The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad Company, Plaintiffs In Error v. the Louisa Railroad Company

• Decision Date: 01 December 1851
• Citation: 54 U.S. 71,13 How. 71,14 L.Ed. 55
• Parties: THE RICHMOND, FREDERICKSBURG, AND POTOMAC RAILROAD COMPANY, PLAINTIFFS IN ERROR, v. THE LOUISA RAILROAD COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

54 U.S. 71

13 How. 71

14 L.Ed. 55

THE RICHMOND, FREDERICKSBURG, AND POTOMAC RAILROAD

COMPANY, PLAINTIFFS IN ERROR,

v. THE LOUISA RAILROAD COMPANY.

December Term, 1851

(Mr. Justice DANIEL did not sit in this cause.)

THIS case was brought up from the Court of Appeals of the State of Virginia, by a writ of error, issued under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act.

The facts in the case are stated in the opinion of the court.

It was argued by Mr. Robinson, for the plaintiffs in error, and Mr. Lyons and Mr. Johnson, for the defendants in error.

Mr. Robinson, for the plaintiffs in error, made the following points:——

1. That under the act passed the 25th of February, 1834, incorporating the stockholders of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad Company, Sess. Acts, 1833-4, p. 127, there is, by force of the 38th section, copied in the record, at p. 165, and of what has been done under the act, a contract, the obligation of which cannot be impaired by any State law. Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 135, 136, 137; Terrett, &c. v. Taylor, &c. 9 Id. 50; Wilkinson v. Leland, &c. 2 Pet. 657; State of New Jersey v. Wilson, 7 Cranch, 166; Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 92; Providence Bank v. Billings, &c. 4 Pet. 560; Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 637; State of New Jersey v. Wilson, 7 Cranch, 164; Armstrong, &c. v. Treasurer of Athens Co. 16 Pet. 289; Gordon v. The Appeal Tax Court, 3 How. 133.

2. That a court of equity has jurisdiction to protect the plaintiffs in the enjoyment of their chartered privileges, and should award an injunction to restrain the defendants from any acts which would impair the obligation of the contract under which the plaintiffs claim; from any acts which the defendants are bound (whether by contract or duty) to abstain from. Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 91; Opinion of Kent, J. in Livingston v. Van Ingen, 9 Johns. 585 to 589; Coats v. Clarence Railway Company, 1 Russ. & Mylne, 181; 4 Cond. Eng. Ch. Rep. 378; Frewin v. Lewis, 1 Mylne & Craig, 255; 18 Eng. Ch. Rep. 255; Canal Company v. Railroad Company, 4 Gill & Johns. 3; Osborn v. United States Bank, 9 Wheat. 838, 841; Stevens v. Keating, 2 Phillips, 334; 22 Eng. Ch. Rep. 334; The Attorney-General v. The Great Northern Railway, 3 Eng. Law & Eq. 263; The Great Western Railroad Company v. The Birmingham and Oxford Railroad Company, 2 Phillips, 597; Williams v. Williams, 2 Swanst. 253; Dietrichsen v. Cabburn, 2 Phillips, 52; 22 Eng. Ch. Rep. 52, and class of cases there referred to; Kemp v. Sober, 4 Eng. Law & Eq. R. 64.

3. That the exercise of such jurisdiction should not be declined, because of the provision in the 18th section of the act incorporating the stockholders of the Louisa Railroad Company, Sess. Acts 1835-6, p. 174, sect. 18, or in the 13th section of the act prescribing general regulations for the incorporation of railroad companies. Sess. Acts 1836-7, p. 107, sect. 13. For even if those provisions apply to the defendants' work between the junction and Richmond, (and the plaintiffs, p. 22, insist they do not,) yet following, as they do, sections relating to proceedings for ascertaining the damages to a proprietor for the condemnation of his land, it is manifest they were only intended for the case of such a proprietor, asking for an injunction to stay the proceedings of a company which is taking his land for its work, and though under the case of The Tuckahoe Canal Company v. The Tuckahoe and James River Railroad Company, 11 Leigh, 42, cited in the answer, p. 169, 174, they may apply to land of one corporation taken for the work of another, yet they are not intended for, and are inapplicable to the case of a company enjoying a right under a contract with the State, which asks to be protected in that enjoyment against another company, claiming, not under a prior but a subsequent grant. And 2, whatever may have been the intention of those acts, yet being passed after the grant in the 38th section of the plaintiffs' charter, they cannot be allowed to impair the obligation of the contract arising under that grant; but the plaintiffs claiming under it, are entitled to whatever is necessary to make that grant effectual and protect them in the enjoyment of their rights. Babcock v. Western Railroad Corporation, 9 Metcalf, 556; Blakesley v. Whieldon, 1 Hare, 180; 23 Eng. Ch. Rep. 180; Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 75; Bronson v. Kinzie et al. 1 How. 319; McCracken v. Hayward, 2 How. 612.

4. That the court, in respect to those matters which are distinctly raised, should declare the right of the plaintiffs, and upon such declaration decree an injunction in terms ascertaining the extent of the right. Cother v. The Midland Railway, 2 Phill. 472; 22 Eng. Ch. Rep. 472.

5. That from the facts stated in the bill, and not denied, and also from the map of Mr. Crozet, it is obvious that the probable effect of allowing the defendants to have a railroad between the city of Richmond and the city of Washington, for that portion of said distance which is from the junction to Richmond, will be to diminish the number of passengers travelling between the city of Richmond and the city of Washington, upon the plaintiffs' railroad, or to compel them, in order to retain such passengers, to reduce the passage-money. And if such would be the probable effect, the defendants (as is contended in the petition, as well as in the bill,) should until the expiration of the thirty years mentioned in the plaintiffs' charter, have been enjoined from constructing their railroad for said portion of the distance. Rankin v. Huskisson, 4 Sim. 13; 6 Eng. Ch. Rep. 7; Blakemore v. Glamorganshire Canal Navigation, 1 Myl. & Keen, 154; 6 Eng. Ch. Rep. 544, and cases before cited. And the defendants having, notwithstanding the warning given by the letter of the 18th of December, 1848, and by the institution of this suit, proceeded with such construction, they might and should, at the hearing, have been enjoined, and ought now to be enjoined from further constructing or using their railroad for that portion of the distance. Lane v. Newdigate, 10 Ves. 192. And if the construction has been completed, the injunction against the use should continue not only until the expiration of said thirty years, but for such time after the thirty years as it may reasonably be supposed would be occupied in the construction, if it had not taken place within the thirty years. For, as the bill insists, the protection will not be preserved to the extent to which it is granted, if immediately on the expiration of the thirty years there can be opened for transportation, a railroad constructed within that period.

6. That although an injunction to the extent mentioned in the preceding point would, as contended in the petition, give no higher security to the plaintiffs than was intended by the legislature, yet if the court do not grant it to that extent, it should, at least, prohibit acts, the probable effect of which would be to diminish the number of passengers travelling between the city of Richmond and the city of Washington, upon the plaintiffs' railroad, or to compel the plaintiffs, in order to retain such passengers, to reduce the passage-money; it should make such prohibition to whatever extent may be necessary to protect the plaintiffs in the enjoyment of their rights.

7. That the prohibition should be of all transportation of passengers on the defendants' railroad between Richmond and the junction; 1st, upon the ground taken in the bill, and the answer, that he who travels only over a portion of the railroad, equally with him who travels over the whole line, is, within the meaning of the 38th section of the plaintiffs' charter, a passenger travelling between (that is over the whole, or some part of the intermediate space between) the cities of Richmond and Washington; a ground sustained in part by the judge, and strongly fortified by the views presented in the petition, and, 2d, upon the ground that such prohibition is necessary to protect the plaintiffs in respect to passengers travelling the whole distance between those cities. For, in the absence of such prohibition, the Louisa company may take passengers at reduced rates between Richmond and the junction, as pointed out in the bill, and between the junction and Washington or Alexandria give through tickets in conjunction with the Crange and Alexandria railroad.

8. That if the court do not prohibit all transportation of passengers on the defendants' railroad between Richmond and the junction, it should, at the least, prohibit the transportation by the defendants on their railroad of passengers travelling between the city of Richmond and the city of Washington. The necessity for an injunction to this extent is not at all obviated by the concession remarked on in the answer. Nor is the remark of the judge, that 'to award the injunction now would be to inflict a present, certain, and serious injury upon one party, to prevent a remote, uncertain, and possible injury to the other,' well founded as to the injunction here proposed. For no injury is inflicted on the defendants by requiring them to abstain from what it is their duty to abstain from. While on the other hand, a remedy far more effectual than any at law can be had in equity through its restraining power, which besides awarding the injunction as here proposed, may, and it is submitted, should in aid of such injunction, prohibit through tickets between Richmond and Washington, at points south or Richmond and north of Washington, by the Louisa road.

9. That the final decree in these suits in the State court, should be reversed in the Supreme Court; and this court should proceed to pass such decree as the State court which made such final decree should have passed, to wit: in the second case, for obvious reasons, some of which are stated in the answer to the bill in that case, it should dissolve the injunction and dismiss the bill with costs; and in the first and principal case, it...