A public act of the State of Maryland providing for the
condemnation of land for the use of a railroad company was held by
the Court of Appeals of that state to require notice to the owner
of the land proposed to be condemned, when properly construed.
Held that this Court had no jurisdiction over a writ of
error to a court of that state when the only error alleged was the
want of such notice, which, it was charged, invalidated the
proceedings as repugnant to the Constitution of the United
States.
Page 151 U. S. 138
Motion to dismiss. The case is stated in the opinion.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE.
These were proceedings in condemnation, commenced June 15, 1892,
in accordance with section 167 of article 23 of the Code of Public
General Laws of the State of Maryland, plaintiff in error appearing
therein.
It was objected below that that section violated the Fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in that the
owner of land condemned thereunder might be deprived of his
property without due process of law because the act did not provide
for any notice to him of the proceedings; but it had been
previously decided by the Court of Appeals of Maryland that the
act, properly construed, required notice.
Baltimore Belt
Railway Co. v. Baltzell, 75 Md. 103.
We are bound to accept this conclusion of the state court as to
the proper construction of the statute of the state.
Green v. Neal,
6 Pet. 291;
Davie v. Briggs, 97 U. S.
628;
Louisville &c. Railway v. Mississippi,
133 U. S. 590.
At the time of these proceedings, therefore, notice was required.
No suggestion is made that the validity of the statute was drawn in
question as repugnant to the Constitution of the United States in
any other particular, and as the want of requirement of notice did
not exist, the alleged ground of our jurisdiction fails.
Writ of error dismissed.