Junction Railroad Co. v. City of Philadelphia

• Decision Date: 03 March 1879
• Citation: 88 Pa. 424
• Parties: Junction Railroad Co. <I>versus</I> City of Philadelphia.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

88 Pa. 424

Junction Railroad Co. versus City of Philadelphia.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

January 22, 1879.

March 3, 1879.

January 22d 1879.

Before SHARSWOOD, C. J., MERCUR, GORDON, PAXSON, WOODWARD, TRUNKEY and STERRETT, JJ.

Error to the Court of Common Pleas, No. 3, of Philadelphia county: Of July Term 1878, Nos. 61 and 62.

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Thomas Hart, Jr., for plaintiff in error.—The soil of one public road cannot be taxed to raise funds to make or improve another: City of Philadelphia v. Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad Co., 9 Casey 41; City v. Eastwick, 11 Id. 75. The occupation of land by a railroad company is so necessarily exclusive, that there is practically no difference between the fee-simple value of the land and the damages for the technical easement of way.

The decision certainly did not intend to distinguish between cases where a company obtained a release of damages, or where damages had been assessed by a jury and where the company had bought a strip of land for its road-bed, and while protecting the parts of its roadway acquired in the former mode, and because so acquired, permit other portions resting upon the latter title to be liened and sold. No such distinction can be justified. It is the use and purpose to which the property of a railway company is put, which determines its liability to taxation. It is the public works held by corporations, with their necessary appurtenances, which are exempt from taxation: Carbon Iron Co. v. Carbon County, 3 Wright 251; Railroad Co. v. Berks County, 6 Barr 70.

No distinction between property held in fee and under release of damages was made in any of the other cases upon the subject of the taxation of the property of railroads: Lehigh C. & N. Co. v. Northampton, 8 W. & S. 334; Navigation Co. v. The Commissioners, 1 Jones 202; Delaware & Hudson Canal Co. v. The Commissioners, 3 Harris 351; Plymouth Railroad Co. v. Colwell, 3 Wright 337; Northampton Co. v. Lehigh C. & N. Co., 25 P. F. Smith 461; Lodge v. P., W. & B. Railroad Co, 8 Phila. R. 345.

Thomas J. Ashton, for defendants in error.—The first section of the Act of April 21st 1858, provides, "That the offices, depots, car-houses and other real property of railroad corporations situate in said city, the superstructure and water stations of the road only excepted, are, and hereafter shall be subject to taxation by ordinances for city purposes." Under said act, and the ordinances of the city, the ground of the company is certainly liable for this paving.

The case of the Northern Liberties v. St. John's Church, 1 Harris 104, very clearly distinguishes between taxes as taxes, and assessments for municipal improvements, and the law as there stated, it is submitted, is the law of this state to-day: Hammett v. The City of Philadelphia, 15 P. F. Smith 146.

In answer to the averment of plaintiff in error that the whole of said sixty feet owned by them is used exclusively for railroad purposes, it is only necessary to state that, by actual measurement, only about twenty-two feet thereof are used for the superstructure of the double tracks of this road, and how the remaining thirty-eight feet are or can be necessary for the proper use of said road, it is not easy to understand. If they can own sixty feet they might well claim that six hundred feet were required for the necessary uses of the said railroad. But in view of the Act of 1858, which makes all railroad property, except the superstructure of the road and the water-stations, subject to taxation by ordinances for city purposes, it would seem too clear for argument that the fee of the said sixty feet is liable for the claim, and that judgment was properly entered thereon.

Mr. Justice PAXSON delivered the opinion of the court, March 3d 1879.

This case is ruled by The City of Philadelphia v. The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Co., 9 Casey 41. It was there held that the city cannot support a claim for paving, against the road-bed of a railroad. An attempt was made to distinguish the cases, upon the ground that the plaintiff in error owned the road-bed in fee, whilst in the case cited the company had only a right of way over it. We...