Seaboard Air Line Railway v. Simon

Citations

• 56 Fla. 545

Syllabus

<p>1. Where the subject embraced in the body of an act is less comprehensive than, but is included within, the subject expressed in the title, the provision of the constitution that each law shall embrace but one subject and matter properly connected therewith, which subject shall be expressed in the title, may not be violated, when the subject expressed in the title is not misleading.</p> <p>2. The provision of' the State Constitution that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law, and the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States as to property rights, extend to the property held and used by corporations, since the beneficial ownership of such property is in natural persons, and the law forbids the doing by indirection that which is forbidden to be directly done.</p> <p>3. The legality of classifications adopted for legislative regulation may be determined with reference to the due process of law provision of the State Constitution; but as such determination involves a Federal question the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States control.</p> <p>4. Classifications adopted for legislative regulation should have some just relation to, or reasonable basis in, essential differences of conditions and circumstances with reference to the subject regulated, and should not be merely arbitrary; and all similarly situated .or having similar legal duties and obligations in regard to the subject regulated, should be included in one' class, at least where there are no practical differences that are sufficient to legally warrant a further or special classification in the interest of the general welfare.</p> <p>5. The legal duties of persons, firms or corporations operating railroads may be of a peculiar nature and essentially different from the duties of other common carriers, and as to such matters they may be separately classified for purposes of legislative regulation.</p> <p>6. Where the subject of reg