United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Ry. Co. v. Ohio, 173 U.S. 285 (1899)

Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Company v. Ohio

No. 96

Argued December 18, 1898

Decided February 20, 1899

173 U.S. 285

Syllabus

The statute of Ohio relating to railroad companies in that state which provides that

"Each company shall cause three, each way, of its regular trains carrying passengers, if so many are run daily, Sundays excepted, to stop at a station, city or village, containing over three thousand inhabitants,

Page 173 U. S. 286

for a time sufficient to receive and let off passengers; if a company or any agent or employee thereof violates or causes or permits to be violated this provision, such company, agent or employee shall be liable to a forfeiture of not more than one hundred nor less than twenty-five dollars, to be recovered in an action in the name of the state upon the complaint of any person before a justice of the peace of the county in which the violation occurs, for the benefit of the general fund of the county, and in all cases in which a forfeiture occurs under the provisions of this section, the company whose agent or employe caused or permitted such violation shall be liable for the amount of the forfeiture, and the conductor in charge of such train shall be held, prima facie, to have caused the violation,"

is not, in the absence of legislation by Congress on the subject, repugnant to the Constitution of the United States when applied to interstate trains carrying interstate commerce through the Ohio on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway.

The case is stated in the opinion.