Hendersonville Light Power Company v. Blue Ridge Interurban Railway Company
| Decision Date | 23 April 1917 |
| Docket Number | No. 497,497 |
| Citation | 61 L.Ed. 900,243 U.S. 563,37 S.Ct. 440 |
| Parties | HENDERSONVILLE LIGHT & POWER COMPANY and Saluda-Hendersonville Interurban Railway Company, Plffs. in Err., v. BLUE RIDGE INTERURBAN RAILWAY COMPANY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Michael Schenck, C. P. Sanders, J. C. Martin, Thomas S. Rollins, and George H. Wright for plaintiffs in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 563-565 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Charles W. Tillett, Horace l. Bomar, William A. Smith, James E. Shipman, and Thomas C. Guthrie for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 566-568 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:
This is a special proceeding to condemn the water rights incident to land belonging to the plaintiffs in error upon a bow of Green river. It has resulted in a judgment of condemnation subject to the payment of $10,000. The petitioner, the defendant in error, owns land on the side of the stream opposite to that of the plaintiffs in error, the respondents, and on both sides of the stream above and below that land. It proposes to cut off the bow by a dam above, and a steel flume that re-enters the river below that land, all upon its own ground. The respondents in their answer set up that the condemnation in this manner and for the purpose alleged would be the taking of private property without due process of law, in violation of the 14th Amendment, and we assume that the record discloses a technical right to come to this court. Minneapolis & St. L. R. Co. v. Minnesota, 193 U. S. 53, 62, 48 L. ed. 614, 618, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 396; American Sugar Ref. Co. v. Louisiana, 179 U. S. 89, 91, 45 L. ed. 102, 103, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 43. The decision of the supreme court in sustaining the condemnation discusses only matters of state law, but the Chief Justice, dissenting, intimated that the taking infringed the Constitution stitution of the United States. 171 N. C. 314, 88 S. E. 245.
The defendant in error, the Blue Ridge Interurban Railway Company, seems to have been incorporated with power to build and operate a street and interurban railway from Hendersonville through Saluda to a point on Green river, and to extend its lines to any other points not exceeding 50 miles from Saluda; also with power to maintain a water power plant on Green river for the purpose of generating electricity to be used in operating the railway; and with all other powers granted by the laws of the state to corporations of that character, including all rights of...
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