Vicksburg v. Tobin

• Decision Date: 01 October 1879
• Citation: 100 U.S. 430,25 L.Ed. 690
• Parties: VICKSBURG v. TOBIN
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

100 U.S. 430

100 U.S. 430

25 L.Ed. 690

VICKSBURG v. TOBIN.

October Term, 1879

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Mississippi.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Philip Phillips, for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. W. B. Pittman, contra.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.

This writ of error involves the constitutional validity of an ordinance of the city of Vicksburg, passed July 12, 1865, entitled 'An ordinance establishing the rate of wharfage to be collected from steamboats and other water-craft, landing and lying at the city of Vicksburg.'

The ordinance declares that all steamboats 'landing at this [that] city' shall pay wharfage at the following rates: All packets terminating their trips at the city, per week, $10; all steamboats under 1,000 tons burthen, passing and repassing for each landing, $10; and, for each one exceeding 1,000 tons, $1 for every 100 tons excess; circus or exhibition boats, $5 per day.

The ordinance further provides that, if the captain or officer in command of any steamboat or water-craft shall refuse to comply with its provisions, on conviction thereof he shall be charged $100 for each landing thereafter, until the settlement of the litigated claim.

Within the six years immediately preceding the commencement of this action, the city of Vicksburg collected from the defendants in error (without protest or objection on their part, although they knew the rates established by the city) the sum of $5,400, 'for and on account,' as the special verdict of the jury recites, 'of wharfage for the landing of plaintiffs' [defendants in error] boats at the city landing of Vicksburg on the Mississippi, plaintiffs' boats being at the time engaged in the coasting trade on said river, between New Orleans and Vicksburg, and other ports above Vicksburg.'

This action was instituted to recover from the city the sums thus exacted from the defendants in error. Judgment upon the special verdict of the jury was rendered against the city, to reverse which this writ of error is prosecuted.

It appeared, upon the trial in the Circuit Court, that the corporation of Vicksburg has been the riparian owner of the city landing, on account of which these charges were made, since 1851; that the former owner uniformly collected wharfage from steamboats stopping at said landing up to 1851, and that the city had done the same ever since that date, but at higher rates; that the landing is comprised in a river-front in the city, covering a length of about eighteen hundred feet between high and low-water mark; that the landing is worth $50,000, in the repair and improvement of which the city had expended, within the six years preceding the trial, $40,000; that the only improvement made by the city at the landing was the grading and piling of the bank to prevent caving; that, although the landing was not paved or covered with plank, it was a good landing in dry weather, but too muddy in wet weather to use as a place of deposit for freight; that the annual net receipts by the city from the use of the...