Powell v. Supervisors Of Brunswick County

• Decision Date: 19 February 1892
• Citation: 88 Va. 707,14 S.E. 543
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Powell et al. v. Supervisors of Brunswick County et al.

14 S.E. 543

88 Va. 707

Powell et al.

v.Supervisors of Brunswick County et al.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Feb. 19, 1892.

Title op Acts—Constitutional Law—Railroad Aid Bonds.

1. The legislature passed an act, entitled "An act to incorporate the A. & D. N. Railroad Company, " which located the route, provided for incorporation, regulated subscriptions to stock, and authorized counties through which the road extended to subscribe to the stock by issuing bonds therefor at a certain rate per mile, after first submitting the question to a vote of the people. Held, that such act embraced only such objects as were connected with and in furtherance of its main general object, —the incorporation of a railroad company, —and was not unconstitutional, under Const, art. 5, $ 15, as embracing more than one object.

8. Where a county subscribes under such act to the construction of a railroad, such county, and all the citizens thereof, must be taken to have aoted with reference to the fact that the charter was liable to be amended as occasion should require.

Action by Powell and others against the supervisors of Brunswick county, etc. Decree for defendants. Plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

E. P. Buford, G. P. Barnham, and J. F. West, for appellants.

Walke & Old and Davis & Mcllwaine, for appellees.

Lacy, J. This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court of Brunswick county, rendered on the 26th day of February, 1890. The bill was filed by the appellants in the said court on the 25th day of March, 1889, against the board of supervisors of Brunswick county and their successors in office, to enjoin them from issuing the bonds of the county of Brunswick as a subscription to the Atlantic & Danville Railroad Company thereafter, and to enjoin and restrain the said the Atlantic & Danville Railroad Company from disposing or parting with the bonds of the said county, theretofore issued in subscription to the said corporation, and now in the hands of, and in the possession of, the said company, the said plaintiffs suing on behalf of themselves and all others, tax-payers of the said county of Brunswick, who will make themselves parties to this suit, and contribute to the costs of the same; the county bonds in question having been issued and to be issued by virtue of an act of the general assembly of Virginia, entitled "An act to incorporate the Atlantic & Danville Narrow-Gauge Railroad Company, " approved April 21, 1882. The railway authorized to be constructed and operated under this act of assembly was to have its eastern terminus at the most available point at deep water on James river, within the county of Surry, and its western terminus at a point at or near the town of Danville, its line to pass through or near the town of Waverly, in the county of Sussex; thence by the most direct and practicable route to a point at or near the town of Belfield, in the county of Greensville; thence by the most practicable route to a point at or near Brunswick Court-House; thence by the most practicable route to a point at or near the town of Boydton, in the county of Mecklenburg; and thence by the most practicable route to its terminus. By virtue of its charter and the general laws of the state upon the subject, the said corporation made an application to the county court of Brunswick county to take the sense of the qualified voters of the said county upon the question of making a subscription to the said corporation by the said county; and on the 29th day of March, 1883, an order was rendered by the said court, directing the question to be submitted to the qualified voters of said county on the fourth Thursday in May, 1883, which election was held, and the commissioners appointed to canvass the returns reported to the court that the election had been carried in the manner prescribed by the law, which fact was certified to the said board of supervisors, and a subscription was made of $3,500 per mile of the main line which should be constructed within the limits of the said county, and an agent appointed to make the subscription on the books of the company in due form, and bonds were issued for subscription to the said company for five miles of said road at $3,500, and the said corporation is constructing a road of standard gauge; and application has recently been made to the said board of supervisors to issue bonds to the said company for four miles of additional railroad, claimed to have been constructed in the said county, at $3,500 per mile, and such application is now pending before the said board of supervisors.

The bill alleges tha t the said subscription is illegal and void, and that the fur-ther issue should be enjoined; that the election aforesaid was illegal and void; that the voters who voted for the subscription were induced to do so by fraudulent representation on the part of the then president and vice-president; that the Meherrin river divides the county into two parts, one on the north and the other on the south of said river, and the voters resident in these sections were severally persuaded, —the voters on the north side, that the road would be constructed on the north side, and the voters on the south side, on the other band, that it would be constructed on the south side, of the river; that the said election was void for other reasons: that the voters did not vote un-derstandingly, and the election was not properly conducted; that the said election, for these irregularities, was contested before the county court upon the petition of citizens, as required by law, and dismissed by the county court without passing upon the merits; and that the subscription was void because the orderunder which it was conducted did not state the maximum amount to be voted for, but only the rate per mile; that the act of assembly incorporating the said railroad was unconstitutional and void, because the law embraced more than one object, and because the objects of the act are not expressed in the title as required by section 15, art. 5, of the constitution of Virginia; that the act is also void, being re-pugnant to the 12th, 14th, and 15thsections of article 10 of the Virginia constitution, that a state cannot authorize one of its subdivisions to do what the state has not the power and authority to do as a whole; that the requisite amount of $50,000 has not been subscribed, nor the 5 per centum thereof paid up...