Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Hall Et Al

• Decision Date: 01 October 1875
• Citation: 91 U.S. 343,23 L.Ed. 428
• Parties: UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY v. HALL ET AL
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

91 U.S. 343

23 L.Ed. 428

UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY v. HALL ET AL.

October Term, 1875

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Iowa.

Submitted on brief by Mr. A. J. Poppleton for the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. John N. Rogers, contra.

Mr. JUSTICE STRONG delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a proceeding instituted under the act of Congress of March 3, 1873 (17 Stat. 509, sect. 4), which confers upon the proper Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and determine all cases of mandamus to compel the Union Pacific Railroad Company to operate its road as required by law. The alternative writ, as amended, commanded the railroad company to operate the whole of their road from Council Bluffs westward (including that portion thereof between Council Bluffs and Omaha, and constructed over and across their bridge spanning the Missouri River) as one continuous line for all purposes of communication, travel, and transportation; and especially commanded them to start from Council Bluffs their regular through freight and passenger trains westward bound, and to run their eastern-bound trains of both descriptions through and over said bridge to Council Bluffs under one uniform time-schedule with the remainder of their road, and to desist and refrain wholly from operating said last-mentioned portion of said road as an independent and separate line, and from causing freight or passengers bound westward or eastward to be transferred at Omaha, or to show cause why they did not obey the writ.

To the alternative mandamus the railroad company put in a return, which was met by an answer filed by the relators; and the case was heard by the Circuit Court on the facts stated in the writ, the return, and the answer (the averments of the answer not being controverted), and a peremptory mandamus was ordered. It is of this final judgment that the plaintiffs in error now complain.

The obligation of the Union Pacific Railroad Company to operate their road as a continuous line, throughout its entire length, is not denied. The company is a creature of congressional legislation. It was incorporated by the act of Congress of July 1, 1862 (12 Stat. 489); and its powers and duties were prescribed by that act, and others amendatory thereof. By the twelfth section it was enacted that the 'whole line of the railroad and branches and telegraph shall be operated and used for all purposes of communication, travel, and transportation, so far as the public and government are concerned, as one connected, continuous line.' A similar requisition was made in the fifteenth section of the amendatory act of July 2, 1864. 13 Stat. 356. The contest in the case does not relate to the existence of this duty: it is principally over the question, whether the railroad bridge over the Missouri River, between Omaha in Nebraska and Council Bluffs in Iowa, is a part of the Union Pacific Railroad; for, if it is, there can be no doubt that the company are required by law to use it in connection with, and as a part of, their entire road, operating all parts together as a continuous line.

The answer to this question must be found in the legislation of Congress, and in what has been done under it. By the first section of the act of 1862, the Union Pacific Railroad Company was authorized to construct, maintain, and enjoy a continuous railroad and telegraph, with the appurtenances, from a point on the one hundredth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich to the western boundary of the Territory of Nevada. There it was intended to meet and connect with the line of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (sect. 8), thus forming a continuous line to the Pacific Ocean. This was the main line. But the same act made provision also for several eastern connections. The ninth section authorized the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad Company of Kansas (now the Kansas Pacific) to construct a railroad from the Missouri River, at the mouth of the Kansas River (on the south side thereof, so as to connect with the Pacific Railroad of Missouri), to the point of western departure of the Union Pacific on the one hundredth meridian. Thus provision was made for an eastern connection by an unbroken line of road to St. Louis on the Mississippi. This was not all. By the fourteenth section of the act the Union Pacific was authorized and required 'to construct a single line of railroad and telegraph from a point on the western boundary of the State of Iowa, to be fixed by the President of the United States, . . . so as to form a connection with the lines of the said company at some point on the one hundredth meridian of longitude aforesaid, from the point of commencement on the western boundary of the State of Iowa.' Thus provisions were made for the Iowa eastern branch of the main line. It was doubtless intended to render possible a connection with any railroad that might thereafter be constructed from the western boundary of Iowa eastward. None was then completed; but a railroad was in progress of construction through the State, from its eastern border to the Missouri River.

The fourteenth section also made provision for another eastern connection. It enacted, that whenever there should be a line of railroad completed through Minnesota or Iowa to Sioux City, then the said Pacific (Union Pacific) Railroad Company should be authorized and required to construct a railroad and telegraph from said Sioux City, so as to connect with the Iowa branch, or with the main line, at a point not farther west than the one hundredth meridian of longitude.

The scheme of the act of Congress, then, is very apparent. It was to secure the connection of the main line, by at least three branches, with the Missouri and Iowa Railroads, and with a railroad running eastwardly from Sioux City in Iowa, either through that State or through Minnesota. An observance of this scheme, we think, will aid in considering the inquiry at what place the act of Congress, and the orders of the President made in pursuance thereof, established the eastern terminus of the Iowa branch. From it may reasonably be inferred that the purpose of Congress was to provide for connections of the branches of the main line of the Union Pacific road with railroads running through the States on the east of the Territory, and to provide for those connections within those States, at points at or near their western boundaries. Thus the northern branch was required to be constructed from Sioux City (which is in the State of Iowa) westward toward the main line; and the southern branch was authorized to build their railroad from the south side of the Kansas River, at its mouth, so as to connect with the Pacific Railroad of Missouri. If, now, the provisions of the act respecting the central or Iowa branch be examined, the same purpose is evident. Those provisions are found in the fourteenth section, and they are as follows:——

'And be it further enacted, That the said Union Pacific Railroad Company is hereby authorized and required to construct a single line of railroad and telegraph from a point on the western boundary of the State of Iowa, to be fixed by the President of the United States, upon the most direct and practicable route, to be subject to his approval, so as to form a connection with the lines of the said company at some point on the one hundredth meridian of longitude aforesaid, from the point of commencement on the western boundary of the State of Iowa.'

This clause contains the only provisions of the act respecting the eastern terminus of the Iowa branch, and it twice defines that terminus as 'a point on the western boundary of the State of Iowa.' The legal boundary of the State is the middle of the channel of the Missouri River. 9 Stat. 52. But it is very evident that Congress did not intend that the road should start from a point in the mid-channel of the river. That would be impossible; and, were it possible, it would not carry out the general design of the act, which, as we have been, was to provide for connections with the eastern railroads then in existence or contemplated. It is conceded by the counsel of the company that Congress ought not to be held to have intended to fix the initial point in the mid-channel of the river, exactly on the line which is the legal boundary of the State. Such a construction of the law, it is acknowledged, would be unreasonable, because it would involve the requirement of an impossibility. But, if Congress did not mean to require a construction of the railroad from the imaginary line which is the legal boundary of Iowa,—namely, from the mid-channel of the river, they must have intended the initial point to be either, on the Iowa shore or on the Nebraska shore. If the Nebraska shore was intended, why was it not mentioned? Why was not the west bank of the Missouri River designated? or why was not the eastern boundary of Nebraska fixed as the point of departure? Still more, why was Iowa mentioned at all? or why was the initial point described as a point on the western boundary of Iowa? It is impossible to give a satisfactory answer to these questions, if the eastern or Iowa shore of the river was not intended to be the terminus of the railroad. Unless it was so intended, no reason is found in the acts of Congress for mentioning Iowa at all. The western shore of the river is no nearer the western legal boundary of Iowa than the eastern shore is; while the latter is, in common understanding, the western boundary of the State. Congress may well be supposed to have used language in accordance with the common understanding. It is common usage to speak of the boundary of a state or county as a river, though the legal boundary may be the middle of the river; and particularly when any thing is to be constructed on such a boundary, which from its nature must be constructed on dry land, would no one understand the place of construction as...