Where a party, drawing in question in this Court a state
enactment as invalid under the Constitution of the United States or
asserting that the final judgment of the highest court of a state
denied to him a right or immunity under the Constitution of the
United States, did not raise such question or specially set up or
claim such right or immunity in the trial court, this Court cannot
review such final judgment and hold that the state judgment was
unconstitutional, or that the right or immunity so claimed had been
denied by the highest court of the state, if that court did nothing
more than decline to pass upon the federal question because not
raised in the trial court, as required by the state practice.
If, upon examining the record, this Court had found that a
federal question was properly raised or that a federal right or
immunity was specially claimed in the trial court, then the
jurisdiction of this Court would not have been defeated by the mere
failure of the highest court of the state to dispose of the
question so raised or to pass upon the right or immunity so
claimed.
The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Twenty-one actions were brought by Purdy against the Erie
Railroad Company, a corporation of New York, to recover penalties
under what is known as the Mileage Book Act of that state, being
chapter 1027 of the laws of 1895, which took effect June 15, 1895,
as amended by chapter 835 of the Laws of 1896, which took effect
May 22, 1896.
The complaint and answer in each case were the same.
Each answer alleged,
"upon information and belief, that the
Page 185 U. S. 149
said act, known as chapter 835 of the Laws of 1896, is
unconstitutional and void because it is in violation of the
provisions of the Constitution of the United States which commit to
Congress the sole power to regulate commerce between the several
states, and that it is unconstitutional and void because it is in
violation of
various other provisions of the Constitution
of the United States and of the Constitution of the State of New
York."
This was the only reference, special or general, in the answers
to the Constitution of the United States.
The twenty-one actions were consolidated into one action,
subject to the plaintiff's right to recover in each one as if they
had been separately tried.
At the conclusion of the evidence in behalf of the plaintiff,
the railroad company moved for a nonsuit in each action upon
various grounds, the only one that can be regarded as specially
setting up or claiming a federal right or immunity being the fifth,
which stated that, if the state legislation under which the
defendant sought to recover penalties was intended to apply to the
railway lines of defendant, the acts of the legislature were void
"because they undertake to interfere with or regulate commerce
among the states and the acts of Congress in such case made and
provided."
It was not assigned as a ground of nonsuit that the statute in
question was in violation "of various other provisions of the
Constitution of the United States." Apparently that ground of
defense was abandoned at the trial.
The trial court granted the motion for nonsuit in the last
eleven cases, and directed a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for
$50 each in the first ten cases, and ordered that the exceptions of
each party be heard in the appellate division in the first
instance, all proceedings in the meantime being stayed.
In the appellate division, the exceptions of the railroad
company were overruled and judgment was ordered for the plaintiff,
with costs, and that judgment was affirmed in the Court of Appeals
of New York.
Purdy v. Erie R. Co., 162 N.Y. 42, 50-51.
That court, speaking by Judge Cullen, said:
"At the opening of the trial, the defendant moved to dismiss the
complaint
Page 185 U. S. 150
because it failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a
cause of action for a penalty. No particular ground for the attack
on the complaint is stated. At the close of the evidence, the
defendant renewed its motion to dismiss the complaint, but the sole
ground on which it assailed the validity of the statute itself was
that it constituted an interference with the regulation of
interstate commerce, and hence was in violation of the Constitution
of the United States. The objection that the statute was an
invasion of the defendant's property rights, and contravened for
that reason either the Constitution of the United States or the
Constitution of this state, does not anywhere appear in the record,
and the rule seems settled that such an objection, to be available
here, must have been raised in the courts below.
Vose v.
Cockeroft, 44 N.Y. 415;
Delaney v. Brett, 51 N.Y.
78."
Again:
"The objection that the statutes of 1895 and 1896 are
regulations of interstate commerce, and hence in conflict with the
federal Constitution, is satisfactorily dealt with in the very
clear opinion of Mr. Justice Merwin, of the appellate division,
delivered in the
Beardsley case, 15 App.Div. 251. That
such a statute, if limited in its scope to transportation wholly
within the limits of the state, is a valid exercise of state
authority is settled by the decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States in
Stone v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.,
116 U. S.
307, where it was said:"
"It (the state) may, beyond all question, by the settled rule of
decision in this Court, regulate freights and fares for business
done exclusively within the state."
"This doctrine has never been overruled or limited; on the
contrary, it is fully recognized in the later cases.
Hennington
v. Georgia, 163 U. S. 299;
W. U. Tel.
Co. v. James, 162 U. S. 650;
L.S. & M.
S. R. Co. v. Ohio, 173 U. S. 285. In
Wabash
&c. Ry. Co. v. Illinois, 118 U. S. 557, a statute of
Illinois regulating fares was held void solely on the ground that
the act, as interpreted by the supreme court of the state, included
cases of transportation partly within and partly without the state.
It was there stated:"
"If the Illinois statute could be construed to apply exclusively
to contracts for a carriage which begins and ends within the state,
disconnected from a continuous transportation
Page 185 U. S. 151
through or into other states, there does not seem to be any
difficulty in holding it to be valid."
"There is nothing in the language of the statutes now before us
that shows they were intended to affect any but intrastate
transportation, but if their interpretation be doubtful, 'the
courts must so construe a statute as to bring it within the
constitutional limits, if it is susceptible of such construction.'
Sage v. Brooklyn, 89 N.Y. 189;
People ex Rel. Sinkler
v. Terry, 108 N.Y. 1. Within this principle, these statutes
must be construed as applying to transportation wholly within the
state, and, so construed, they do not infringe upon the
Constitution of the United States."
In a petition for the allowance of a writ of error from this
Court, the railroad company for the first time expressly referred
to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United
States as affording it protection against the statute of New York.
The same ground was repeated in the assignments of error for this
Court.
We are asked to determine whether the judgment of the Court of
Appeals of New York affirming the judgment of the supreme court of
the state did not deny to the railroad company a right or immunity
secured to it by that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment declaring
that no state shall deprive any person of property without due
process of law, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.
This question cannot be determined by this Court unless it has
jurisdiction to review such final judgment of the Court of Appeals
of the state.
The statute defining the authority of this Court to reexamine
the final judgment of the highest court of a state gives it
jurisdiction
"where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an
authority exercised under, any state, on the ground of their being
repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United
States, and the decision is in favor of their validity; or where
any title, right, privilege, or immunity is claimed under the
Constitution or any treaty or statute of, or commission held or
authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is
against the title, right, privilege, or immunity specially
Page 185 U. S. 152
set up or claimed by either party under such Constitution,
treaty, statute, commission, or authority."
Rev.Stat. ยง 709.
By its answer and its motion for a nonsuit at the close of the
plaintiff's evidence, the defendant did distinctly claim that the
statute of New York in question was inconsistent with the power of
Congress to regulate commerce among the several states. But the
Court of Appeals held that the statute was intended to apply and
applied only to domestic transportation. We accept this view as to
the scope and operation of the statute, and assume that it does not
require the railroad company to issue mileage tickets covering the
transportation of passengers from one state to another state. So
that no federal question arising under the commerce clause of the
Constitution is here for determination.
But the defendant insists that the general allegation in each of
its answers -- namely, that the statute, besides being void as a
regulation of interstate commerce, was in violation "of various
other provisions" of the Constitution of the United States -- was
sufficient to have enabled him at the trial to insist that the
statute upon which the actions were based was repugnant to the
Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution. If the answer had
contained no such specific allegation, still, if at the trial of
the case, the defendant had, in stating the grounds of his motion
for nonsuit or in some other way distinctly claimed that the
statute on which the actions were based was inconsistent with that
Amendment, then it would have been the duty of the Court of Appeals
to determine the question so raised, unless it was waived by the
defendant when the case was before that court or unless its
determination could properly be and was placed upon some ground of
local or general law adequate to dispose of the case. We state the
matter in this way because, as said in
Carter v. Texas,
117 U. S. 442,
117 U. S.
447,
"the question whether a right or privilege claimed under the
Constitution or laws of the United States was distinctly and
sufficiently pleaded and brought to the notice of a state court is
itself a federal question in the decision of which this Court, on
writ of error, is not concluded by the view taken by the highest
court of the state.
Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S.
370,
103 U. S. 396-397;
Page 185 U. S. 153
Mitchell v. Clark, 110 U. S. 633,
110 U. S.
645;
Boyd v. Thayer, 143 U. S.
135,
143 U. S. 180."
So if the highest court of the state, by its final judgment,
sustains the validity of a state enactment drawn in question there
as repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United
States, or denies a right, privilege, or immunity specially set up
or claimed in that court for the first time under the Constitution
or any treaty, statute, or authority exercised under the United
States, this Court could review that judgment although no federal
question was distinctly raised or insisted upon in the trial
court.
In the present case, the statute was not drawn in question in
the trial court as invalid under any clause of the Constitution
except the one relating to commerce. It was not even asserted there
to be invalid under "various other provisions" of that instrument.
The statements in the motion for nonsuit that "the cause of action
alleged in such action has not been proved" and that "no cause of
action has been proved in either of the actions consolidated in the
action on trial" were too vague and general to indicate that the
defendant claimed anything under that Amendment. The record before
us is consistent with the idea that the defendant did not claim, in
the trial court, in any form, generally or specially, that the
statute deprived it of its property without due process of law or
denied to it the equal protection of the laws.
We therefore cannot hold that the Court of Appeals, by its final
judgment, sustained the validity under the Constitution of the
United States of the statute drawn in question by the defendant or
that it denied any right or immunity now claimed by it under the
Fourteenth Amendment, for that court simply declined to consider
any federal question except that made under the commerce clause of
the federal Constitution, assigning as the reason therefor that no
point was made at the trial in respect of any other clause of that
instrument. In so holding, the court followed the settled rule of
practice in that state. On that practice alone was based its
refusal to consider a federal question not brought to the attention
of the trial court.
Vose v. Cockeroft, 44 N.Y. 415;
Delaney v. Brett, 51 N.Y. 78.
Page 185 U. S. 154
Now where a party drawing in question in this Court a state
enactment as invalid under the Constitution of the United States or
asserting that the final judgment of the highest court of a state
denied to him a right or immunity under the Constitution of the
United States did not raise such question or specially set up or
claim such right or immunity in the trial court, this Court cannot
review such final judgment and hold that the state enactment was
unconstitutional, or that the right or immunity so claimed had been
denied by the highest court of the state, if that court did nothing
more than decline to pass upon the federal question because not
raised in the trial court as required by the state practice.
Spies v. Illinois, 123 U. S. 131,
123 U. S. 181;
Miller v. Texas, 153 U. S. 535,
153 U. S. 538;
Morrison v. Watson, 154 U. S. 111,
154 U. S. 115.
Of course, if, upon examining the record, this Court had found that
a federal question was properly raised or that a federal right or
immunity was specially claimed in the trial court, then our
jurisdiction would not have been defeated by the mere failure of
the highest court of the state to dispose of the question so
raised, or to pass upon the right or immunity so claimed.
It results from what has been said that no federal question is
sufficiently presented by the record for our determination;
consequently, the writ of error must be
Dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this Court. It is so
ordered.
MR. JUSTICE GRAY did not hear the argument or take part in the
decision of this case.