When a plaintiff below has the benefit of a full and fair trial
in the several courts of his own state whose jurisdiction he
invokes, and where his rights are measured not by laws made to
affect him individually, but by general provisions of law
applicable to all in like condition, even if he can he regarded as
deprived of his property by an adverse result, the proceedings that
so resulted were in "due process of law" as that phrase is used in
the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the
United States.
The leading cases touching the construction of that phrase in
the Amendments reviewed.
The fact that a railroad company is held liable for damages
suffered by a person by reason of the occupation of a public street
in a city in front of his premises by an elevated track furnishes
no ground for holding it liable to an owner on the other side of
the same street but in a different part of it by reason of the
construction of a similar elevated track opposite to him but not on
the public street.
The construction of an elevated railroad, under laws of the
state, on private land abutting on a public street in a city gives
to the owner of land on the opposite side of the street no claim to
recover consequential damages for injury inflicted upon him
thereby.
Edward D. Marchant brought an action in the Court of Common
Pleas, No. 3, for the County of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at
September term, 1884, against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, a
corporation of Pennsylvania, for the recovery of the damages
occasioned to him in the erection by the defendant company of its
elevated road on property belonging to the railroad company and
abutting on the south side of Filbert Street, in the City of
Philadelphia, in front of plaintiff's property, which was situated
on the north side of Filbert Street, a public highway fifty-one
feet in width. No portion of the plaintiff's property was actually
taken or occupied by the railroad company, nor was Filbert
Page 153 U. S. 381
Street, where it extends in front of the plaintiff's lot,
occupied by the structure of the railroad company. But at another
portion of Filbert Street not far from plaintiff's lot, the bed of
the street was and is occupied by the railroad. The plaintiff
alleged in his declaration that, by the erection and maintenance of
the elevated railroad and the continuous passage of passenger and
freight cars thereon, driven by steam locomotives, he was injured
in the possession, use, and enjoyment of his property and that his
dwelling and business house on said lot was rendered unfit for
habitation and was greatly depreciated in value. The trial resulted
in a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff in the sum of $4,980.
The cause was taken on error to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania,
where the judgment was reversed, the majority of the court holding
that the plaintiff had no legal cause of action. The plaintiff
having died pending the litigation, his administratrix was
substituted, and thereupon sued out a writ of error to this
Court.
Page 153 U. S. 383
MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS, after stating the facts in the foregoing
language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, a corporation under the laws
of the State of Pennsylvania and invested with the privilege of
taking private property for its corporate use, erected in May,
1881, and has since maintained, a viaduct or elevated roadway and
railroad thereon along the south side of Filbert Street in the City
of Philadelphia. On the opposite or north side of Filbert Street,
the plaintiff below was the owner of a lot or parcel of land
whereon was erected a large four-story building at that time
occupied as a dwelling and business house. The elevated railroad
did not occupy any portion of the plaintiff's land, nor did it
trench upon Filbert Street where it extends in front of the
plaintiff's property, which is situated on Filbert between
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets, but where the elevated road, in
its course westward, reaches Twentieth Street, it trends to the
north, and is supported over the cartway of Filbert Street by iron
pillars having their foundations in that street inside the curb
line, and thus extends westwardly to the Schuylkill River. Opposite
the plaintiff's lot, the railroad structure occupies land owned by
the company.
The plaintiff, by his action in the court of common pleas,
sought to recover for injuries caused to his property by the smoke,
dust, noise, and vibration arising from the use of the
Page 153 U. S. 384
engines and cars, the necessary consequence and incidents of the
operations of a steam railway.
The trial court refused the defendant's prayer that
"the jury should be instructed that the defendant, under its
charter and supplements in evidence, had full lawful authority to
create and operate the Filbert Street extension or branch described
in the declaration without incurring any liability by reason
thereof for consequential damages to the property of the plaintiff,
the uncontradicted evidence being that none of the said property
was taken by the defendant, but that the entire width of Filbert
Street intervenes between the railroad of the defendant and the
nearest point thereto of the property of the plaintiff,"
and instructed the jury that the only question for them to
determine was the amount of depreciation in value of the
plaintiff's property caused by the operation of the railroad, and
that in estimating the damages, they should consider the value of
the property before and its value after the injury was inflicted,
and allow the difference. The plaintiff recovered a verdict and
judgment. This judgment was reversed by the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania because of the action of the trial court in refusing
to grant the defendant's prayer for instruction, and, in effect,
because the plaintiff had no cause of action. By the specifications
of error contained in this record, we are asked to reverse the
judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania because the plaintiff
in error was thereby deprived of her property without compensation,
because she was thereby deprived of the equal protection of the
laws, and because she was thereby deprived of her property without
due process of law.
In reaching the conclusion that the plaintiff, under the
admitted facts in the case, had no legal cause of action, the
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania was called upon to construe the laws
and constitution of the state. The plaintiff pointed to the tenth
section of article 1 of the constitution, which provided that
"Private property shall not be taken or applied to public use
without authority of law, and without just compensation being first
made or secured,"
and to the eighth section of article 16, which contains the
following terms:
"Municipal
Page 153 U. S. 385
and other corporations and individuals invested with the
privilege of taking private property for public use shall make just
compensation for property taken, injured, or destroyed by the
construction or enlargement of their works, highways, or
improvements, which compensation shall be paid or secured before
such taking, injury, or destruction."
The first proposition asserted by the plaintiff, that her
private property has been taken from her without just compensation
having been first made or secured, involves certain questions of
fact. Was the plaintiff the owner of private property, and was such
property taken, injured, or destroyed by a corporation invested
with the privilege of taking private property for public use? The
title of the plaintiff to the property affected was not disputed,
nor that the railroad company was a corporation invested with the
privilege of taking private property for public use. But it was
adjudged by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania that the acts of the
defendant which were complained of did not, under the laws and
Constitution of that state, constitute a taking, an injury, of a
destruction of the plaintiff's property.
We are not authorized to inquire into the grounds and reasons
upon which the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania proceeded in its
construction of the statutes and constitution of that state, and if
this record presented no other question except errors alleged to
have been committed by that court in its construction of its
domestic laws, we should be obliged to hold, as has been often held
in like cases, that we have no jurisdiction to review the judgment
of the state court, and we should have to dismiss this writ of
error for that reason.
But we are urged to sustain and exercise our jurisdiction in
this case because it is said that the plaintiff's property was
taken "without due process of law" and because the plaintiff was
denied "the equal protection of the laws," and these propositions
are said to present federal questions arising under the Fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, to which our
jurisdiction extends.
It is sufficient for us in the present case to say that even if
the plaintiff could be regarded as having been deprived of
Page 153 U. S. 386
her property, the proceedings that so resulted were in "due
process of law."
The plaintiff below had the benefit of a full and fair trial in
the several courts of her own state, whose jurisdiction was invoked
by herself. In those courts her rights were measured not by laws
made to affect her individually, but by general provisions of law
applicable to all those in like condition.
To justify this position, it is not necessary to enter into an
examination of the origin, meaning, and scope of the phrase "due
process of law" as found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
That has been done so often and so thoroughly in previous cases
that all we need do is to cite a few of them.
Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S.
97, came to this Court on a writ of error to the Supreme
Court of the State of Louisiana. There was state legislation under
which an assessment had been laid on real estate belonging to
Davidson for draining swamp lands in the Parish or Orleans.
Objections were raised in the state courts, including alleged
departures from the requirements of the statute under which the
proceedings were had, and objections based on the claim that
Davidson was by the proceedings deprived of his property without
due process of law. This Court briefly disposed of the objections
based on questions of method and detail and disregard of statutory
directions by saying that such questions were not regulated or
controlled by the Constitution of the United States. In respect to
the contention that the assessment in question deprived the
plaintiff in error of his property without due process of law, the
Court said, after deprecating any attempt to define what it is for
a state to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without
process of law in terms which would cover every exercise of power
thus forbidden to the state:
"Whenever by the laws of a state or by state authority a tax,
assessment, servitude, or other burden is imposed upon property for
the public use, whether it be for the whole state or of some more
limited portion of the community, and those laws provide for a mode
of confirming or contesting the charge thus imposed in the ordinary
courts of justice, with such notice to the person, or such
proceeding in
Page 153 U. S. 387
regard to the property, as in appropriate to the nature of the
case, the judgment in such proceedings cannot be said to deprive
the owner of his property without due process of law, however
obnoxious it may be to other objections. . . . It is not possible
to hold that a party has, without due process of law, been deprived
of his property when, as regards the issues affecting it, he has,
by the laws of the state, a fair trial in a court of justice,
according to the modes of proceeding in such a case. . . . The
party complaining here appeared, and had a full and fair hearing in
the court of the first instance, and afterwards in the supreme
court. If this be not due process of law, then the words can have
no definite meaning as used in the Constitution."
In
Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U.
S. 701,
111 U. S. 708,
is found the following definition of the phrase:
"It is sufficient to observe here that by 'due process' is meant
one which, following the forms of law, is appropriate to the case,
and just to the parties to be affected. It must be pursued in the
ordinary mode prescribed by the law, it must be adapted to the end
to be attained, and wherever it is necessary for the protection of
the parties, it must give them an opportunity to be heard
respecting the justice of the judgment sought. The clause in
question therefore means that there can be no proceeding against
life, liberty, or property which may result in the deprivation of
either without the observance of those general rules established in
our system of jurisprudence for the security of private
rights."
Missouri Pacific Railway Co. v. Humes, 115
U. S. 520, was a case where it was contended that, by an
act of the State of Missouri requiring railroad companies to erect
and maintain fences and affixing penalties for disobedience, a
railroad company previously chartered was deprived of property
without due process of law, and it was said:
"If the laws enacted by a state be within the legitimate sphere
of legislative power, and their enforcement be attended with the
observance of those general rules which our system of jurisprudence
prescribes for the security of private rights, the harshness,
injustice, and oppressive character of such laws will
Page 153 U. S. 388
not invalidate them as affecting life, liberty, or property
without due process of law."
Without encumbering this opinion with citations of the language
used, we refer to the following cases:
In re Kemmler,
136 U. S. 436;
Kaukauna Co. v. Green Bay Canal, 142 U.
S. 254;
Hallinger v. Davis, 146 U.
S. 314;
Yesler v. Harbor Commissioners,
146 U. S. 646.
The plaintiff in error further contends that by the proceedings
in the courts of Pennsylvania, she was denied the equal protection
of the laws. We understand this proposition to be based on the
allegation that those suitors whose property abutted on Filbert
Street between the Schuylkill River and Twentieth Street, where the
elevated road actually occupies the territory of Filbert Street,
were allowed by the Pennsylvania courts to recover damages for the
injury thus occasioned to their property, while the plaintiff, and
those in like case, whose property abutted on Filbert Street where
it was not occupied by the railroad structure, which was erected on
the opposite of the street, on land belonging to the railroad
company, were not permitted to recover. The diversity of result in
the two classes of cases is supposed to show that equal protection
of the laws was not afforded to the unsuccessful litigants. It is
not clear that the facts are so presented as to authorize us to
consider this question. Neither in the plaintiff declaration in the
instructions prayed for nor in the charge of the trial court do we
perceive any finding or admission that there were suitors, holding
property abutting on Filbert Street, who were held entitled to
recover for damages occasioned by the elevated railroad. However,
the third assignment of error is as follows:
"The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania erred in deciding that the
present cause was different in principle from the case of
Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Duncan, 111 Penn.St. 352,
and
132 U. S. 132 U.S. 75. The effect
of said decision is that under the same constitutional guaranties,
it gives to one person a right to compensation for property damaged
by the defendant in the exercise of its power of eminent domain and
denies it to another, and as, in this instance, the decision is
Page 153 U. S. 389
against the plaintiff's right to compensation for the injury to
her property by the defendant, she is thereby deprived of the equal
protection of the laws."
The counsel of defendant in error, in their printed brief, make
no point that the facts are not shown by this record, but discuss
the question on its merits. We are referred in the printed briefs
to our own case of
Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Miller,
132 U. S. 76, in
the report of which it appears that one Duncan, whose property
abutted on Filbert Street, where that street was occupied by the
elevated railroad in question, was permitted by the state courts to
recover for damages suffered by having been deprived of access to
and the free use of Filbert Street.
Conceding for the sake of the argument that the facts are as
alleged by the plaintiff in error, we are unable to see any merit
in the contention that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in
distinguishing between the case of those who, like Duncan, were
shut off from access to and use of the street by the construction
thereon of the elevated railroad, and the case of those who
suffered not from the construction of the railroad on the street on
which their property abutted, but from the injuries consequential
on the operation of the railroad as situated on defendant's own
property, thereby deprived the plaintiff of the equal protection of
the laws. The two classes of complainants differed in the critical
particular that one class suffered direct and immediate damage from
the construction of the railroad in such a way as to exclude them
from the use of their accustomed highway, and the other class
suffered damages which were consequential on the use by the
defendant company of their franchise on their own property. The
question thus raised is within the case of
Missouri v.
Lewis, 101 U. S. 22, where
it was said that
"the clause in question means that no person or class of person
shall be denied the same protection of the laws which is enjoyed by
other persons or classes in the same place and under like
circumstances."
So, in
Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S.
68, where by a statute of the State of Missouri it was
provided that in capital cases, in cities having a population of
over 100,000 inhabitants, the state shall be allowed fifteen
peremptory challenges, while
Page 153 U. S. 390
elsewhere in the state it is allowed only eight peremptory
challenges, it was held that such a distinction did not deny to a
person accused and tried for murder in a city containing over
100,000 inhabitants the equal protection of the laws enjoined by
the Fourteenth Amendment, and in the course of the discussion it
was said:
"The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States does not prohibit legislation which is limited either in the
objects to which it is directed or by the territory within which it
is to operate. It merely requires that all persons subjected to
such legislation shall be treated alike, under like circumstances
and conditions, both in the privileges conferred and in the
liabilities imposed. As we said in
Barbier v. Connolly,
113 U. S.
27, speaking of the Fourteenth Amendment:"
"Class legislation, discriminating against some and favoring
others, is prohibited, but legislation which, in carrying out a
public purpose, is limited in its application, if within the sphere
of its operation it affects alike all persons similarly situated,
is not within the amendment."
It should also be observed that the plaintiff does not complain
that, by any legislative enactment, she has been denied rights
granted to others, but she attributes error to the judgment of the
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in construing that provision of the
constitution of the state which gives a remedy for property injured
by the construction of a railroad, as not extending the remedy to
embrace property injured by the lawful operation of the railroad.
It is not pretended that by such a construction of the law the
plaintiff has been deprived of any right previously enjoyed. The
scope of the remedy added by the Constitution of 1874 to those
previously possessed by persons whose property is affected by the
erection of a public work is declared by the court not to embrace
the case of damages purely consequential.
In so holding, it does not appear to us that the Supreme Court
of Pennsylvania has either deprived the plaintiff of property
without due process of law or denied her the equal protection of
the law, and its judgment is accordingly
Affirmed.