Pittsburgh v. State

• Citation: 30 N.E. 435,49 Ohio St. 189
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Ohio
• Decision Date: 02 March 1892
• Parties: PITTSBURGH, C. & ST. L. RY. CO. v. STATE.

49 Ohio St. 189
30 N.E. 435

PITTSBURGH, C. & ST. L. RY. CO.
v.
STATE.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

March 2, 1892.

Error to circuit court, Franklin county. Reversed.

The facts fully appear in the following statement by BRADBURY, J.:

On May 1, 1890, the state of Ohio, by its attorney general, in an action theretofore begun and then pending in the court of common pleas of Franklin county, filed the following amended petition: ‘The plaintiff says that the defendant is a corporation duly incorporated under the laws of the state of Ohio, having its principal office in the city of Columbus, in said state, and that on the 1st day of September, 1889, it operated two hundred and seventy-four and sixty-three hundreths (274.63) miles of railroad within the state of Ohio; that on the 16th day of October, 1889, said defendant filed its annual report, duly verified, for the year ending on the 30th day of June, 1889, in the office of the commissioner of railroads for this state; that it was the duty of the defendant to have filed said report on the 1st day of September, 1889, and to have paid on that day, to the commissioner of railroads, a fee of one dollar ($1.00) per mile for each mile of track operated by it within the state of Ohio, but that the defendant failed and refused, and still fails and refuses, to make said payment, or any part thereof, to the commissioner, or any one for him. Plaintiff says that by reason of the failure of the defendant to make said payment, or any part thereof, there is due it from the defendant, the sum of $274.63, for which it asks judgment, with interest from the 1st day of September, 1889. DAVID K. WATSON, Attorney General.’ To this amended petition a demurrer was interposed by the railway company which was overruled by the court; and, the railway company not desiring to plead further, a judgment was rendered against it for the amount claimed, with interest, which judgment was affirmed by the circuit court in a proceeding brought in that court by the railway company to obtain its reversal, whereupon the present proceedings were begun in this court to reverse the judgment of both of said courts.

Syllabus by the Court

The act of April 15, 1889, (section 251 a, Revised Statutes,) requiring ‘every corporation or company operating a railroad or any part of a railroad within this state’ to pay to the commissioner of railroads and telegraphs a ‘fee’ of one dollar per mile for each mile of track operated by it within this state, contravenes sections 2 and 5 of article 12 of the constitution of this state.

[Ohio St. 193]Watson, Burr & Livesay and J. H. Collins, for plaintiff in error.

Ohio St. 194]David K. Watson, for the State.
[Ohio St. 197]BRADBURY, J., ( after stating the facts as above.)

The constitutionality of the act of the general assembly of the state of Ohio, passed April 15, 1889, (86 Ohio Laws, 351,) is involved in the determination of the case. That act reads as follows: ‘Section 1...