Consolidated Turnpike Co. v. Norfolk & Ocean View Railway Co.

Citations

• 228 U.S. 596
• 33 S. Ct. 605
• 57 L. Ed. 982
• 1913 U.S. LEXIS 2402

Syllabus

<p>Petition for rehearing granted, not because of doubt of correctness of the decree, but to prevent misconception concerning the reasons for dismissing the writ of error in this case, ante, p. 326.</p> <p>The certificate of the judge of the court below that a Federal question was raised and passed upon is not, in the absence of any journal entry, a certificate of the court, but this court may, if there is a recital in the certificate that the court orders the certificate to be made, accept it as incorporating into the record the necessary proof of existence of a Federal .question. Marvin v. Trout, 199 U. S. 212, distinguished.</p> <p>Where the judgment of the state, court rests upon a question of general law broad enough to support the decision, this court will not consider the Federal question, although it may have been raised in, and passed upon by, the court below. Gaar, Scott & Co. v. Shannon, 223 ü. S. 468.</p> <p>This court is not justified in taking jurisdiction on the bare claim that property has been taken without compensation, unless the averments of fact raise real and substantial questions which are not so devoid of merit as to be frivolous or which have not been foreclosed by prior decisions of this court.</p> <p>The state courts of Virginia having held that a railroad company which . had acquired title to land on which it had built its roadbed could condemn the interest in the land of a mortgagee in possession without paying for its own improvements, this court declines to review on the ground that the question of whether the mortgagee was deprived of his property without due process of law is frivolous.</p> <p>The rule of the common law that fixtures annexed to the realty become a part thereof and subject to existing liens thereon is subject to many . exceptions': in Virginia a corporation possessing the power of eminent domain may enter and use for public utility purposes and condemn the interest of the mortgagee without being obliged to pay more th