Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé Railway Co. v. Ellis

Citations

• 165 U.S. 150
• 17 S. Ct. 255
• 41 L. Ed. 666
• 1897 U.S. LEXIS 1957

Syllabus

<p>The act of the legislature of Texas of April 5, 1889, which provides that “ any person in this State having a valid bona fide claim for personal services rendered.or labor done, or for damages, or for overcharges on freight, or claims for stock killed or injured by the train of any railway company, provided.that such claim for stock killed or injured shall be presentedcto the agent of the company nearest to the point where such' stock was killed or injured, against any railway corporation operating a railroad in this State, and the amount of such claim does not exceed $50, may present the samé, verified by liis affidavit, for payment to such corporation by filing it with any station agent of such corporation in any county where suit may be instituted for the same, and if, at the expiration of thirty days after such presentation, such claim has not been paid or satisfied, he may immediately institute suit thereon in the proper court; and if he shall finally establish his claim, and obtain judgment for the full amount thereof, as presented for payment to such corporation in such court, or any court to which the suit may have been appealed, he shall be entitled to recover .the amount.of such claim and^all costs of suit, and in addition thereto all reasonable attorney’s fees, provided he has an attorney employed in his case, not to exceed $10, to be assessed and awarded by the court or jury trying the issue,” operates to deprive the railroad companies of property without due process of law, and denies to them the equal protection of the law, in that it singles them put of all citizens and corporations, and requires them to pay in certain cases attorney’s fees to the parties successfully suing them, while it gives to them no like or corresponding benefit.</p> <p>The mere fact of classification is not sufficient to relieve a statute from the reach of the equality clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and in all cases it must appear not merely that a classification has be