United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Ry. Co. v. Arkansas, 240 U.S. 518 (1916)

St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern

Railway Company v. Arkansas

No. 302

Argued March 17, 1916

Decided April 3, 1916

240 U.S. 518

Syllabus

Legislation cannot be all-comprehensive, and police statutes otherwise valid may, without being unconstitutional as denying equal protection of the law, contain practical groupings of objects which fairly well present a class, although there may be exceptions in which the evil aimed at is deemed by the legislature to be not so flagrant.

The statute of Arkansas requiring full switching crews on railroads exceeding one hundred miles in length is not unconstitutional as depriving a railroad company over one hundred miles in length of its property without due process of law, or as denying it equal protection of the law, or as an interference with, or burden upon, interstate commerce. Chicago & Rock Island Ry. v. Arkansas, 219 U. S. 453.

114 Ark. 486 affirmed.

The facts, which involve the constitutionality under the commerce, due process and equal protection provisions of the Constitution of the United States and of the Fourteenth Amendment thereto, of the full switching crew statute of Arkansas, are stated in the opinion.

Page 240 U. S. 519