St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. Williams
Citations
- 251 U.S. 63
- 40 S. Ct. 71
- 64 L. Ed. 139
- 1919 U.S. LEXIS 1852
Syllabus
<p>A railroad company in defense of an action for penalties imposed for exceeding passenger rates prescribed by a state law has no ground to claim that the penalties are unconstitutional in that, by their severity, they prevent resort to the courts to test the adequacy of the rates, when it did not avail itself of its opportunity to have such a test in a suit against the state railroad commission pending which the penalty provision could have been suspended by injunction, and when it did not question the prescribed rates in the action to collect the penalties. P. 65.</p> <p>A provision for the collection of such penalties in an action by the aggrieved passenger and for his use irrespective of his private damages, is consistent with due process of law. P. 66.</p> <p>In determining whether such penalties are so severe,, oppressive, and unreasonable as to violate the due process clause, they should be tested not by comparison with the overcharges in particular in-, stances but by the public interest in having the rates adhered to uniformly and the relation of the penalties to that object. Id. .</p> <p>131 Arkansas, 442, affirmed.</p>
How courts have described this case
Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.
- explaining that the Fourteenth Amendment bars states from enacting statutory damage provisions that are \so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable\
- asking whether statutory damages are “so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable”
- considering constitutional limits on statutory damage award after jury issued award
- in setting a statutory penalty, the state may \adjust its amount to the public wrong rather than the private injury.\
- due process forbids damages which are “so severe and oppressive as to be wholly dispro-portioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable”
- state-ordered monetary penalties violate due process clause’s guarantee against unlawful deprivation of property when penalties are “wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable”
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
Judges: McReynouds, Van Devanter
Read full opinion on CourtListenerSourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).
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