Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission,Jersey v. Colburn

• Decision Date: 27 May 1940
• Docket Number: PENNSYLVANIA-NEW,No. 563,563
• Parties: DELAWARE RIVER JOINT TOLL BRIDGE COMMISSION,JERSEY, v. COLBURN et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

310 U.S. 419

60 S.Ct. 1039

84 L.Ed. 1287

DELAWARE RIVER JOINT TOLL BRIDGE COMMISSION, PENNSYLVANIA-NEW JERSEY,

v COLBURN et al.

No. 563.

Argued Feb. 26, 1940.

Decided May 27, 1940.

Mr. Edward P. Stout, of Jersey City, N.J., for petitioner.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 420-422 intentionally omitted] Mr. Egbert Rosecrans, of Blairstown, N.J., for respondents.

[Argument of Counsel from Pages 423-424 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question is of the right of respondents to recover consequential damages to their New Jersey land, due to interference with their access to the land and with their light, air and view caused by petitioner's construction of a bridge abutment on adjacent land. The answer turns on the question whether the Compact of 1934 between New Jersey and Pennsylvania authorizing the construction of the bridge and its approaches, excluded the application to petitioner of a New Jersey statute without which respondents would enjoy no right of recovery under New Jersey law.

Petitioner, the Bridge Commission, is a 'body corporate and politic' created by the Compact adopted by the legislatures of the two states, N.J.P.L.1934, Ch. 215 (now N.J.R.S.1937, 32:8—1 et seq., N.J.S.A. 32:8—1 et seq.), 1931 Pa.P.L. 1352; 1933 Pa.P.L. 827, 36 P.S.Pa. § 3401 and note, and consented to by Congress, 49 Stat. 1058 (1935). The Compact authorized the Commission to build bridges across the Delaware River between the two states, and for that purpose gave the Commission authority to acquire real property by purchase or by the exercise of eminent domain. The Commission, in the exercise of its authority in construction of a bridge between Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and Easton, Pennsylvania, acquired by purchase land in the town of Phillipsburg, upon which it has located and constructed a highway approach to the bridge, on an embankment or abutment leading to the New Jersey end of the bridge. The property thus acquired and used includes land adjoining the rear of property owned by respondents, having its front on a public street. The embankment and the land on which it rests also crosses certain streets in the neighborhood not immediately adjacent to respondents' land which have been permanently closed by the public authorities, in order to provide for the bridge approach.

The present suit is a proceeding in mandamus, brought in the New Jersey Supreme Court to compel the Commission to take proceedings, which it is alleged are authorized and required by the Compact, to fix and award compensation to respondents for damages to their land, suffered by reason of the Commission's action in the construction of the abutment. The State Supreme Court sustained the special verdict of a jury which found that the Commission's action had damaged respondents by depriving them of access to their land and their enjoyment of light, air and view. The court found as a matter of law that as the abutment was located wholly on land acquired by the Commission, and as the streets in the neighborhood had been closed and grades changed by state authority, respondents were without right of recovery for the damages suffered, in the absence of some statute authorizing recovery. But it found such a statute in Ch. 297 of P.L.1912 as amended by Ch. 76 of P.L.1919 (now N.J.R.S.1937, 32:9—1 et seq., N.J.S.A. 32:9—1 et seq.), which it construed with the Compact as requiring the Commission to compensate for the damages which respondents had suffered. Klement v. Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Comm., 119 N.J.L. 600, 197 A. 896.

Respondents, being without other adequate legal remedy, the court awarded a peremptory mandamus directing petitioner to compensate them for the damage or to take proceedings for the determination of the amount to be awarded as compensation pursuant to the provisions of Article III of the Compact, which it also held required the proceedings for that purpose to be taken according to Chapter 297 of P.L.1912 as amended by Ch. 76 of P.L.1919 (now N.J.R.S.1937, 32:9—1 et seq., N.J.S.A. 32:9—1 et seq). On appeal the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals affirmed on the same grounds as those on which the Supreme Court rested its decision. 123 N.J.L. 197, 8 A.2d 563. We granted certiorari January 15, 1940, 308 U.S. 549, 60 S.Ct. 386, 84 L.Ed. -, the questions of the construction of the Compact between states and of the jurisdiction of this Court being of public importance.

In People of New York v. Central Railroad Co. of New Jersey, 12 Wall. 455, 20 L.Ed. 458, jurisdiction of this Court to review a judgment of a state court construing a compact between states was denied on the ground that the Compact was not a statute of the United States and that the construction of the Act of Congress giving consent was in no way drawn in question, nor was any right set up under it. This case has long been doubted, see Hinderlider v. La Plata Co., 304 U.S. 92, 110, note 12, 58 S.Ct. 803, 811, 82 L.Ed. 1202, and we now conclude that the construction of such a compact sanctioned by Congress by virtue of Article I, § 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution, involves a federal 'title, right, privilege, or immunity' which when 'specially set up or claimed' in a state court may be reviewed here on certiorari under § 237(b) of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 344, 28 U.S.C.A. § 344(b). See Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 1, 5 L.Ed. 547; Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 13 How. 518, 14 L.Ed. 249; Wedding v. Meyler, 192 U.S. 573, 24 S.Ct. 322, 48 L.Ed. 570, 66 L.R.A. 833; cf. Wharton v. Wise, 153 U.S. 155, 14 S.Ct. 783, 38 L.Ed. 669; Kentucky Union Co. v. Kentucky, 219 U.S. 140, 161, 31 S.Ct. 171, 180, 55 L.Ed. 137; Hinderlider v. La Plata Co., supra. Hence we address ourselves to the language of the Compact on which respondents rely to sustain a right of recovery for injury to their lands, for which, apart from the New Jersey statute of 1912, referred to in the Compact, the New Jersey courts have held there is no support in state law.

The Compact created the Commission as a 'public corporate instrumentality' of the two states, to perform state functions, among others, the location, construction, operation and maintenance of bridges extending between the two states and across a specified section of the Delaware River. To this end it conferred upon the Commission the power:

'b. To sue and be sued. * * *

'h. To enter into contracts. * * *

'j. To acquire, own, use, lease, operate, and dispose of real property and interest in real property, and to make improvements thereon. * * *

'm. To exercise the power of eminent domain.' N.J.S.A. 32:8 3.

In connection with the acquisition of any real property for any authorized purpose, Article III of the Compact provides: 'If the commission is unable to agree with the owner or owners thereof upon terms for the acquisition of any such real property, in the state of New Jersey, for any reason whatsoever, then the commission may acquire such property by the exercise of the right of eminent domain, in the manner provided by an act (of the State of New Jersey) entitled 'An act authorizing the acquisition and maintaining by the state of New Jersey, in conjunction with the state of Pennsylvania, of toll bridges across the Delaware river, and providing for free travel across the same,' approved the first day of April, one thousand nine hundred and twelve (chapter two hundred ninety-seven), and the various acts amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto, relating to the acquisition of interstate toll bridges over the Delaware river.'

It further provides: 'The term 'real property' as used in this compact includes lands, * * * and interests in land, * * * and any and all things and rights usually included within the said term, and includes not only fees simple and absolute, but also any and all lesser interests, such as easements, rights of way, uses, leases, licenses, and all other incorporeal hereditaments and every estate, interest or right, legal or equitable, including terms of years and liens thereon by way of judgments, mortgages, or otherwise, and also claims for damage to real estate.' N.J.S.A. 32:8—4.

It will be noted that the effect of these provisions is to authorize the Commission to acquire 'real property' by purchase or by eminent domain, and that by definition real property includes 'interests in land' which are so defined as to include 'claims for damage to real estate', and that, where resort to eminent domain is needful for the acquisition of such interests, the exercise of that power is to be 'in the manner provided' in the New Jersey statute of 1912 as amended. By its terms the Compact confers upon the Commission the power to acquire the specified interests in land or relating to land, conditioned upon payment for the interests acquired, an amount agreed upon or fixed by proceedings in eminent domain. Beyond this it imposes no duty or obligation on the Commission to compensate for damages inflicted by its acts, but leaves the Commission subject to such liability as is imposed by the law of the state within which the Commission acts.

The New Jersey statute of 1912 which, as prescribed by...