Chicago, Terre Haute & Southeastern Railway Co. v. Anderson

Citations

• 242 U.S. 283
• 37 S. Ct. 124
• 61 L. Ed. 302
• 1916 U.S. LEXIS 1499

Syllabus

<p>When a state statute is unobjectionable as applied in the case in which it is attacked, it will not be held unconstitutional upon a construction which has not been given, and may never be given, by the Supreme Court of the State. Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 531, 546.</p> <p>A statute of Indiana (Laws 1889, p. 146, c. 82; 2 Bums’ Ann. Ind. Stats. 1914, §§ 5524, 5525) requiring all railroad companies doing business in the State to cut down and destroy noxious weeds “ on lands occupied by them in any city, village or township of this State,” and providing a penalty of twenty-five dollars in case of default, to be recovered in a civil action “by any person feeling himself aggrieved,” is not violative of the due process or equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, as applied to a case in which the lands in question are part of a railroad right of way, and the “person feeling himself aggrieved” is the owner of lands contiguous thereto who does not appear to have been guilty of similar neglect. Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. May, 194 U. S. 267.</p> <p>Semble, that the act under review permits but one recovery for the same offense within the same territory.</p>