45 So. 911 | Ala. | 1908
The chancellor entertained the view that the bill in this case was in effect, if not in terms,
All this may. be conceded, though such a construction of the contract, it seems to us, is wholly inadmissible; yet, it appearing by the averments of the bill that the respondent is a railroad company and a common carrier of passengers and freight, the attempted grant or investiture of the right or interest in complainant — a purely private business corporation — to the extent contended for would be clearly a violation of the public policy of the state, if not directly inhibited by section 242 of the Constitution of 1901. The recognition and the protection of such a grant by injunction would be a warrant to railroad companies, by leases of their tracks,, to rid themselves of the duties and responsibilities of common carriers, and would enable them, after obtaining franchises as public service corporations, to abandon their public functions and duties by conferring the use of their franchises and properties upon any private concern they might select. If such a principle is once established, it would be but a short step to hold that public carrying corporations might entirely abandon their public functions and duties, and prostitute the uses of the franchises and privileges granted to them into enterprises for purely private gain, to the exclusion of the rights of the public. Indeed, in the absence of express legislative authority, one railroad company has no power to lease its road or other property to another railroad corporation, though a common carrier, and such an attempted lease is void as against public policy. —George v. Central R. & B. Co., 101 Ala. 607, 619, 14 South. 750; M. & C. R. R. Co. v. Grayson, 88 Ala. 572, 7 South. 122, 16 Am. St. Rep. 89.
The decree appealed from must be affirmed.