Where the constitutionality of a state statute is directly
attacked in the answer, the federal question has been so raised in
the court below that it will be considered on the merits, and the
motion to dismiss denied. To establish stations at proper places is
the proper duty of a railroad company, and it is within the power
of the states to make it
prima facie a duty of the
companies to establish them at all villages and boroughs on their
respective lines.
Chapter 270, April 13, 1901, General Laws of Minnesota,
requiring the erection and maintenance of depots by railroad
companies on the order of the Railroad and Warehouse Commission
under the conditions therein stated in that act, does not deny a
railroad company the right to reasonably manage or control property
or arbitrarily take its property without its consent, or without
compensation or due process of law, and is not repugnant to the
Constitution of the United States.
When the highest court of a state affirms a judgment, although
by a divided court, it constitutes an affirmance of the finding of
the trial court which then, like the verdict of a jury, is
conclusive as to the facts upon this Court.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.
Page 193 U. S. 59
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a proceeding in mandamus to compel plaintiff in error to
build and maintain a stationhouse on the line of its road at the
Village of Emmons, in compliance with an order of the Railroad
& Warehouse Commission of the State of Minnesota.
The order of the commission was made upon petition and upon
hearing after due notice to plaintiff in error. The writ was
granted by the District Court of Freeborn County, where the
proceedings were commenced.
The railroad company in its answer attacks the statute under
which the commission acted as follows:
"This respondent says further, that chapter 270, General Laws
1901, approved April 13, 1901, which was enacted by the legislature
of said state at its thirty-second session, which arbitrarily
requires railroad carriers to provide freight and passenger rooms
and depots at all villages and boroughs upon their respective roads
without regard to the necessity therefor and without regard to the
location or situation of such village or boroughs, or to existing
conditions, is unjust, unreasonable, contrary to public policy, and
void."
"It denies to the respondent the right to reasonably manage or
control its own business; it takes its property without its
consent."
"It takes the property of this respondent arbitrarily and
unnecessarily,
Page 193 U. S. 60
for public use without just compensation, and is therefore
violative of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States."
"It deprives the respondent of its property without due process
of law, and denies it the equal protection of the laws, and thus
violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States."
The supreme court of the state affirmed the judgment of the
district court, the members of the court equally dividing on the
facts.
This is the second attempt of the village of Emmons to secure a
depot. The first was unsuccessful, 76 Minn. 469, "wherein the facts
are stated," the supreme court observed, and it further observed,
passing on the case at bar:
"Mr. Associate Justice Lovely, having been of counsel for the
village in the former proceeding, was disqualified from sitting at
the hearing of this appeal, and the cause was necessarily argued
and submitted to the four remaining members of the court. We assume
that Laws 1901, chapter 270, which in express terms requires
railway companies to build and maintain depots or stationhouses in
all villages through which their roads may pass, is, in itself,
valid legislation, and not open to the objection that it is not
within the legislative power to enact such a law. With this
assumption, no dispute has arisen over a construction of the act to
the effect that all incorporated villages within this state located
on railway lines are
prima facie entitled to depots. The
commissioners have the power to order the erection and maintenance
of depot buildings unless it is made to appear that such an order
would be so unreasonable in its terms as to actually result in
depriving the company proceeded against of its property without due
process of law. The change made by the statute of 1901 simply
affects or shifts the burden of proof, for, prior to its enactment,
the burden was on the municipality to establish the reasonableness
and necessity of a depot therein, while now a railway company
appearing before the commissioners, or trying its case on appeal to
the district court, bears the burden of showing that such a
requirement is not called for, and that
Page 193 U. S. 61
the building and maintenance of a depot in the village is
unnecessary and unreasonable."
"But, while agreeing as to this interpretation of the law, we
fail to reach the same conclusion in respect to the facts. We do
not question the correctness of the conclusion reached when
considering the former appeal. But two members of the court, Chief
Justice Start and Associate Justice Brown, are of the opinion that,
from the evidence, it appears that there has since been a
substantial growth in the village, a growth which makes an
altogether different showing, and that the company did not overcome
the
prima facie case arising by virtue of the statute, and
therefore that the judgment appealed from should be affirmed.
Associate Justices Collins and Lewis are unable to agree to this.
Their conclusion is that the testimony fails to show that there has
been a real or substantial change in the village, its needs, or
necessities, that the situation is practically as it was when the
former proceeding was considered, and that the
prima facie
case made by the village has been wholly overcome by the defendant
company."
"With this difference of opinion, the judgment appealed from
must be, and hereby is, affirmed."
The defendant in error contends by those observations the court
only decided, following its former decision, 76 Minn. 469, that,
under chapter 6, section 388, General Statutes of 1894, the
commission had the power to order the erection and maintenance of
depots where public necessity or convenience reasonably required it
to be done, and that the only change made by the act of 1901 was to
shift the burden of proof from the municipality to the railroad
company, and therefore the court, in deciding that the railroad
company had not overcome the
prima facie case arising from
the statute, did not decide a federal question.
It is difficult to deal with the motion on account of the
uncertainty of the contentions of plaintiff in error. In its answer
in the district court, it directly attacks the statute. In this
Court, its contentions are not so sweeping, and we are left in
doubt by its opening and reply briefs whether the statute as
construed by the supreme court is objected to, or only its
application
Page 193 U. S. 62
under the facts of the case. However, as the statute was
directly attacked in the answer, the motion to dismiss is denied,
and we will consider whether the grounds of objection to the
statute are substantial and sufficient.
1. The act of 1897 provided as follows:
"That all railroad corporations or companies operating any
railroad in this state shall . . . provide at all villages and
boroughs on their respective roads depots with suitable waiting
rooms for the protection and accommodation of all passengers
patronizing such roads, and a freight room for the storage and
protection of freight. . . . Such railroad corporations or
companies shall, at such depots or stations, stop their trains
regularly as at other stations to receive and discharge passengers,
and, for at least one-half hour before the arrival and one-half
hour after the arrival of any passenger train, cause their
respective depots or waiting rooms to be open for the reception of
passengers, said depots to be kept well lighted and warmed for the
space of time aforesaid."
In its first opinion, 76 Minn. 469, the court held that the word
"villages," in the act meant incorporated villages, and that Emmons
was not incorporated. The court, however, proceeded further, and
said:
"But there is no doubt of the power of the commissioners, under
the general railroad and warehouse commission act, to require a
railroad company to provide a suitable depot and passenger waiting
room at any place, incorporated or unincorporated, where public
necessity or convenience reasonably requires it to be done. But
this power is neither absolute nor arbitrary. The facts must be
such, having regard to the interests, not only of the particular
locality, but also of the public at large and of the railroad
company itself, as to justify the commissioners, in the exercise of
a reasonable discretion and judgment, in ordering the railway
company to provide a depot and passenger station at the place in
question. Counsel for the relators admit this. The only evidence
being the report of the commissioners themselves, we must refer to
it to ascertain whether the facts therein stated reasonably
justified their order requiring the railroad company to provide
and
Page 193 U. S. 63
maintain a depot and station at Emmons. The statute provides
that,"
"upon the trial of said cause [before the court, as in this
case, to enforce the order of the commissioners], the findings of
fact of said commission as set forth in its report shall be
prima facie evidence of the matters therein stated."
"G.S.. 1894, § 399."
The court then reviewed the facts, and decided that the order of
the commission establishing a station at Emmons was unreasonable.
The act was amended in 1901, and the court in the case at bar has
decided, as we have seen, the amendment has only shifted the burden
of proof. In other words, to quote from the opinion of the court,
"incorporated villages within this state (Minnesota) located on
railway lines are
prima facie entitled to depots," and at
a hearing before the commissioners and in the district court, the
railroad has the burden of showing that the establishment of a
depot is unreasonable and unnecessary.
The statute, as thus construed, does not transcend the power of
the state. In other words, and meeting exactly the contention of
plaintiff in error, the statute does not deny plaintiff in error
the right to reasonably manage or control its property or
arbitrarily take its property without its consent or without
compensation or due process of law.
Wisconsin &c. R. Co. v.
Jacobson, 179 U. S. 287. To
establish stations at proper places is the first duty of a railroad
company. The state can certainly provide for the enforcement of
that duty. An incorporated village might be said to be such a place
without an express declaration of the statute. To make it
prima
facie so by statute and to impose the burden of meeting the
presumption thence arising certainly does not amount to an invasion
of the rights of property or an unreasonable control of property.
This seems to be conceded in the reply brief of plaintiff in error.
Counsel say:
"The power of the state to require the construction and
maintenance of stations at proper points is not questioned. We
concede it. The power to require an unnecessary and wholly useless
expenditure of money in the construction and
Page 193 U. S. 64
maintenance of stations where they are not needed is denied.
That is the whole case."
And stating the decision of the court in 76 Minn., counsel
quotes as follows:
"The commissioners have the power to order the erection and
maintenance of depot buildings unless it is made to appear that
such an order is so unreasonable in its terms as to actually result
in depriving the company proceeded against of its property without
due process of law."
And counsel adds: "This is, of necessity, a federal
question."
Whether it is or not, and whether it is so dependent on the
facts of the case as not to be open to our review, is the next
ground to be considered.
2. The charge is that the property of plaintiff in error is
taken without due process of law, but whether so taken is made to
depend upon a question of fact -- the requirement of "an
unnecessary and wholly useless expenditure of money." It is well
established that, on error to a state court, this Court cannot
reexamine the evidence, and when the facts are found, we are
concluded by such finding.
Egan v. Hart, 165 U.
S. 188. But, in the case at bar, we are met by the
circumstance that the supreme court equally divided on the question
whether the facts distinguish this case from 76 Minn. The plaintiff
in error therefore contends that there has been no judgment of the
supreme court on the facts, and they are open to review here. The
contention is not tenable. There is no statement of facts by the
supreme court, and its decision, though by a divided court,
constituted an affirmance of the finding of the district court. The
finding was as follows:
"That the respondent railroad company has no depot or
stationhouse whatever for the accommodation of the public upon its
line of railroad at the Village of Emmons, and that its line of
road is the only railroad reaching such village."
"That there is a suitable location for a depot or stationhouse
upon respondent's right of way at the point referred to and
described in the order of the board of railroad and warehouse
Page 193 U. S. 65
commissioners herein, which order is hereto attached. That it is
necessary for the accommodation of the citizens of Emmons and
vicinity, and the public at large, and public necessity requires
that the respondent railroad company build and maintain a suitable
stationhouse at the said village of Emmons for the accommodation of
the public transacting business with the respondent at that
point."
The finding, like the verdict of a jury, is conclusive in this
Court.
Dower v. Richards, 151 U.
S. 658. It follows that the order of the Warehouse
Commission was not an unreasonable requirement, and the judgment
is
Affirmed.