Goldsborough v. Postal Telegraph Cable Co.

Constable, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal bjr the State Roads; Commission from a judgment rendered upon the sustaining of a demurrer, filed by the appellee to the declaration in a suit instituted by the appellants, for and on behalf of the State of Maryland. The declaration, is in the following language: Phillips Lee Goldsborough, Ovington E. Weller, Ira Rem-sen, William Bullock Clark, Edward E. Goslin, Walter B. Miller and Andrew Ramsey, constituting the State Roads Commission of Maryland, for and on behalf of the State of Maryland, by Leon E. Greenbaum, their attorney, sue The Postal Telegraph Cable Company, a corporation. For that on the 22nd day of August, in the year nineteen hundred and eleven, the Oonowingo Bridge Company granted and conveyed to the State Roads Commission of Maryland, for and on behalf of the State of Maryland, in consideration-of the sum of $88,000 a certain bridge in the State of Maryland over the Susquehanna River, and in said grant the right was expressly given to the State Roads Commission, for and on behalf of the State of Maryland, to collect any and all rentals and income accruing from the use of said bridge by the defendant, and that at said time and for a long number of years prior thereto .the defendant had been using said bridge for the conveyance of wires thereover with the consent of the Oonowingo Bridge Company, and had been paying the Conowingo Bridge Company rentals and income for the use thereof, which said rentals and tolls had amounted from the year ⁷⁵ 3906 to 1911 to tlie sum of $95.Y5 semi-annually in each year, for which amount hills were regularly sent by the Conowingo Bridge Company 1o the defendant and paid by the defendant np to and including the instalment due on the first of, July, 3 911, and for that since the 22nd day of August, 1911, said wires have remained on said bridge to the same number and in the same manner as theretofore and without any change in the arrangement between the parties as to the price to he paid or the use to he made by the defendant of said bridge, and that said use continued with the intention on the part of the plaintiffs that payments would be made of the same amount as had been paid to the Conowingo Bridge Company, hut although hills have been sent and demand made by the plaintiffs for the instalments of $95.Yo due on the first day of January, 1912, and on the first day of July, 1912, payment thereof has been refused and is still refused by the defendant, and the plaintiffs allege that the sum of $193.50 is due and owing at the present time by the defendant to the plaintiffs for the use of said bridge for its wires from the first day of July, 1911, to the first day of July, 3 912.

And the plaintiffs claim $400.00. The ground of the appellee’s demurrer is based upon the provisions of Article 14 of the Declaration of Rights, wherein it is declared: “That no aid, charge, tax, burthen or fees ought to he rated or levied under any pretense, without the consent of the legislature.” It is not contended that the Legislature could not impose a- charge for the use of a pubic bridge by telegraph companies; indeed that is conceded, but it is denied, in, the absence of legislative authority, that ihe Roads Commission has the power so to- charge. That is a question about which much can be said on both sides, under the Act creating the State Roads Commission; but the declaration in the present case does not render the settlement of that question necessary for a determination of this particular case. Me do not, therefore, deem it expedient, under this record, to go into the broad question as to what rights in ⁷⁶ general the State Roads Commission can exereise over corporations using- the public highways of the State, in carrying ■out their corporate purposes.

We will, therefore, confine ourselves to the inquiry, whether the allegations