Cuyahoga River Power Co. v. Northern Ohio Traction & Light Co.

Citations

• 252 U.S. 388
• 40 S. Ct. 404
• 64 L. Ed. 626
• 1920 U.S. LEXIS 1517

Syllabus

<p>Plaintiff; a hydro-electric company organized under a general law of Ohio, averred in its bill to quiet title, that its incorporation constituted á contract whereby the State granted it a right of way for its plant, along a certain river, between the termini designated in its articles, with the power of eminent domain to acquire title from private owners; that these rights were crystallized by a resolution of its board of directors adopting a detailed plan of power development and definitely and irrevocably fixing the location of its proposed works on specific lands, surveyed by its engineers and essential to the enterprise; that all this, supplemented by condemnation proceedings initiated but not as yet consummated, gave exclusive rights to acquire the lands for plaintiff’s corporate objects, through its power of eminent domain; and that the purchase of such lands from their owner by one of two defendant public service corporations, also organized under general laws of Ohio, their transfer to the other with the consent of the state Public Utilities Commission, and their ,oc9upation and use by the other for generating electric power, with' .assertion of immunity from plaintiff’s power of condemnation, worked an impairment of plaintiff’s contract, and a taking of its property, by state action or agency. Held, that the asserted federal questions were too plainly without merit to afford jurisdiction to the district Court. P. 395. Sears v. City of Akron, 246 U. S. 242.</p>