. 1161; Railway Co. v. Herrick, 127 U. S. 210, 8 Sup. Ct. 1176; Railway Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26, 9 Sup. Ct. 207; Railroad Co. v. Gibbes, 142 U. S. 386, 12 Sup. Ct. 255; Road Co. v. Sandford, 164 U. S. 578, 17 Sup. Ct. 198. The rights and securities guarantied to persons by that instrument cannot be disregarded in respect to these artificial entities called 'corporations' any more than they can be in respect to the individuals who are the equitable owners of the property belonging to such corporations. A state has no more power to deny to corporations the equal protection of the law than it has to individual citizens. But it is said that it is not within the scope of the fourteenth amendment to withhold from states the power of classification, and that, if the law deals alike with all of a certain class, it is not obnoxious to the charge of a denial of equal protection. While, as a general proposition, this is undeniably true (Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68, 7 Sup. Ct. 350; Railway Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205, 8 Sup. Ct. 1161; Walston v. Nevin, 128 U. S. 578, 9 Sup. Ct. 192; Bell's Gap R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232, 10 Sup. Ct. 533; Express Co. v. Seibert, 142 U. S. 339, 12 Sup. Ct. 250; Giozza v. Tiernan, 148 U. S. 657, 13 Sup. Ct. 721; Railroad Co. v. Wright, 151 U. S. 470, 14 Sup. Ct. 396; Marchant v. Railroad Co., 153 U. S. 380, 14 Sup. Ct. 894; Railway Co. v. Mathews, 165 U. S. 1, 17 Sup. Ct. 243), yet it is equally true that such classification cannot be made arbitrarily. The state may not say that all white men shall be subjected to the payment of the attorney's fees of parties successfully suing them, and all black men not. It may not say that all men beyond a certain age shall be alone thus subjected, or all men possessed of a certain wealth. These are distinctions which do not furnish any proper basis for the attempted classification. That must always rest upon some difference which bears a reasonable and just relation to the act in respect to which the classification is proposed, and can never be made arbitrarily, and without any such basis.

As well said by Black, J., in State v. Loomis, 115 Mo. 307, 314, 22 S. W. 350, 351, in which a statute making it a misdemeanor for any corporation engaged in manufacturing or mining to issue in payment of the wages of its employes any order, check, etc., payable otherwise than in lawful money of the United States, unless negotiable and redeemable at its face value in cash or in goods and supplies at the option of the holder at the store or other place of business of the corporation, was held class legislation and void: 'Classification for legislative purposes must have some reasonable basis upon which to stand. It must be evident that differences which would serve for a classification for some purposes furnish no reason whatever for a classification for legislative purposes. The differences which will support class legislation must be such as, in the nature of things, furnish a reasonable basis for separate laws and regulations. Thus the legislature may fix the age at which persons shall be deemed competent to contract for themselves, but no one will claim that competency to contract can be made to depend upon stature or color of the hair. Such a classification for such a purpose would be arbitrary, and a piece of legislative despotism, and therefore not the law of the land.'

In Vanzant v. Waddel, 2 Yerg. 260, 270, Catron, J. (afterwards Mr. Justice Catron of this court), speaking for the supreme court of Tennessee, deciared: 'Every partial or private law, which directly proposes to destroy or affect individual rights, or does the same thing by affording remedies leading to similar consequences, is unconstitutional and void. Were this otherwise, odious individuals and corporate bodies would be governed by one rule, and the mass of the community, who made the law, by another.'

In Dibrell v. Morris' Heirs (Tenn.) 15 S. W. 87, 95, Baxter, special Judge, reviewing at some length cases of classification, closes the review with these words: 'We conclude upon a review of the cases referred to above that, whether a statute be public or private general or special, in form, if it attempts to create distinctions and classifications between the citizens of this state, the basis of such classification must be natural, and not arbitrary.'

In Bell's Gap R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232, 10 Sup. Ct. 533, the question was presented as to the power of the state to classify for purposes of taxation, and while it was conceded that a large discretion in these respects was vested in the various legislatures, the fact of a limit to such discretion was recognized, the court, by mr. Justice Bradley, saying, on page 237, 134 U. S., and page 535, 10 Sup. Ct.: 'All such regulations, and those of like character, so long as they proceed within reasonable limits and general usage, are within the discretion of the state legislature or the people of the state in framing their constitution. But clear and hostile discriminations against particular persons and classes, especially such as are of an unusual character, unknown to the practice of our governments, might be obnoxious to the constitutional prohibition.'

It is, of course, proper that every debtor should pay his debts, and there might be no impropriety in giving to every successful suitor attorney's fees. Such a provision would bear a reasonable relation to the delinquency of the debtor, and would certainly create no inequality of right or protection. But before a distinction can be made...