McCandless v. Richmond, Railroad

Citations

• 38 S.C. 103
• 18 L.R.A. 440
• 16 S.E. 429
• 1892 S.C. LEXIS 224

Syllabus

<p>1. Police Powers — Communioated Fires. — Police powers of a State construed, and an act of the legislature, making railroad corporations responsible to others for fires caused by sparks from its engines, without regard to negligence, held not to be an exercise of police powers.</p> <p>2. Railroads — Lease.—Where one railroad company leases the rights and property of another railroad company, all corporate rights exercised by the lessee in the operation of the leased road are referable to the chartered rights of the lessor.</p> <p>3. Ibid. — Corporations.—A corporation defined, its status indicated, and the relation of a railroad corporation to the people, and its amenability to legislative control, declared.</p> <p>4. Ibid. — Act of 1841, 41 — Amendment.—An act of the legislature declared that it should be a part of every charter of a corporation thereafter incorporated, or whose charter should be renewed, amended, or modified, unless expressly excepted in such charter, renewal, amendment, or modification, that such charter should be at all times .subject to amendment, alteration, or repeal by the legislative authority. A charter was granted to a railroad corporation with this provision of law expressly excepted. The charter was then amended without such exception, and afterwards this corporation was consolidated with another by legislative enactment, without mention of this provision of law. Held, that a statute, subsequently passed, making all railroad companies in this State responsible to others for fires caused by sparks from its engines, became, by amendment, a part of the charter of this corporation.</p> <p>5. Ibid. — Communicated Fires — Constitution.—This provision of the State law, as to damages from communicated fires along the right of way of a railroad, does not abridge the privileges or immunities of this railroad corporation, nor deprive it of property without due process of law, nor deny to it the equal protection of the laws, within the meaning o