Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad v. Wisconsin

Citations

• 238 U.S. 491
• 35 S. Ct. 869
• 59 L. Ed. 1423
• 1915 U.S. LEXIS 1581

Syllabus

<p>A State cannot authorize an individual to take salable property from another without pay — it amounts to deprivation of property without due process of law.</p> <p>An owner’s right to his property is protected even though he may not be actually using it, and the .State cannot, under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, compel an owner of property to allow a third party to have free use thereof until such time as a buyer appears.</p> <p>A state statute that does hot .purport to be a health measure cannot be sustained as such.</p> <p>A state statute which is not a reasoh&ble exercise of the police power and yet operates to take property cannot be justified on the ground that the party whose property it takes may be able to get an increase in the rates obtained for property not taken. The taking of property and a fixed right to compensation must coincide.</p> <p>While the right of the State to regulate public carriers in the- interest of the public is very great, it does not warrant unreasonable interference with the right of management or the taking of the carrier’s property without compensation.</p> <p>The reserved right of altering and amending the charter of a corporation does not confer mere arbitrary power or authorize the taking of the corporation’s property without compensation.</p> <p>The statute of Wisconsin imposing penalties on sleeping car companies if, the lower berth of a sleeping car being occupied, the upper berth was let down before it was actually engaged, is unconstitutional under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an arbitrary taking of property without compensation; nor can it be justified as a health measure under the police power of the State or as amendment or alteration of the charter of the corporation under the reserved power of the State in that respect.</p> <p>152 Wisconsin, 348, reversed.</p>