Chicago & Alton Railroad v. Tranbarger

Citations

• 238 U.S. 67
• 35 S. Ct. 678
• 59 L. Ed. 1204
• 1915 U.S. LEXIS 1644

Syllabus

<p>In an action for damages under the statute of Missouri requiring owners of railroads to maintain ditches along the right-of-way as amended in 1907 so as to require outlets for water across the rights-of-way and imposing liability and penalties for non-compliance withih three months after completion and where the embankment causing damage had been erected more than three months prior to the amendment of 1907, held that:</p> <p>The amendment to the statute was not an ex post facto law: it did not penalize the. railroad company for the manner in which it originally built the embankment prior to the amendment but for the manner in which it maintained it subsequently thereto.</p> <p>The time limit should properly be construed as relating to railroads erected after the passage of the act and that, as to those already constructed reasonable time should be allowed.</p> <p>It is not necessary for this court to determine what is a reásonable time for compliance with a police regulation, when that question is raised by one refusing compliance, not on that ground, but on the . ground that the legislature had no power to enact the statute.</p> <p>Even though the charter be irrepealable, common-law rules existing at the time the charter was granted are not so imported into the contract of the charter as to cause such contract to be impaired by subsequent enactment of proper police regulations,.</p> <p>No person has a vested right in any general rule of-law or policy of legislation entitling him to insist upon its remaining unchanged for his benefit, nor is immunity from change of general rules of law to be implied as an unexpressed term of an express contract.</p> <p>The police power of the State cannot be abdicated nor bargained away, is inalienable even by express grant, and all contract and property rights are held subject to its fair exércise; it embraces regulations designed to promote public convenience or general welfare as well as those in the interest of the public he