Frostburg Mining Co. v. Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad

Citations

• 81 Md. 28
• 31 A. 698
• 1895 Md. LEXIS 39

Syllabus

<p>Reasonable Facilities for Transportation — Making Switch Connection — Reviving Charter of Corporation — Repeal by Implication.</p> <p>A statute providing that a certain railway company shall furnish reasonable facilities and all cars for receiving and forwarding coals offered for transportation, does not impose upon the company the obligation to permit other corporations having coal for transportation, to make connection by means of a switch with its road.</p> <p>Where a statute provides that the charter of a certain company shall be continued in full force for the period of thirty years, such statute operates merely to revive and extend the charter of the company, and does not create a new and distinct corporation.</p> <p>The charter of a railway company, granted in 1849, gave to any corporation, which might be thereafter incorporated, the right to make connection with the railway. The appellant corporation was chartered by an Act of Assembly before the railway company was created, and its charter expired in 1878, when an Act was passed continuing the Act of incorporation in force for thirty years. In 1876 a statute was passed amending the charter of the railway company, and providing that it should furnish reasonable facilities for the transportation of all coal offered. Held,</p> <p>1st. That the Act of 1878 did not create a new corporation, and therefore the appellant was not entitled to make a switch connection with the tracks of the railway company, the appellant having been incorporated before the railway company.</p> <p>2nd. That the Act of 1876 did not repeal by implication that provision in the charter of the railway company, by which its obligation to allow connectious to be made by other corporations was limited to those thereafter created.</p> <p>The repeal of a statute by implication is never favored in law, and it is only when two Acts are repugnant and plainly inconsistent with one another that the latter Act operates as a repeal by implication of