41 Iowa 297 | Iowa | 1875
In this state corporations are created under a general incorporation law. The Eevision, Sec. 1158, Code of 1873, Sec. 1058, provides: Any number of persons may associate themselves and become incorporated for the transaction of any lawful business, including the establishment of ferries, the construction of canals, railways, bridges, or other works of internal improvement; but such incorporation confers no power or privilege not possessed by natural persons, except as hereinafter provided. The next section enumerates certain
Any legislation which deprives the defendant of the right to operate its road would clearly be an infraction of contract, and unconstitutional.
But there is no implied contract between a state and a cor.
In the above cases, from 25 Ill., 26 Mo., and 37 Vt., the statutes considered were enacted after the various railroads affected by them had been constructed under charters imposing upon the roads no obligation to fence, and wdien the general statutes contained no such requirement. When the railroads were constructed the companies had a right to operate them without fences, and they were liable for damage to stock only in the case of negligence. The effect of these statutes was, not to take away the franchise — the right to operate the road — but to impose upon it conditions and subject it to burdens which did not exist when the franchise was
If, then, in the nature of the interests involved, there could have been no objection to a general provision in the incorporation' law making railroads liable for all damages occasioned by fire, there can in the nature of such interests, be no valid objection to imposing such liability after the incorporation of the company, for the law contains no guaranty that a corporation shall be exempt from such interference. The right to enact the statutes above considered is derived under the
In Thorpe v. Rutland & Burlington R. R., supra, Redfield, Chief Justice, says: “This police power extends to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort and quiet of all persons, and the protection of all property within the state.” And in Commonwealth v. Alger, 1 Cush., 84, Chief Justice Shaw says: “We think it is a settled principle, growing out of the nature of well ordered civil society, that every holder of property, however absolute and unqualified may be his title, holds it under the implied liability that his use of it shall not be injurious to the equal enjoyment of others having an equal right to the enjoyment of their property, nor injurious to the rights of the community. All property in this Oommonwealth is * * * held subject to those general regulations which are necessary to the common good and general welfare. Rights of property, like all other social and conventional rights, are subject to such reasonable limitations in their enjoyment as shall prevent them from being injurious, and to such reasonable restraints and regulations established by law as the legislature, under the governing and controlling power vested in them by the constitution, may think necessary and expedient. This is very different from the right of eminent domain — the right of a government to take and appropriate private property whenever the public exigency requires it, which can be done only on condition of providing a reasonable compensation therefor. The power we allude to is rather the police power, the power vested in the legislature by the constitution to make, ordain, and establish all manner
In the License Cases, 5 Howard, 504, Mr. Chief Justice Taney, on page 583, says: “ But what are the police powers of a state? They are nothing more or less than the powers of government inherent in every sovereignty, to the extent of its dominions. And whether a state passes a quarantine law, or a law to punish offenses, or to establish courts of justice^ or requiring certain instruments to be recorded, or to regulate commerce within its own limits, in every case it exercises the same power; that is to say, the power of sovereignty, the power to govern men and things within the limits of its dominion. It is by virtue of this power that it regulates; and its authority to make regulations of commerce is as absolute as its power to pass health laws, except in so far as it has been restricted by the constitution of the United States.”
The case of The Commonwealth v. Certain Intoxicating Liquors, 115 Mass., 153, is strongly in point. In that case complaint was made, under the statute of 1869, chapter 415, section 44, against certain intoxicating liquors alleged to have been deposited by Patrick O’Connell in a certain vehicle, and being conveyed by him to some unknown person. The Boston Beer Company appeared and claimed an interest in certain of the liquors seized. At the trial it was agreed that the Boston Beer Company was incorporated under the statute of 1827 for the purpose of manufacturing malt liquors in the city of Boston, and that the liquors claimed by the Boston Beer Company were malt liquors, and where manufactured and owned by the said corporation, and were being transported by O’Connell, as its agent, to its place of business for the purpose of sale.
The claimant asked the court to instruct “ that the statute of 1869, chapter 415, and the acts in addition thereto prohibiting the manufacture and sale and the transporting of intox
The court held that this instruction was properly refused. In the course of the opinion the court said: “The authority of the legislature over the property, or the use of the property, of a corporation is not lost because no power is reserved to repeal or amend its charter. Any laws the sovereign power may find it necessary or salutary to enact, regulating, controlling, restricting or prohibiting the sale of a particular kind of property for the general benefit, apply as well to the property of corporations, like the claimant, as to individuals. ' Such laws are in the nature of police regulations, and individuals and corporations are alike subject to them. Indeed, all property is held subject to them, and it is immaterial that the restriction is imposed after the property is acquired, or becomes valuable, or after the charter is granted, or before it became necessary, in the judgment of the legislature, to pass a law on the subject. Every such law limits, restrains, impairs, and in some cases destroys the uses which were previously enjoyed of the property so made the subject of legislation, but the extent to which it may do so does not affect the .validity of such laws, or their equal application to the owners of such property. They are presumed to be passed for the common good, and to be necessary for the protection of the public, and cannot be said to impair' any right or the obligation of any contract, or to do any injury in the proper and legal sense of these terms.” See Brick Presbyterian Church v. New York, 5 Cowen, 538.
It would seem that a power so nearly 'omnipotent must be potent enough to require that the owner of property shall be liable for the damages its use occasions.
Our constitution provides that private property shall not.be taken for public use without just compensation. Tet the very law under which defendant is incorporated authorizes the incorporation of railways, and the employment of a species of locomotion’ which experience. lias proved is very destructive to
"What the policy of this legislation may be experience alone can show. It may be that it will prove to be unreasonably severe, and to stand in the way of material progress and the best interests of the country at large. It may, upon the other hand, promote a high degree of skill and care, and stimulate the invention and use of improved appliances, lessening the danger of fires, and greatly increasing the safety of property, without any detriment to public interests. With these questions we have nothing to do.
III. It is claimed that plaintiff cannot recover because of contributory negligence.’ The question of negligence was submitted to the court and determined upon the agreed statement of facts adversely to defendant. We discover no error in the court’s finding in this particular. Kellogg v. The Chicago & North Western R'y Co., 26 Wis., 223.
We discover no error in the record.
Affirmed.