Chicago, Terre Haute Southeastern Railway Company v. Champion Anderson

• Decision Date: 18 December 1916
• Docket Number: No. 34,34
• Citation: 242 U.S. 283,37 S.Ct. 124,61 L.Ed. 302
• Parties: CHICAGO, TERRE HAUTE, & SOUTHEASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. CHAMPION S. ANDERSON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

242 U.S. 283

37 S.Ct. 124

61 L.Ed. 302

CHICAGO, TERRE HAUTE, & SOUTHEASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v CHAMPION S. ANDERSON.

No. 34.

Argued October 25, 1916.

Decided December 18, 1916.

Messrs. William F. Peter and James C. Hutchins for plaintiff in error.

No appearance for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice McKenna delivered the opinion of the court:

A statute of Indiana provides as follows:

'Sec. 1. . . . That all railroad corporations doing business in this state shall, between the 1st day of July and the 20th day of August, in each year, cause all thistles, burs, docks, and other noxious weeds growing on lands occupied by them in any city, village or township of this state, to be cut down and destroyed.

'Sec. 2. In case any railroad company shall refuse or neglect to comply with the requirements specified in the first section of this act, such company shall be liable in a penalty of $25 to be prosecuted for in an action of debt by any person feeling himself aggrieved. Said suit may be brought before any justice of the peace in the county, who shall require of the complainant surety to pay costs in case he fails to maintain his action. Summons may be served on any agent or officer of the company.' [Burns's Anno. Stat. 1914, §§ 5524, 5525.]

The company was proceeded against under this statute by defendant in error, who alleged that the railroad company is a corporation doing business in the state, and that one of the branches of its railway lines intersects and runs through his land for a distance of 1/4 of a mile in the township of Curry, Sullivan county, Indiana, and that the company, between July 1, 1911, and August 20, 1911, refused and neglected to cause all noxious weeds (following the words of the statute) growing on lands occupied by it in the township and county designated above to be cut down and destroyed, and especially on its lands running through the lands of defendant in error. He also alleged that he felt himself aggrieved thereby and had been damaged in the sum of $25, and should receive the statutory penalty of $25.

The company demurred to the complaint for insufficiency to constitute a cause of action, filing therewith a memorandum alleging, among other things, that the act was unconstitutional.

The demurrer was overruled and the company filed a general denial of the allegations of the complaint.

After hearing a penalty was imposed upon the company in the sum of $25. It filed a motion in arrest of judgment in which it repeated that the law was unconstitutional. The motion was overruled and Judgment entered against the company. It was affirmed by the supreme court. In that court the ground was specifically urged that the statute offended the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The court considered both contentions and rejected both, and to review its decision this writ of error is prosecuted.

As offending against the equal protection assured by the 14th Amendment the company complains that occupiers of land are separated into two classes—'(1) railway corporations, and (2) all others.' This, it is insisted, is an unnatural and unjustifiable classification with respect to the obligation imposed of cutting down weeds growing on lands occupied, as there is no relation between the line of division of the classes and the subject matter. Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, 41 L. ed. 666, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 255, and Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co. 184 U. S. 540, 46 L. ed. 679, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 431, are cited. We need not pause to review them or the many cases decided since them, explaining the wide discretion a legislature has in the classification of the objects of legislation, for immediately repellent to plaintiff in error's contention is Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. May, 194 U. S. 267, 48 L. ed. 971, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 638. In that case a statute of Texas imposed a penalty on railroad companies for permitting Johnson grass and Russian thistle to go to seed upon their rights of way. A right of action for the penalty was given to contiguous owners. The act was sustained, but certain distinctions between that statute and the Indiana statute are pointed out. These distinctions are: (1) The Texas statute gave the penalty to dontiguous landowners; the Indiana statute gives it to 'any person feeling himself aggrieved.' (2) The Texas statute required the con- tiguous landowner to be free from the same neglect; the Indiana statute does not impose this limitation. (3) The Texas statute is limited to the railroad's rights of way; the Indiana statute applies to all lands occupied by a railroad 'in any city, village or township.'

How...