A distinct ruling on any question fairly arising in a trial is
not
obiter dictum, and where the judgment rests upon two
grounds, either being sufficient to sustain it, and the appellate
court sustains it on both grounds, the ruling on neither is
obiter, but each is the ruling of the court, and of equal
validity with the other.
In construing an act of Congress granting permission to
construct a bridge across a navigable river, the general policy of
the government to provide for the use of such a bridge, up to its
reasonable capacity, by all connecting railroads on reasonable
compensation to the owning company will be considered, and
accordingly so held in regard to the use by the Mason City Co. of
the bridge across the Missouri River at Omaha, constructed under
the act of 1871, 16 Stat. 430, and owned by the Union Pacific
Railway.
In a great public enterprise such as the building of the Union
Pacific Railroad under a Congressional charter reserving the right
to alter, amend or repeal, public interests, and not simply private
purposes, are to be regarded, and the purchaser at judicial
foreclosure sale takes the property subject to the proper
regulations and use established by Congress, notwithstanding the
mortgage foreclosed may have antedated the legislation.
Where the language of the decree of the circuit court is open to
misconstruction it should be corrected by the circuit court
itself.
On a bill filed by the Mason City & Fort Dodge Railroad
Company (hereinafter called the Mason City company), the Circuit
Court of the United States for the District of Nebraska entered a
decree August 19, 1903, 124 F. 409, requiring the Union Pacific
Railroad Company (hereinafter called the Union Pacific company) to
let the plaintiff into the joint use of the railroad bridge between
Omaha and Council Bluffs, and the approaches thereto. On appeal,
this decree was affirmed
Page 199 U. S. 161
by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, February
29, 1904. 128 F. 230. Thereupon the Union Pacific company appealed
to this Court.
Page 199 U. S. 164
MR. JUSTICE BREWER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Mason City company contends that its right to the use of the
bridge and approaches was determined by the decision of this Court
in
Union Pacific Railway Company v. Chicago &c. Railway
Co., 163 U. S. 564. And
further that, if mistaken in this contention, it has that right
under the statutes of the United States and by the terms of a
contract between the Union Pacific Railroad Company, on the one
hand, and the City of Omaha and County of Douglass, Nebraska, on
the
Page 199 U. S. 165
other. The case in 163 U.S. arose on two contracts: one between
the Union Pacific Railway Company and the Chicago, Rock Island
& Pacific Railway Company, and the other between the
first-named company and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul
Railway Company. The opinion of the circuit court, 47 F. 15,
considered only the contracts, sustained them, and entered a decree
for the plaintiffs, awarding the joint use of the bridge and its
approaches. That decree was affirmed by the circuit court of
appeals, 51 F. 309, and the case was thereupon brought on appeal to
this Court. Here, the decision was rested not simply on the
contracts, but also on an obligation held to have been imposed on
the defendant by the statutes of the United States, the court
saying (p. 586):
"For the provisions of the Pacific Railroad acts relating to the
bridge over the Missouri River, its construction and operation,
imposed on the Pacific company the duty of permitting the Rock
Island company to run its engines, cars, and trains over the bridge
and the tracks between Council Bluffs and Omaha, and we think that
South Omaha was included."
This was followed by several paragraphs pointing out the
statutes imposing the duty. Counsel for the Union Pacific company
in the case at bar earnestly contend that so much of that opinion
as referred to this statutory obligation was
obiter
dictum, that the statutes were misconstrued, and also that the
status of the present Union Pacific company differs so much from
that of the then defendant as to make the ruling inapplicable.
We are unable to yield our assent to these contentions. While
the claim of the plaintiffs in that case was founded directly upon
contracts, yet, if there were a statutory duty to let them into the
joint use of the bridge and its approaches, that was enough to
sustain a decree in their favor, and the contracts might be
regarded as simply relieving the court of the work of settling
minor matters, such as method of use, compensation therefor, and
matter of control. Indeed, the alleged invalidity of the contracts
was rested largely on the scope of the statutes
Page 199 U. S. 166
and the duties to the government and the public imposed thereby
on the railroad company. Of course, where there are two grounds,
upon either of which the judgment of the trial court can be rested,
and the appellate court sustains both, the ruling on neither is
obiter, but each is the judgment of the court and of equal
validity with the other. Whenever a question fairly arises in the
course of a trial and there is a distinct decision of that
question, the ruling of the court in respect thereto can in no just
sense be called mere dictum.
Railroad Companies v.
Schutte, 103 U. S. 118, in
which this Court said (p.
103 U. S.
143):
"It cannot be said that a case is not authority on one point
because, although that point was properly presented and decided in
the regular course of the consideration of the cause, something
else was found in the end which disposed of the whole matter. Here,
the precise question was properly presented, fully argued, and
elaborately considered in the opinion. The decision on this
question was as much a part of the judgment of the court as was
that on any other of the several matters on which the case as a
whole depended."
Further, we see no reason to question the conclusion announced
in the former opinion. Chap. 67 of the Laws of Congress, 1871, 16
Stat. 430, granting power to issue bonds for the construction of
the bridge, provided that,
"for the use and protection of said bridge and property, the
Union Pacific Railway Company shall be empowered, governed, and
limited by the provisions of the act entitled 'An Act to Authorize
the Construction of Certain Bridges, and to Establish Them as Post
Roads,' approved July twenty-five, eighteen hundred and sixty-six,
so far as the same is applicable thereto."
The act referred to in this quotation (14 Stat. 244) authorized
the construction of nine bridges, as to the first of which (a
bridge across the Mississippi River at Quincy) it was stated
that,
"when constructed, all trains of all roads terminating at said
river at or opposite said point shall be allowed to cross said
bridge for reasonable compensation, to be made to the owners of
said bridge. "
Page 199 U. S. 167
To the seven provided for by succeeding sections, authority is
granted
"upon the same terms, in the same manner, under the same
restrictions, and with the same privileges as are provided for in
this act in relation to the bridge at Quincy, Illinois."
The remaining one of the nine bridges (that over the Mississippi
River at St. Louis) was to be constructed by the St. Louis &
Illinois Bridge Company
"subject to all the conditions contained in said act of
incorporation and amendments thereto, and not inconsistent with the
following terms and provisions contained in this act."
It is insisted that the act of 1871 makes applicable to the
Omaha bridge only the two or three provisions in the act of 1866
common to all the bridges named therein, and as the section
authorizing the bridge at St. Louis contained no direction for its
use by terminating railroads, that requirement, although imposed on
all the other bridges, was not brought into the act of 1871, and is
inapplicable to the Omaha bridge. Counsel for the Union Pacific
company have also called our attention to a few statutes
authorizing the construction of bridges, which contain no provision
in respect to use by other railroad companies. As against this,
counsel for the Mason City company have cited over 350 acts, to be
found in the several statutes of Congress, from the fifteenth to
the thirty-second volume, in each of which there is a direction for
use by other companies. Obviously that was the general policy of
Congress, and the few exceptions thereto were dictated by the
peculiar circumstances of the cases.
Bearing in mind this general policy of the government, we think
it a fair construction of the act of 1871 that, incorporating as it
did the provisions of the act of 1866, it must have intended to
incorporate not merely those in terms applied to all the bridges,
but also one in harmony with that general policy and applied to
substantially all, and this although, in reference to a single
bridge, other and special directions were made. Aside, therefore,
from any reliance upon the doctrine of
stare decisis, the
act of 1871 must be considered as requiring the
Page 199 U. S. 168
Union Pacific company to permit the trains of all roads
terminating at the Missouri River at Omaha to use its bridge up to
the fair limits of capacity, and on payment of reasonable
compensation.
It may be remarked in passing that it is expressly conceded in
this case by the Union Pacific company that there is no question of
the reasonableness of the compensation tendered, or the capacity of
the bridge and approaches for the service asked by the Mason City
company.
The final question is this: is the status of the present Union
Pacific Railroad Company, the appellant, so different from that of
the company to which it is a successor as to render inapplicable
the decision in the
Rock Island case and to nullify the
requirements of the act of 1871?
What are the facts? The Acts of Congress, July 1, 1862, 12 Stat.
489, July 2, 1864, 13 Stat. 356, creating the Union Pacific
Railroad Company, authorized it to mortgage its road for $16,000 a
mile (increased to $48,000 a mile in the mountainous districts),
and loaned the credit of the United States for an equal amount,
secured by a second lien on the property. The initial point of the
main line of the Pacific Railroad was fixed on the Iowa bank of the
Missouri River, opposite the City of Omaha.
Union Pacific
Railroad Company v. Hall, 91 U. S. 343. On
March 1, 1865, the Union Pacific Railroad Company executed its
first mortgage, conveying its entire line from the western boundary
of the State of Iowa to its western terminus. This mortgage in
terms included the road "heretofore constructed or hereafter to be
constructed." The act of 1871 authorized a mortgage of not
exceeding two and a half million of dollars to raise money for the
construction of the bridge. This mortgage was executed, the money
raised, and the bridge built. The act of 1862, § 18, provided
that,
"the better to accomplish the object of this act, namely, to
promote the public interest and welfare by the construction of said
railroad and telegraph line, . . . Congress may at any time, having
due regard for the rights of said companies
Page 199 U. S. 169
named herein, add to, alter, amend, or repeal this act."
The act of 1864, which was an amendment of the act of 1862, in §
22 preserved the right of Congress to at any time "alter, amend, or
repeal this act." It also, in section 9, gave express authority to
the company to maintain ferries or construct bridges over the
Missouri River. The mortgage of 1865 was foreclosed, and the
present appellant, the Union Pacific company, a corporation
organized under the laws of Utah, became the purchaser. The
contention now is that, as this mortgage antedated the act of 1871,
the purchaser at the foreclosure thereof took the property freed
from any burdens or obligations imposed by that act. It held the
bridge as a part of its line, under no obligations to permit its
use by any other company.
We shall not stop to inquire whether this foreclosure and sale
were anything more than a reorganization under the form of a
judicial proceeding, nor whether, if it were in all respects a
bona fide sale to an independent third party, such sale
took the property out of the jurisdiction of Congress and prevented
that body from further legislation in aid of the purpose of the
act, "namely, to promote the public interest and welfare." The
question before us is whether an amendment to the act, purely
administrative in the character of the burdens imposed, aimed to
promote the public interest and welfare, enacted while the title to
the property remained in the original company, a corporation
chartered by Congress, which preserves intact all the pecuniary
rights of the company, and whose privileges are accepted and acted
upon by the company, is denuded of vitality by a sale to a new
company under foreclosure of a mortgage executed prior to such
legislation. That question must be answered in the negative.
The first transcontinental railroad, to-wit, the Union Pacific
Railroad, was a great public undertaking. Private capital was
believed to be and was, in fact, unwilling to attempt it. Congress
felt that the public interest required its construction. It sought
to interest private capital in the enterprise, and believed
Page 199 U. S. 170
that the work could be better done through the instrumentality
of a corporation. At the same time, it became practically the
sponsor for the enterprise by large donations of government credit
and public lands. In so doing, it was not seeking to aid a purely
private enterprise. What it did was in furtherance of the public
interests, and it reserved to itself the right to alter, amend, or
repeal the act insofar as was necessary to promote those interests,
limiting its action by the single proviso that due regard must be
had to the rights of the company. Everyone who purchased the bonds
of the company or gave it credit did so with full knowledge that
this was a
quasi-national enterprise, and that, if deemed
necessary by Congress, the interests of the public might be
promoted by additional legislation insofar as the pecuniary rights
of the company and its creditors were not sacrificed. The
construction of the bridge, doing away, as it did, with the delay
and annoyance of transportation across the river by a ferry, added
largely not merely to the value of the entire property, but also to
the great convenience of the traveling and shipping public. The act
giving authority for a large issue of bonds, thereby insuring the
immediate construction of the bridge, was accompanied by a proviso
that, upon reasonable compensation, the use of the bridge should be
accorded to other companies. Availing itself of the privileges
conferred, the company accepted the amendment in its entirety, and
is bound by its terms as fully as though it had embodied them in a
contract. So long as the full facilities of the Union Pacific
company were not interfered with thereby, and a reasonable
compensation was paid therefor, it cannot in any just sense be held
that its rights were not duly regarded. And it cannot be tolerated
that a private individual or a state corporation can, by the
purchase at a judicial sale of the property, strike down all the
legislation of Congress passed subsequently to the mortgage, for
the promotion of the public interests. We cannot assent to the
contention that the present owner of the property holds it free
from obedience to all such legislation. Now, as before
Page 199 U. S. 171
the foreclosure and sale, the public interests are to be
regarded, and not simply private purposes, wishes, or
prejudices.
One thing more requires notice. It is contended that the terms
of the decree are too broad; that they give to the Mason City
company, not merely the use of the bridge and its approaches,
including therein connections with Western roads terminating at
Omaha, but also the use of all side or spur tracks connecting the
Union Pacific Railroad with private industries, and the track
extending northward from the main line of the Union Pacific to the
old ferry crossing. On the argument counsel for the appellee stated
that his company made no claim to a right to use these tracks. If
the language of the decree is open to this misconstruction it
should be corrected, and the circuit court may make such correction
on proper application.
Decree affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA took no part in the decision of this
case.