Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Co. v. Vosburg

Citations

• 238 U.S. 56
• 35 S. Ct. 675
• 59 L. Ed. 1199
• 1915 U.S. LEXIS 1642

Syllabus

<p>Legislation requiring the prompt furnishing of cars by carriers and the prompt loading of same by shippers and prescribing damages and penalties for failure on the part of either, is properly*-within the police power of the State; in that respect such legislation differs from that which simply imposes penalties on the carrier for failure to ■ pay a specified class of debts. Gulf, Col. & S. F. Ry. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, distinguished.</p> <p>A police regulation is, the same as any other statute of the State, subject to the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That guarantee, while not preventing proper classification, does entitle all persons and corporations within the jurisdiction of the State to the protection of equal laws, including police regulations.</p> <p>A state statute which imposes .reciprocal burdens on both carrier and shipper, but which provides that in the case of delinquency on the part of the carrier the shipper may recover an attorney fee, but in the case of delinquency on the part of the shipper does not provide that the carrier may recover an attorney fee, denies the carrier the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.</p> <p>Such a classification is. not a reasonable one and there is no ground on which a special burden should be imposed on one class of litigants and not on another class identically situated.</p> <p>89 Kansas, 114, reversed. ■</p>