State v. New Orleans Warehouse Co.

Citations

• 109 La. 64
• 33 So. 81
• 1902 La. LEXIS 108

Syllabus

<p>RAILROADS — LEASE TO WAREHOUSEMAN — ULTRA VIRES — RES ADJUDICATA — MONOPOLY —LANDS NOT USED IN BUSINESS — ENFORCED ALIENATION.</p> <p>1. The question of the right of the Morgan’s Louisiana & Texas Railroad & Steamship Company to sell or let its warehouses has not heretofore been decided. It is an open question presented in this suit, and considered for the first time with the view to pass upon that right.</p> <p>2. The lease by the Morgan’s Louisiana & Texas Railroad & Steamship Company to the New Orleans Warehouse Company was necessarily subject to the court’s decree.</p> <p>3. The court decided the question presented without reference to the date of this lease.</p> <p>4. There is no good ground to annul the lease, only because it had been made pendente lite, as the court would have given it no attention if it had been made in violation of law. No right can be acquired by such transfer adverse to the state’s authority and power.</p> <p>5. The lease was necessarily made subject to the state’s power to have it decreed null. From that point of view, it affords no ground to decree it null.</p> <p>6. The Morgan’s Louisiana & Texas Railroad & Steamship Company had authority to sell the property. A corporation with power to sell may, under certain circumstances, lease property to a tenant carrying on a business incidental to its own.</p> <p>7. The monopoly charged raises a legislative, and not a judicial, question, independent of all legislation.</p> <p>If in the competition of business, not discriminative, certain business is placed at some disadvantage, the court, under the law, has no authority to interfere.</p> <p>8. A foreign corporation, with right under its charter not sanctioned by the. laws of Louisiana, will not be prevented from doing a legitimate business under that portion of its charter which conforms to her laws.</p> <p>9. The shares having been paid to the amount stipulated in the charter, this is the extent of the law’s requirement.</p> <p>10.A corpora