Walsh v. Columbus, Hocking Valley & Athens Railroad , 20 S. Ct. 393 ( 1900 )

176 U.S. 469 (1900)

WALSH
v.
COLUMBUS, HOCKING VALLEY AND ATHENS RAILROAD COMPANY.

No. 90.

Supreme Court of United States.

Submitted December 13, 1899. Decided February 26, 1900. ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OHIO.

Mr. J.B. Foraker, Mr. T.E. Powell and Mr. D.J. Ryan for plaintiffs in error.

Mr. D.L. Sleeper, Mr. C.H. Grosvenor and Mr. John J. Stoddart for defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE BROWN, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

1. Motion was made to dismiss the writ of error in this case for want of a Federal question. The decision of this motion was postponed to the merits, and we are now of opinion that it must be denied.

The position of the plaintiff is that, the act of Congress of May 24, 1828, granting to the State of Ohio 500,000 acres of land for the construction of canals, and providing that such canals, "when completed or used, shall be, and forever remain, public highways, for the use of the Government of the United States," and the acceptance thereof, by the General Assembly, constitute a contract by the State for the perpetual maintenance of such canals as public highways, at least until they were given up by consent of the United States, and that the subsequent act of the General Assembly of May 18, 1894, providing for the abandonment of such canals, without such consent being given, was obnoxious to that provision of the Federal Constitution declaring that no State shall pass a law impairing the obligation of contracts.

The main question then is, whether the acceptance of this act of Congress of 1828 by the General Assembly of Ohio should be interpreted as raising a contract by the State for the perpetual maintenance of these canals as public highways. We have repeatedly held that, where the plaintiff relies for his recovery upon the impairment of a contract by subsequent legislation, it is for this court to determine whether such contract existed, as well as the question whether the subsequent legislation has impaired it. State Bank of Ohio v. Knoop, 16 How. 369; Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken Co., 1 Wall. 116. This rule also applies to a contract alleged to be raised by a state statute, although the general principle is undoubted that the construction put by state courts upon their own statutes will be followed here. Jefferson Branch Bank v. Skelly, 1 Black, 436; McGahey v. Virginia, 135 U.S. 662; Douglas v. Kentucky, 168 U.S. 488; McCullough v. Virginia, 172 U.S. 102.

We cannot say that it is so clear that the statute in question is not open to the construction claimed that we ought to dismiss the writ as frivolous, within the meaning of the cases which hold that, where the question is not of the validity but of the existence of an authority, and we are satisfied that there was and could have been no decision by the state court against any authority of the United States, the writ of error will be dismissed. Millingar v. Hartupee, 6 Wall. 258; New Orleans v. N.O. Waterworks Co., 142 U.S. 79, 87; Hamblin v. Western Land Co., 147 U.S. 531. If the statute were given the construction claimed by the plaintiff, it would be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the abandonment of the canal under the act of 1894, and its lease to the defendant railroad company, was a repudiation of the duty of the State to maintain it as a public highway; though the question would still remain whether the plaintiff would be in a position to take advantage of such default.

2. In disposing of this case the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio held (1) that the defendant railroad corporation had the power to build a railroad between the termini named, and to acquire by purchase or condemnation a right of way for its road, and other property necessary for its operation; (2) that the act of Congress of 1828, donating land to the State for the construction of canals, and the act of the General Assembly of the State accepting the same, did not constitute a contract for the perpetual maintenance of such canals; (3) that if such a contract existed, the plaintiffs in these suits were not parties to it; (4) that the Lancaster Lateral Canal Company did not acquire a fee simple in the lands, but a title for the uses and purposes of the canal, and the company could not, when the use ended, sell them to others, but the lands reverted to the owners of the freehold; (5) that by leasing the lands for the purposes of a railroad, the original easement in the lands was not extinguished, but passed to the purchaser, who took it subject to the duty of making compensation to the owner of the freehold for the additional burden imposed on the land, and such damages as might result to him from the new use.

We are concerned only with the second and third of these conclusions, which turn upon the construction to be given to the act of Congress of 1828. If, by the acceptance of this act by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, the State became irrevocably bound to keep up the canals for all time, for the use, not only of the Government, but of every one who incidentally profited by their preservation, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that their subsequent abandonment impaired the obligation of such contract. But we think the Supreme Court of Ohio was clearly right in its interpretation of the statute. The principal object of the act was a donation of lands to aid the State in works of internal improvement, which were then being extensively contemplated in the newer States of the West. Canals, at that time, embodied the most advanced theories upon the subject of internal transportation. Congress annexed as a condition to the grant that the canals built by its aid should "when completed or used, be and forever remain, public highways, for the use of the Government." Counsel for the defendant insists that, under the terms of the proviso, the obligation to maintain these canals as public highways existed only so long as they were "used" as such, and this was evidently the opinion of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Counsel for plaintiff insists, upon the other hand, with much reason, that the proviso, that "the said canals, when completed or used, shall be and ever remain public highways," marks the beginning of the time when the obligation was intended to operate — that is, if the canals were completed, or without being completed, were so far completed as to be capable of use, and were used, the obligation to maintain them in perpetuity attached. Whatever be the proper interpretation of these words, and they are by no means free from ambiguity, the dominant idea of the proviso was evidently to compel the State to maintain the canals as public highways, and to allow the Government free use of them "for any property of the United States, or persons in their service passing along the same." Whether the canals should be maintained forever as such, or should give place to more modern methods of transportation, was a matter of much less moment to the United States than to the State. The General Government was only interested in securing their use for the public, and the free transportation of its own servants and property. The object of the act was to facilitate and encourage public improvements, but not to stand in the way of the adoption of more perfect methods of transportation which might thereafter be discovered. Had the question of internal improvements arisen ten or fifteen years later, when railways began to be constructed, it is quite improbable that the State would have embarked upon this system of canals, or that Congress would have aided it in the enterprise. Waiving the question whether the State could have abandoned the lands upon which these canals were built as public highways, we think it entirely clear that Congress could not have intended to tie the State down to a particular method of using them, when subsequent experience has pointed out a much more practicable method, which has supplanted nearly all the canals then in use. There was no undertaking to keep up the canals for all time, and we think the proper construction of the proviso is that the Government should be entitled to the free use of the canals so long as, and no longer than, they were maintained as public highways, and that the act of 1894, leasing these lands to the defendant for an analogous purpose, does no violence to the contract clause of the Constitution.

Were the question one of doubt, we should hesitate long before refusing to defer to the many opinions of the Supreme Court of Ohio, through several changes in its personnel, holding it to be within the power of the State to abandon the canal for other public purposes, and that such abandonment gave no right of action to private parties incidentally affected or damnified by it, Hubbard v. City of Toledo, 21 Ohio St. 379; Little Miami Elevator Co. v. Cincinnati, 30 Ohio St. 629; Fox v. Cincinnati, 33 Ohio St. 492, affirmed by this court, 104 U.S. 783; Hatch v. Railroad Co., 18 Ohio St. 92; Malone v. City of Toledo, 28 Ohio St. 643; State v. Board of Public Works, 42 Ohio St. 607; Pennsylvania & Ohio Canal Co. v. Commissioners, 27 Ohio St. 14; McComb v. Stewart, 40 Ohio State, 647; State v. Snook, 53 Ohio State, 531; but the State of Ohio does not stand alone in affirming this principle. People v. Kerr, 27 N.Y. 188; Lexington &c. Railroad v. Applegate, 8 Dana, 289; West v. Bancroft, 32 Vermont, 367; Haldeman v. Pennsylvania Central Railroad, 50 Penn. St. 425; Chase v. Sutton Mfg. Co., 4 Cush. 152.

In addition to this, however, the plaintiff stands in no position to take advantage of a default of the State in this particular. He was not a party to the contract between the state and the Federal Government; his rights were entirely subsidiary to those of the Government; and if the latter chose to acquiesce in the abandonment of the canals, as it seems to have done, he has no right to complain. He can only sustain this bill upon the theory that his rights are equal to those of the Government, and that he can call upon the State to maintain the canal for his benefit.

The case of Grinnell v. Railroad Company, 103 U.S. 739, is pertinent in this connection. That was an action in ejectment brought by a railroad company to recover certain parcels of its land grant, upon which the defendants had settled and asserted rights under the homestead and preemption laws of the United States. Their defence was that the company had no title, because it had lost whatever right it had to the lands by a change in the location of the road, and because locating the road as it was completed did not bring these lands within the limits of the land grant act. The court held that the lands, being within the limits of the first location, the construction of the road on the new line did not annul or defeat, without further action on the part of the United States, the title thus vested; that Congress had consented to the change without any declaration affecting the title already vested in the company by the first location, and that defendants were bound thereby. In delivering the opinion of the court, Mr. Justice Miller observed: "Another point equally fatal to the plaintiffs in error is, that the assertion of a right by the United States to the lands in controversy was wholly a matter between the Government and the railroad company, or its grantors. The legal title remains where it was placed before the act of 1864. If the Government desires to be reinvested with it, it must be done by some judicial proceeding, or by some act of the Government asserting its right. It does not lie in the mouth of every one who chooses to settle on these lands to set up a title which the Government itself can only assert by some direct proceeding. These plaintiffs had no right to stir up a litigation which the parties interested did not desire to be started. It might be otherwise if the legal title was in the Government. Then the land would be subject to homestead or preemption rights."

A similar case is that of Van Wyck v. Knevals, 106 U.S. 360. In that case the railroad company had filed a map of definite location, and the land department had withdrawn the odd-numbered sections appropriate thereto; but in constructing the road the company departed from the line indicated. The lands in dispute were within ten miles of the road as built and of the line delineated on the map. They were entered by Van Wyck, who received a patent for them, and Knevals, who had acquired his rights from the railroad company, filed a bill against Van Wyck seeking to charge him as trustee for the lands, and the court decreed a conveyance accordingly. The defendant attacked the right of the company to the grant, alleging that it never completed the construction of the entire road for which the grant was made; that after filing its map with the Secretary of the Interior it changed the route of the road for a part of the distance. The court held, however, that the company had constructed a portion of the proposed road, and that portion was accepted as completed in the manner required by the act of Congress; that if the whole of the proposed road had not been completed any forfeiture consequent thereon could only be asserted by the United States through judicial proceedings or through the action of Congress. "A third party cannot take upon himself to enforce conditions attached to the grant when the Government does not complain of their breach. The holder of an invalid title does not strengthen his position by showing how badly the Government has been treated with respect to the property."

The only contract in this case was between the State of Ohio and the United States. Plaintiff was neither party nor privy to such contract. It was within the power of the Government to prosecute the State for a breach of it, or to condone such breach, if it saw fit. As it adopted the latter course and has deemed it proper to acquiesce in the abandonment of the canals and in the State turning them over to the railroad company, it does not lie in the mouth of the plaintiff to complain. This disposes of every question called to our attention in the briefs of counsel.

The plaintiff is amply protected by the decree of the Supreme Court enjoining the railroad company from entering upon his lands until payment has been made, after proper proceedings, for the increased burden caused by the use of the lands for the railroad. If any taking of the lands consequent upon the remanding of the cause for the purpose stated should suggest ulterior questions they do not arise there, and would not be concluded by an affirmance of the decree now before us for review.

The decree appealed from is therefore

Affirmed.