United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Cleveland, C., C. & St.L. Ry. Co. v. Backus, 154 U.S. 439 (1894)

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and

Syllabus

If an assessing board, seeking to assess for purposed of taxation a part of a railroad within a state the other part of which is in an adjoining state, ascertains the value of the whole line as a single property and then determines the value of that within the state upon the mileage basis, that is not a valuation of property outside of the state, and the assessing board, in order to keep within the limits of state jurisdiction, need not treat the part of the road within the state as an independent line disconnected from the part without, and place upon that property only the value which can be given to it if operated separately from the balance of the road.

Where an assessing board is charged with the duty of valuing a certain number of miles of railroad within a state forming part of a line of road

Page 154 U. S. 440

running into another state, and assesses those miles of road at their actual cash value determined on a mileage basis, this does not place a burden upon interstate commerce beyond the power of the state simply because the value of that railroad as a whole is created partly - and perhaps largely - by the interstate commerce which it is doing.

The case is stated in the opinion.