Missouri Pacific Railway Co. v. City of Omaha

Citations

• 235 U.S. 121
• 35 S. Ct. 82
• 59 L. Ed. 157
• 1914 U.S. LEXIS 1008

Syllabus

<p>A railway company may be required by the State, or by a municipality acting under the authority of the State, to construct overhead crossings or viaducts over its tracks at its own expense; the consequent expense is dammirn absque injuria or compensated by the public benefit in which the company shares and is not a taking of property without due process of law.</p> <p>In the exercising of the police power, the means to be employed to promote the public safety are primarily in the judgment of the legislature, and the courts will not interfere with duly enacted legislation which has a substantial relation to the purpose to be accomplished and does not arbitrarily interfere with private rights.</p> <p>If the state court has held that a municipality has power to pass ordinances requiring railway companies to build viaducts, this court can only declare such an ordinance unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment as an arbitrary abuse of power in a clear and unmistakable case.</p> <p>A municipal ordinance requiring a railroad company to construct a viaduct over crowded streets and which is otherwise valid is not unconstitutional as depriving the company of its property without due process of law because it requires the company to construct the work at its own expense, or because it requires the viaduct to be erected in a manner involving greater expense than though erected in a different and possibly adequate manner, or because the viaduct is only to carry a part of the traffic of the street.</p> <p>In determining whether a municipal ordinance is or is not an unconstitutional abuse of power, this court will not disturb the conclusions of two courts upon the facts regarding the object and necessity for the work and the'sufficiency of the plans and specifications.</p> <p>Where an ordinance requiring work to be done is otherwise valid, this court will not, at the instance of a party affected thereby and in advance of compliance therewith, declare it unconstitutional