President of the Baltimore & Fredericktown Turnpike Road v. Baltimore, Catonsville & Ellicott's Mills Passenger Railroad

Bryan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. By the Act of 1894, chapter 102; the Legislature granted ²⁵⁴ to the Baltimore, Catonsville and Ellicott’s Mills Passenger Railroad Company the right to use electricity as a motive power on its railway between Baltimore City and Catonsville and on an extension of it thereafter to be made to Ellicott City. By the same Act this corporation was empowered to construct and operate double passenger railway tracks bn the turnpike of the President, Managers and Company of the Baltimore and Fredericktown Turnpike Road, with power to alter its grade, and'to change the location of the tracks which it already had on the turnpike. And the two corporations were authorized to agree upon the terms and conditions on which these rights should be exercised ; and in case they should fail to agree, the railroad company was empowered to acquire the necessary easement and estate by condemnation proceedings.

It is well known and it is stated in the proceedings in this case that by virtue of a contract with the turnpike company a passenger horse railway had been maintained and operated' for many years on the bed of the turnpike between the city of Baltimore and Catonsville. It does not seem to be controverted that the property of the corporation which originally owned this horse railway was sold under a foreclosure proceeding, and that the present appellee (under a slight change of name), has been invested with all its rights, property and duties, and subjected to all its obligations. The appellee has prosecuted condemnation proceedings, and in due course the jury have found and assessed damages under their inquisition. Without entering minutely into details, it is sufficient to state that the appellant filed a bill in equity, in which it alleged that the above mentioned Act of Assembly is contrary to the Constitution of the United States, and it prayed that the appellee should be enjoined from proceeding under the inquisition and from prosecuting any proceedings' whatsoever by way of condemnation to acquire any easement or estate in the turnpike road.

The Circuit Court sustained the right of condemnation and the appellant took its appeal. ²⁵⁵ The turnpike company was chartered by the Act of 1804, chapter 51, and under this Act it constructed its turnpike road, and has operated and maintained it from the time of its construction to the present day. There can be no doubt that the charter is a contract between the Legislature and the corporation, which is under the protection of the Constitution of the United States. And the same may be said of the contract made with the predecessor of the appellee in reference to the construction of the horse railroad. The Legislature has no power to amend, alter or impair any stipulation in either of these contracts.

They must all be preserved inviolate in their original integrity. If the Act of Assembly infringes any right granted by the appellant’s charter, or releases any stipulation contained in the contract, it must to that extent be declared null and void. And it has been declared by this Court that there is no difference in principle between a law that in terms impairs the obligation of a contract, and one that produces the same effect in the construction and practical execution of it. Canal Company v. Railroad Company, 4 Gill & Johnson, 109.

In the same case, at pages 144 and 145, it was said that a franchise, a corporate right to select and acquire land for the authorized purposes of the corporation, is property; “it is an incorporeal hereditament; not a legal title to the land itself; not a mere capacity or faculty to acquire and hold land, such as every individual possesses ; but, in addition to such capacity, it is a right or privilege, a portion of the eminent domain vested in the corporation to acquire the legal title to land, subjected by the grant to its will, and thus to convert the incorporeal into a corporeal hereditament ; and after the franchise to choose and condemn land for any particular public purpose that portion of the eminent domain granted and subsisting in one corporation, can not be bestowed upon another, to the prejudice of the former grant; nor can any other legally acquire any such right of way or title to the land over which the franchise extends, as will hinder the former corporation in the exercise and ²⁵⁶ enjoyment of its franchise.” Therefore the Legislature could not take away from the appellant the unrestricted right to the control and use of its road, and donate any