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· 4/17/1899

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad v. Matthews

Citations

  • 174 U.S. 96
  • 19 S. Ct. 609
  • 43 L. Ed. 909
  • 1899 U.S. LEXIS 1486

Syllabus

<p>The provision in § 2 of é. 155 of the acts of Kansas of 1885, entitled “ An act relating to the liability of railroads for damages by Are,” that, “ in all actions commenced under this act, if the plaintiff shall recover, there shall be allowed him by the court a reasonable attorney’s fee, which shall become a part of the judgment,” must, for reasons stated in the opinion of the court, be sustained as legislation authorized by the Constitution of the United States.</p>

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

  • “[T]he equal protection guarantied by the constitution forbids the legislature to select a person, natural or artificial, and impose upon him or it burdens and liabilities which are not cast upon others similarly situated.”
  • “Is the classification or 139 Case: 20-12003 Date Filed: 09/11/2020 Page: 140 of 200 discrimination prescribed thereby purely arbitrary, or has it some basis in that which has a reasonable relation to the object sought to be accomplished?”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Brewer, Brown, Harlan, McKenna, Peckham

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