Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Baltimore, 156 U.S. 210 (1895)
U.S. Supreme Court
Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Baltimore, 156 U.S. 210 (1895)Postal Telegraph Cable Company v. Baltimore
No. 828
Submitted January 21, 1895
Decided January 28, 1895
156 U.S. 210
Syllabus
St. Louis v. Western Union Tel. Co., 118 U. S. 92, affirmed and applied to this case.
This was an action at law, brought by the City of Baltimore, defendant in error, against The Postal Telegraph Cable Company, plaintiff in error, a corporation created under the laws of the New York, in the Court of Common Pleas of Baltimore City, a court of original common law jurisdiction, to recover the sum of $1,018.00, with interest from the 15th day of June, 1893, the same being an annual rental fee for the use of the streets of Baltimore, of $2.00 per pole, for 509 telegraph poles, which were owned by the plaintiff in error, and located in and occupying a portion of the public streets of Baltimore. The rental fee was the amount prescribed by Ordinance No. 86 of 1893, to be paid by all companies which
owned and had located in the streets of Baltimore similar poles and similarly used. Judgment below in plaintiff's favor, which judgment was sustained by the Court of Appeals of the Maryland. A writ of error being sued out to the latter judgment, the defendant in error moved to dismiss or affirm it on the ground, among others, that
"the ordinance in question was based on and passed after the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States was delivered in St. Louis v. Western Union Tel. Co., 148 U. S. 92, and 149 U. S. 149 U.S. 465, and upon the strength of that case, the defendant in error relied in the Court of Appeals of Maryland, and now relies in this Court."
