When a state statute is unobjectionable as applied in the case
in which it is attacked, it will not be held unconstitutional upon
a construction which has not been given, and may never be given, by
the supreme court of the state.
Plymouth Coal Co. v.
Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 531,
232 U. S.
546.
A statute of Indiana (Laws 1889, p. 146, c. 82; 2 Burns'
Ann.Ind.Stats.1914, §§ 5524, 5525) requiring all railroad companies
doing business in the state to cut down and destroy noxious weeds
"on lands occupied by them in any city, village or township of this
state" and providing a penalty of twenty-five dollars in case of
default, to be recovered in a civil action "by any person feeling
himself aggrieved" is not violative of the due process or equal
protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment as applied to a case
in which the lands in question are part of a railroad right of way,
and the " person feeling himself aggrieved" is the owner of lands
contiguous thereto who does not appear to have been guilty of
similar neglect.
Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v.
May, 194 U. S. 267.
Semble that the act under review permits but one
recovery for the same offense within the same territory.
182 India. 140 affirmed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA delivered the opinion of the Court.
A statute of Indiana provides as follows:
"Sec. 1. . . . That all railroad corporations doing
Page 242 U. S. 284
business in this state shall, between the 1st day of July and
the 20th day of August in each year, cause all thistles, burs,
docks, and other noxious weeds growing on lands occupied by them in
any city, village or township of this state to be cut down and
destroyed."
"Sec. 2. In case any railroad company shall refuse or neglect to
comply with the requirements specified in the first section of this
act, such company shall be liable in a penalty of $25 to be
prosecuted for in an action of debt by any person feeling himself
aggrieved. Said suit may be brought before any justice of the peace
in the county, who shall require of the complainant surety to pay
costs in case he fails to maintain his action. Summons may be
served on any agent or officer of the company."
The company was proceeded against under this statute by
defendant in error, who alleged that the railroad company is a
corporation doing business in the state, and that one of the
branches of its railway lines intersects and runs through his land
for a distance of 1/4 of a mile in the Township of Curry, Sullivan
County, Indiana, and that the company, between July 1, 1911, and
August 20, 1911, refused and neglected to cause all noxious weeds
(following the words of the statute) growing on lands occupied by
it in the township and county designated above to be cut down and
destroyed, and especially on its lands running through the lands of
defendant in error. He also alleged that he felt himself aggrieved
thereby and had been damaged in the sum of $25, and should receive
the statutory penalty of $25.
The company demurred to the complaint for insufficiency to
constitute a cause of action, filing therewith a memorandum
alleging, among other things, that the act was
unconstitutional.
The demurrer was overruled, and the company filed a general
denial of the allegations of the complaint.
Page 242 U. S. 285
After hearing, a penalty was imposed upon the company in the sum
of $25. It filed a motion in arrest of judgment in which it
repeated that the law was unconstitutional. The motion was
overruled and judgment entered against the company. It was affirmed
by the supreme court. In that court, the ground was specifically
urged that the statute offended the equal protection and due
process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States. The court considered both contentions and
rejected both, and to review its decision, this writ of error is
prosecuted.
As offending against the equal protection assured by the
Fourteenth Amendment, the company complains that occupiers of land
are separated into two classes -- "(1) railway corporations, and
(2) all others." This, it is insisted, is an unnatural and
unjustifiable classification with respect to the obligation imposed
of cutting down weeds growing on lands occupied, as there is no
relation between the line of division of the classes and the
subject matter.
Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Co. v.
Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, and
Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U.
S. 540, are cited. We need not pause to review them or
the many cases decided since them explaining the wide discretion a
legislature has in the classification of the objects of
legislation, for immediately repellent to plaintiff in error's
contention is
Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. May,
194 U. S. 267. In
that case, a statute of Texas imposed a penalty on railroad
companies for permitting Johnson grass and Russian thistle to go to
seed upon their rights of way. A right of action for the penalty
was given to contiguous owners. The act was sustained, but certain
distinctions between that statute and the Indiana statute are
pointed out. These distinctions are: (1) the Texas statute gave the
penalty to contiguous landowners; the Indiana statute gives it to
"any person feeling himself aggrieved;" (2) the Texas statute
required the contiguous
Page 242 U. S. 286
landowner to be free from the same neglect; the Indiana statute
does not impose this limitation; (3) the Texas statute is limited
to the railroad's rights of way; the Indiana statute applies to all
lands occupied by a railroad "in any city, village, or
township."
How discriminating and arbitrary these distinctions make the
Indiana statute as compared with the Texas statute, and remove the
latter from authority, is variously illustrated by plaintiff in
error.
The Supreme Court of Indiana is not specific as to these
contentions. On the authority of
Pennsylvania Co. v.
State, 142 Ind. 428, and
Western Union Telegraph Co. v.
Ferguson, 157 Ind. 37, the court decided that it was neither
necessary to aver in the complaint nor prove that the person
bringing the action had suffered actual damages. The court
said:
"The penalty imposed is for violation of a duty required of
appellant [the railway company], and it is not in a position to
complain that the penalty, when collected, shall be paid to the
complaining party, and this is not available in defense of an
action for the recovery of the penalty prescribed."
In
Pennsylvania Co. v. State, the penalty was imposed
for failure of railroads to provide blackboards in their passenger
stations showing the time of arrival and departure of trains, the
act providing that one-half of the recovery should go to the
prosecuting attorney. It was held that this was a method of
compensating that officer and to encourage the actual enforcement
of the law against its violators, and not intended to require him
to become a party litigant.
In the second case, a statute was considered that required
telegrams to be transmitted with impartiality and in the order of
time in which they were received, and without discrimination as to
rates. It was provided that any person or company violating the act
should be liable to "any party aggrieved in a penalty of $100 for
each
Page 242 U. S. 287
offense, to be recovered in a civil action in any court of
competent jurisdiction." It was held that the
"party aggrieved is the person whose message the telegraph
company has refused to receive or failed to transmit on the terms
or in the manner prescribed by the statute,"
and that it was not necessary for him to show that he had
sustained any actual damages; that he might recover compensation
for damages independently of the statute, which furnished a
cumulative remedy.
Both cases illustrate the principle that a penalty imposed by a
statute may be given to an informer or prosecutor as a means of
enforcing the statute -- as a means of its public vindication --
and necessarily there could be but one recovery in the designated
territory. But we cannot say whom, under the statute under review
in this case, the court would consider a "party aggrieved," or who
could be considered as a "person feeling himself aggrieved," to use
the language of the statute, whether a contiguous landowner, or
other landowner, or whether any person could be aggrieved within
the meaning of the statute if he himself was guilty of the same
neglect as the railroad company. Nor can we say how the supreme
court would decide as to what was meant by "lands occupied by"
railroad corporations; whether this would mean only their rights of
way, the designation of "in any city, village or township" being
only for the purpose of venue, or mean, which is difficult to
suppose, the corporation's "roundhouses, shops, yards, repair
tracks, turntables, and other buildings used in connection" with
the business of a railroad, which seems to be the alarm of
plaintiff in error. At any rate, such construction has not yet been
given and may never be given, and we cannot anticipate that it ever
will be given, and on that anticipation hold the statute invalid.
We have heretofore expressed the propriety of waiting, when a state
statute is attacked for unconstitutionality, until the
Page 242 U. S. 288
state court has given it a construction which may justify the
attack.
Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U.
S. 531,
232 U. S. 546.
The statute has only been applied in favor of a contiguous
landholder, and only one recovery has been permitted. So limited,
we think its validity must be admitted under the doctrine of the
May case. But we express no opinion concerning the
consequences if a broader construction should be accepted by the
state court.
Judgment affirmed.