New Orleans, Spanish Fort & Lake Railroad v. Delamore

Citations

• 114 U.S. 501
• 5 S. Ct. 1009
• 29 L. Ed. 244
• 1885 U.S. LEXIS 1787

Syllabus

<p>This churt has jurisdiction in error over a judgment in a suit in a State court determining the effect to be given to a sale of the property in controversy by order of a District Court in bankruptcy. Factor's Insurance Go. v. Murphy. Ill U. S. 738, on that point cited and applied.</p> <p>The authority of the proper courts of the United States in bankruptcy to adjudicate a railroad company bankrupt, and. to administer its property under the bankrupt act is regarded as settled by the practice and decisions of the Circuit Courts in several circuits.</p> <p>A grant by a municipal corporation to a railway company of a right of way through certain streets of the municipality, with the right to construct its railroad thereon and occupy them in its use, is a franchise which may he mortgaged and pass to the purchaser at a sale under foreclosure of the mortgage.</p> <p>There is nothing in the laws of Louisiana which forbids such transfer of a franchise to use and occupy the streets of a municipality by a railroad corporation.</p> <p>All franchises of a railroad company which can be parted with by mortgage, pass to the assignee of the company in bankruptcy, and may be sold and transferred to a purchaser at a bankruptcy sale.</p>