Atlantic Coast Line Railroad v. City of Goldsboro

Citations

• 232 U.S. 548
• 34 S. Ct. 364
• 58 L. Ed. 721
• 1914 U.S. LEXIS 1385

Syllabus

<p>Whether a municipal ordinance is within the power conferred by the legislature upon the municipality is a question of state law.</p> <p>A municipal ordinance within the power delegated by the legislature is a state law within the meaning of the Federal Constitution.</p> <p>Any enactment, from whatever source originating, to which a State gives the force of law is a statute of the State within the pertinent clause of § 237, Judicial Code, conferring jurisdiction on this court.</p> <p>A railroad charter may embody a contract within the protection of the Federal Constitution.</p> <p>Although the state court may have held that there was a contract, but that it was subject to constitutional reserved power to alter and repeal, this court, in reviewing that judgment under § 237, Judicial Code, will determine for itself the existence or non-existence of the asserted contract and whether its obligation has been impaired.</p> <p>While a railroad company which devotes a part of its right of way to public use inconsistent with railway purposes may not lose its property right therein, the State may in the exercise of its police power and for the protection of the public so using such property, require the company to so use its other property as not to endanger the public, applying the principle underlying the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non ¡cedas.</p> <p>Neither the “contract clause” nor the “due process clause” of the Federal Constitution overrides the power of the State to establish ■ necessary and reasonable regulations under its police power, a power which can neither be abdicated nor bargained away and subject to which all property rights are held. •</p> <p>The enforcement of uncompensated obedience to a properly enacted police regulation for public health and safety is not an unconstitutional taking of property without compensation or without .due process of law.</p> <p>The constitutional validity of ordinances affecting public safety as affected by railroads must b