United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Railroad Company v. Ellerman, 105 U.S. 166 (1881)

Railroad Company v. Ellerman

105 U.S. 166

Syllabus

1. By its charter and the statutes of Louisiana, the City of New Orleans was authorized to erect and maintain wharves within its limits, and to collect wharfage. Held that no right of the city was infringed by a subsequent enactment of the General Assembly of that state granting to a railroad company the authority to enclose and occupy for its purposes and uses a specifically described portion of the levee and batture, and maintain the wharf it theretofore erected on its property within those limits, and exempting it from the supervision and control which the municipal authorities exercise in the matter of public wharves.

2. The question as to whether the company, in constructing, pursuant to such authority, the wharf on its property and collecting wharfage, acted ultra vires cannot be raises by a claimant under the city who is not a stockholder and whose rights have not been infringed.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.