Kansas Pac Ry Co v. Atchison Co

• Decision Date: 01 October 1884
• Citation: 28 L.Ed. 794,5 S.Ct. 208,112 U.S. 414
• Parties: KANSAS PAC. RY. CO. v. ATCHISON, T. & S. F. R. CO. 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

112 U.S. 414

5 S.Ct. 208

28 L.Ed. 794

KANSAS PAC. RY. CO. v. ATCHISON, T. & S. F. R. CO.¹

October Term, 1884.

J. P. Usher, for appellant.

James Hagerman, A. T. Britton, J. H. McGowan, and A. B. Browne, for appellee.

FIELD, J.

The plaintiff and the defendant were incorporated by the territorial legislature of Kansas; and the question in controversy relates to land which they respectively claim under grants from the United States. The plaintiff's original name was the Leavenworth, Pawnee & Western Railroad Company, and it is thus termed in the act of congress of 1862 creating the Union Pacific Railroad Company. After the territory became a state that name was changed to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, Eastern Division, and the corpora- tion was so called in subsequent legislation of congress until some time in 1869, when it received its present designation. The admission of Kansas as a state into the Union, and the consequent change of its form of government, in no respect affected the essential character of the corporations, or their powers or rights. They must, after that change, be considered as corporations of the state; as much so as if they had derived their existence from its legislation. As its corporations they are to be treated, so far as may be necessary to enforce contracts or rights of property by or against them, as citizens within the clause of the constitution declaring the extent of the judicial power of the United States. It has been expressly held that they are to be so considered when they have controversies with citizens of other states. And the same course of reasoning which led to this decision must also lead to the conclusion that in all cases where a federal court can take jurisdiction of controversies between citizens, whether of different states or of the same state, it will take jurisdiction of like controversies between corporations, and treat them as citizens of the state under whose laws they were created or continue to exist. The constitution declares that the judicial power of the United States shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under it, the laws of the United States, and treaties made under their authority. The act of 1875 invests the circuit courts with original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several states, 'of all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity' thus arising, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of $500. 18 St. 470. The reasons for granting this jurisdiction, and for investing it in the circuit courts, are as applicable where the controversies are between citizens united under a corporate name, as where they are between citizens in their individual capacity. A private corporation is, in fact, but an association of individuals united for a lawful purpose, and permitted to use a common name in their business, and to have a change of members without dissolution. As said by Chief Justice MARSHALL in Providence Bank v. Billings:

'The grant of incorporation is to bestow the character and properties of individuality on a collective and changing body of men.' 4 Pet. 514, 562.

The controversy in this case arises upon laws of the United States. As far back as Cohens v. Virginia, decided more than 60 years ago, it was said that a case may be considered to arise under the constitution or a law of the United States whenever its correct decision depends upon the construction of either. 6 Wheat. 379. The same thing is expressed by the statement that a case arises under the constitution or laws of the United States whenever the rights set up by a party may be defeated by one construction or sustained by the opposite construction. Osborn v. Bank of U. S. 9 Wheat. 738. Here both corporations claim title to the same land in Kansas under different acts of congress, and the decision depends upon the construction given to those acts. It is, therefore, clear that the court below had jurisdiction of the subject of the suit and of the parties.

The plaintiff claims, under the act of July, 1862, to aid the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and acts amending or supplementing it. That act granted to the company formed under its provisions, for every mile of the road, five sections of public land designated by odd numbers on each side of the line of the road within the limit of 10 miles, which were not sold, reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and to which a pre-emption or homestead claim had not attached at the time the line was definitely fixed. It also provided that whenever the company had completed 40 consecutive miles of any portion of the road and telegraph line, and supplied all necessary equipments and appurtenances of a first-class road, the president of the United States should appoint three commissioners to examine the same, and if they reported that the road and telegraph line had been constructed and equipped in all respects as required, patents were to issue for the adjacent lands. An examination was to be had, as each successive section of 40 miles was completed, and, upon a favorable report of the commissioners, other similar patents were to issue. Within one year after its passage the company was required to file in the department of the interior its assent to the act, and within two years afterwards to designate the general route of its road as near as might be, and to file a map of the same in that department. The secretary of the interior was then to withdraw the lands within 15 miles of the designated route from pre-emption, private entry, and sale, and when any portion of the road was finally located he was to cause the lands granted to be surveyed, and set off as fast as necessary for the purposes mentioned.

On the second of July, 1864, an amendatory act was passed doubling the grant, and extending the limits within which the lands were to be withdrawn to 25 miles, but declaring that neither act should defeat or impair any preemption, homestead, swamp-land, or other lawful claim, nor include any government reservation or mineral lands. It contained no express words of new and additional grant, but provided that the numbers in the act of 1862 should be stricken out and larger numbers inserted in lieu thereof. Thenceforth the act of 1862 is to be read as against the United States, and all parties not having acquired in the mean time paramount rights, as though the substituted numbers were originally inserted therein. Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Kansas Pac. R. Co. 97 U. S. 497; U. S. v. Burlington, 98 U. S. 334. The title to the increased quantity of land must, with the exceptions mentioned, therefore be deemed to have passed to the grantee at the date of the original act. That act contemplated the connection of several branch roads with the main line, one of which the plaintiff was to construct. It directed the president to designate the initial point of that line in Nebraska, on the 100th meridian west from Greenwich, at which the eastern branches were to unite, and authorized the plaintiff to construct a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river at the mouth of the Kansas river, at the south side thereof, so as to connect with the Pacific road of Missouri at that point. In case the general route of the main line was located so as to require a departure northerly from the proposed Kansas road before it reached that meridian, the location of that road was to conform to it. The route in Kansas west of the meridian of Fort Riley to the initial point mentioned was to be...