Hays v. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company

• Decision Date: 23 July 1851
• Citation: 17 Pa. 9
• Parties: Hays <I>versus</I> The Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 9

17 Pa. 9

Hays versus The Pennsylvania Railroad Company.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

July 23, 1851.

THIS was a bill in Chancery filed in the Supreme Court sitting at Harrisburg, at the instance of Robert Hays, Thomas S. Clark, and Henry Graff.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

The case was argued by Stanton, and Shaler, with whom was Harding, for complainants. Campbell, H. Williams, and Dallas, for the Railroad Company.

Meredith in reply.

The opinion of the Court, filed July 23, was delivered by GIBSON, C. J.

It seems to be an inevitable conclusion that the chancery powers of this court in supervising and controlling the proceedings of corporations, if not restricted to the city and county of Philadelphia, are not more extensive in any other part of the state than those of a Court of Common Pleas. The thirteenth section of the Act of 16th June, 1836, relating to the jurisdiction and powers of the Courts, gave to the Supreme Court and the several Courts of Common Pleas, the jurisdiction and powers of a Court of Chancery so far as relates, inter alia, to "the supervision and control of all corporations other than those of a municipal character." Had the power been conferred upon the Supreme Court alone, it would have enabled us to retain the present bill, but conferred in the same clause upon the Common Pleas, thus putting the Supreme Court on a footing with the Courts of Common Pleas, it leads irresistibly to the conclusion that the design was to give them exactly the same jurisdiction. "The Supreme Court, and the several Courts of Common Pleas," it was said, "shall have the jurisdiction and powers of a court of chancery so far as relates to the supervision and control of corporations not of a municipal character;" and consequently in an equal degree, for no difference is made. Did the question of power rest even on this, the Supreme Court, standing on a foundation no broader, and exercising a jurisdiction not more extensive than the foundation and jurisdiction of a Court of Common Pleas, could not supervise or control the proceedings of a corporation whose field of action extends from the Susquehanna to the Ohio. A Court of Common Pleas, whose process runs not beyond the precincts of the county, certainly could not; yet its jurisdiction is created by the very same words; and how the jurisdiction of the one can be more extensive than the other, has not been explained. According to the maxim, noscitur a sociis, the Supreme Court can control no corporation which the Common Pleas of the proper county could not control, and which, on the principle of the Bank of the United States v. Deveraux, 3 Cranch 61, is not located in that county exclusively. Such is the restricted grant of jurisdiction as it stands in the first part of the section; and it is clear from it that the Supreme Court was not intended to have the full power of a court of chancery without bound or qualification. What was to be its special jurisdiction, is not so clear.

But the same grant is repeated in the same section; and certainly with a distinct limitation of the...