St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. Paul

40 S.W. 705, 64 Ark. 83, 1897 Ark. LEXIS 15
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedMay 1, 1897
StatusPublished
Cited by32 cases

This text of 40 S.W. 705 (St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. Paul) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. Paul, 40 S.W. 705, 64 Ark. 83, 1897 Ark. LEXIS 15 (Ark. 1897).

Opinion

Battle, J.

The appellees, Charles Paul, John Boland and Fritz Whiddiek, were day laborers in the employment, respectively, of the appellants, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company, and the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Mem - phis Railroad Company; one earning one dollar and twenty-five cents a day, and each of the other two one dollar and thirty-five cents. Their employers discharged them without paying the wages they had, respectively, earned; and each brought a suit against his debtor for the amount due him, and the damages allowed by the act of the general assembly of the State of Arkansas, entitled “An act to provide for the protection of servants and employees of railroads,” approved March 25, 1889. The defendants did not deny that the wages claimed were due them, but resisted the recovery of the damages on the ground that the act under which they were claimed was in violation of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, and of the constitution of the State of Arkansas.

The first section of the act in question, to the extent it was sustained in Leep v. Railway Company, 58 Ark. 407, is as follows: “Whenever any corporation engaged in the business of operating or constructing any railroad or railroad bridge shall discharge with or without cause, or refuse to further employ, any servant or. employee thereof, the unpaid wages of any such servant and employee then earned at the contract rate, without abatement or deduction, shall be and become”due and payable on the day of such discharge or refusal to longer employ; and if the sum be not paid on such day, then, as a penalty for such non-payment, the wages of such servant or employee shall continue at the same rate until paid. Provided, such wages shall not continue more than sixty days, unless an action therefor shall be commenced within that time.” In sustaining it, the court held that the words “ without abatement or deduction,” as used in the act, mean “ that the unpaid wages earned at the contract rate, at the time of the discharge, shall be paid without discount on account of the payment thereof before they were payable according to the terms of the contract of employment.”

The railroad companies contend that they are “persons,” within the meaning of that word as used in the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States; and that the act in question, as sustained and construed in Leep v. Railway Company, supra, is in violation of the amendment in this that it denies to them the “equal protection of the law.” If it be conceded that they are persons, as contended, it would not follow that they are entitled to all the rights of natural persons. They possess only those rights, powers, or properties which the charters of their creation confer upon them, either expressly or as incidental to their existence. The same is true of all other corporations. All of them are creatures of the legislature. In their creation the legislature could and did divide them into classes, and give to each class such rights, capacities and powers as it saw fit. Neither has the right to complain of a discrimination in favor of one agent against the other, or that all or any of the rights of natural persons have not been given to it.

The powers conferred upon them by their charters may be modified or diminished by amendment, or extinguished by the repeal of the charters. The constitution of this state ordains: “ The general assembly shall have the power to alter, revoke or amend any charter of incorporation now existing and revocable at the adoption of this constitution, or any that may hereafter be created, whenever, in their opinion, it may be injurious to the citizens of this state; in such manner, however, that no injustice shall be done to the corporators.” Const. 1874, art. 12, § 6. The railroad companies in this case do not deny, but tacitly concede, that their charters are subject to alteration under this provision of the constitution. The question is, did the legislature have the power to do so in the manner and to the extent it undertook by the act in question?

In commenting upon such a power to amend, which was reserved by the state of California, Mr. Justice Field, in delivering the opinion of the court in The Railroad Tax Cases, 13 Fed. Rep. 754, said: “It [the state] may confer, by its general laws, upon corporations certain capacities of doing business, and of having perpetual succession in their members. It may make its grant in these respects revocable at pleasure; it may make the grant subject to modifications, and impose conditions upon its use, and reserve the right to change these at will. But whatever property the corporations acquire in the exercise of the capacities conferred they hold under the same guaranties which protect the property of individuals from spoliation. It cannot be taken for public use without compensation. It cannot be taken without due process of law, nor can it be subjected to burdens different from those laid upon the property of individ • uals under like circumstances. The state grants to railroad corporations formed under its laws a franchise, and over it retains control, and may withdraw or modify it. By the reservation clause it retains power only over that which it grants; it does not grant the rails on the road; it does not grant the depots along-side of it; it does not grant the cars on the track, nor the engines which moves them, and over them it can exercise no power except such as may be exercised through its control over the franchise, and such as may be exercised with reference to all property used by carriers for the public. The reservation of power over the franchise,—that is, over that which is granted,—makes its grant a conditional or revocable contract, whose obligation is not impaired by its revocation or change.”

In the Sinking-Fund Cases, 99 U. S. 700, the question was whether Congress had the constitutional power to enact a law compelling the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad Companies to set aside a portion of their current earnings as a sinking fund for the purpose of meeting a very large indebtedness secured by mortgage upon the roads, and payable at a future day. The majority of the court held that the legislation was valid as an exercise of the general legislative powers of the government, and also because the right to alter or amend the charters of the companies had been expressly reserved to Congress. In commenting on the reserved power to amend or repeal the charters of corporations in that case, Chief Justice Waite, in delivering the opinion of the court, said: “All agree that it cannot be used to take away property already acquired under the operations of the charter, or to deprive the corporation of the fruits actually reduced to possession of contracts lawfully made; but, as was said by this court, through Mr. Justice Clifford, in Miller v. The State (15 Wall. 498), ‘it may safely be affirmed that the reserved power may be exercised, and to almost any extent, to carry into effect the original purposes of the grant, or to secure the due administration of its affairs, so as to protect the rights of stockholders and of creditors, and for the proper disposition of its assets;’ and again, in Holyoke Company v. Lyman (id 519), ‘to protect the rights of the public and of the corporators, or to promote the due administration of the affairs of the corporation.’ Mr. Justice Field, also speaking for the court, was even more explicit when, in Tomlinson v. Jessup (id.

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Bluebook (online)
40 S.W. 705, 64 Ark. 83, 1897 Ark. LEXIS 15, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/st-louis-iron-mountain-southern-railway-co-v-paul-ark-1897.