gether; the assessment against each particular lot being greater in amount than the value of such particular lot, and the aggregate assessment being greater in amount than the reasonable market value of all of said lots taken together; and that said defendants are seeking to enforce as against plaintiff not merely a sale of said lots but also to compel plaintiff to pay the full amount of said tax regardless of whatever sum said lots may be sold for, and regardless of the actual value of the same." The contractor for the pavement set up his right to a judgment on certificates given him for the work which had been done, which were made a lien upon the abutting lots. The trial court dismissed the petition, and gave judgment in favor of the contract. In the Supreme Court of the State it was assigned as error that "the court erred in holding and deciding that plaintiff was personally liable to said Des Moines Brick Manufactur- ing Company for so much of said special tax or assessment as could not or would not be realized by a sale of the sixty lots in question on special execution, and in ordering and adjudging that a general execution should issue against plaintiff and in favor of said Des Moines Brick Manufacturing Company for the balance of such tax or assessment; and further that, as plaintiff was at all times a non- resident of the State of Iowa and had no personal notice or know!- edge of the assessment proceedings, that the imposition of a personal liability against him, in excess of the value of all the lots, was not due process of law and was in contravention of the provisions on that subject of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as in contravention of the provisions of the constitution of the State of Iowa on the same subject." Held that this court was confined to the consideration of the question as to the validity of the personal judgment against the plaintiff in error, and that, without deciding what the effect of the proceedings would have been, if the plaintiff had been a resident in Iowa, the State had no power to enact a statute authorizing an assessment upon real estate for a local improvement, and imposing upon its owner, a non- resident of the State, a personal liability to pay such assessment. Dewey v. Des Moines, 193.
5. In making provision for feeding the inmates of the soldiers' home in Ohio, in accordance with the legislation of Congress in that respect, and under the direction of the board of managers, the governor of the house is engaged in the internal administration of a Federal institution, and the state legislature has no constitutional power to interfere with the management which is provided for it by Congress, nor with the provisions made by Congress for furnishing food to the inmates, nor does the police power of the State enable it to pro- hibit or regulate the furuishing of any article of food approved by the officers of the home, by the board of managers and by Congress. Ohio v. Thomas, 276.
6. Federal officers who are discharging their duties in a State, and who
are engaged in superintending the internal government and manage- ment of a Federal institution, under the lawful direction of its board of managers and with the approval of Congress, are not subject to the jurisdiction of the State in regard to those very matters of ad- ministration which are thus approved by Federal authority. Ib. 7. The statute of Ohio relating to railroad companies, in that State which provides that "Each company shall cause three, each way, of its regular trains carrying passengers, if so many are run daily, Sundays excepted, to stop at a station, city or village, containing over three thousand inhabitants, for a time sufficient to receive and let off passengers; if a company, or any agent or employé thereof, violate, or cause or permit to be violated, this provision, such com- pany, agent or employé shall be liable to a forfeiture of not more than one hundred nor less than twenty-five dollars, to be recovered in an action in the name of the State, upon the complaint of any person, before a justice of the peace of the county in which the vio- lation occurs, for the benefit of the general fund of the county; and in all cases in which a forfeiture occurs under the provisions of this section, the company whose agent or employé caused or permitted such violation shall be liable for the amount of the forfeiture, and the conductor in charge of such train shall be held, prima facie, to have caused the violation," is not, in the absence of legislation by Congress on the subject, repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, when applied to interstate trains, carrying interstate com- merce through the State of Ohio on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Co. v. Ohio, 285.
8. The act of the legislature of Arkansas of March 25, 1889, entitled an, act to provide for the protection of servants and employés of rail- roads, is not in conflict with the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. St. Louis, Iron Mountain & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Paul, 404.
9. When an act of Congress is claimed to be unconstitutional, the pre- sumption is in favor of its validity, and it is only when the question is free from any reasonable doubt that this court should hold an act of the law-making power of the nation to be in violation of that fundamental instrument upon which all the powers of the Govern- ment rest. Nicol v. Ames, 509.
10. Whether a general law can be made applicable to the subject-matter, in regard to which a special, law is enacted by a territorial legisla- ture, is a matter which rests in the judgment of the legislature itself. Guthrie National Bank v. Guthrie, 528.
11. The statute in question in this case creates a special tribunal for hearing and deciding upon claims against a municipal corporation, which have no legal obligation, but which the legislature thinks
have sufficient equity to make it proper to provide for their investi- gation, and payment when found proper, and it does not in any way regulate the practice in courts of justice, and it is indisputably within the power of the territorial legislature to pass it, and it does not infringe upon the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution. Ib. 12. The mere grant for a designated time of an immunity from taxation does not take it out of the rule subjecting such grant to the general law retaining the power to amend or repeal, unless the granting act contain an express provision to that effect. Citizens' Savings Bank v. Owensboro, 636.
13. The act of the legislature of Kentucky of February 14, 1856, and the act of May 12, 1884, c. 1412, incorporating the Citizens' Savings Bank of Owensboro, and the act of May 17, 1886, commonly known as the Hewitt Act, and other acts referred to, did not create an irrevocable contract on the part of the State, protecting the bank from other taxation, and therefore the taxing law of Kentucky of 'November 11, 1892, c. 108, did not violate the contract clause of the Constitution of the United States. Ib.
14. The provision in the act of the legislature of Michigan, No. 90, of the year 1891, amending the general railroad law, that one thousand-mile tickets shall be kept for sale at the principal ticket offices of all rail- road companies in this State or carrying on business partly within and partly without. the limits of the State, at a price not exceeding twenty dollars in the Lower Peninsula and twenty-five dollars in the Upper Peninsula; that such one thousand-mile tickets may be made non-transferable, but whenever required by the purchaser they shall be issued in the names of the purchaser, his wife and children, desig- nating the name of each on such ticket, and in case such ticket is presented by any other than the person or persons named thereon, the conductor may take it up and collect fare, and thereupon such one thousand-mile ticket shall be forfeited to the railroad company; that each one thousand-mile ticket shall be valid for two years only after date of purchase, and in case it is not wholly used within the time, the company issuing the same shall redeem the unused portion thereof, if presented by the purchaser for redemption within thirty days after the expiration of such time, and shall on such redemption be entitled to charge three cents per mile for the portion thereof used, is a violation of that part of the Constitution of the United States which forbids the taking of property without due process of law, and requires the equal protection of the laws. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Co. v. Smith, 684.
15. In so holding the court is not thereby interfering with the power of the legislature over railroads, as corporations or common carriers, to so legislate as to fix maximum rates, to prevent extortion or undue charges, and to promote the safety, health, convenience or proper protection of the public; but it only says that the particular legis-
lation in review in this case does not partake of the character of legislation fairly or reasonably necessary to attain any of those ob- jects, and that it does violate the Federal Constitution as above stated. Ib..
TAX AND TAXATION, 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, 15, 17.
1. An agreement in writing between a mining company and a machinist stated that while in its employ he was seriously hurt under circum- stances which he claimed, and it denied, made it liable to him in damages; that six months after the injury, both parties being de- sirous of settling his claim for damages, the company agreed to pay him regular wages and to furnish him with certain supplies while he was disabled, and carried out that agreement for six months, at the end of which, after he had resumed work, it was agreed that the company should give him such work as he could do, and pay him wages as before his injury, and this agreement was kept by both parties for a year; and then, in lieu of the previous agreements, a new agreement was made that his wages "from this date" should be a certain sum monthly, and he should receive certain supplies, and he on his part released the company from all liability for his injury, and agreed that this should be a full settlement of all his claims against the company. Held, that the last agreement was not termi- nable at the end of any month at the pleasure of the company, but bound it to pay him the wages stipulated, and to furnish him the supplies agreed, so long as his disability to do full work continued; and that, if the company discharged him from its service without cause, he was entitled to elect to treat the contract as absolutely and finally broken by the company, and, in an action against it upon the contract, to introduce evidence of his age, health and expectancy of life, and, if his disability was permanent, to recover the full value of the contract to him at the time of the breach, including all that he would have received in the future as well as in the past if the con- tract had been kept, deducting however any sum that he might have earned already or might thereafter earn, as well as the amount of any loss that the defendant sustained by the loss of his services with- out its fault. Pierce v. Tennessee Coal &c, Railroad Co., 1. 2. Under the act of March 8, 1895, of the legislature of the Territory of Arizona, relating to convict labor and the leasing of the same, the board of control thereby created and given charge of all charitable, penal and reformatory institutions then existing, or which might thereafter be created in the Territory, could not dispense with the bond required by the statute to be given by the person or persons leasing the labor of the convicts, for the faithful performance of their
contract; and no contract made by the board leasing the labor of the convicts could become binding upon the Territory, until a bond, such as the statute required, was executed by the lessee and approved by the board. Nugent v. Arizona Improvement Co., 338.
8. In this case as it appears that no such bond was executed, the plaintiff was not in a position to ask relief by mandamus. lb.
The Supreme Court of Iowa having repeatedly decided that in that State the fact that a corporation of Iowa contracts a debt in excess of its charter or statutory limitation does not render the debt void, but, on the contrary, such debt is merely voidable, and is enforceable against the corporation and those holding under it, and gives rise only to a right of action on the part of the State because of the violation of the statute, or entails a liability on the officers of the corporation for the excessive debts so contracted, this court holds itself bound by those decisions, without determining whether as an independent question, it would decide that the issue of stock by a corporation, in excess of a statutory inhibition, is not void, but merely voidable. Sioux City Terminal Railroad & Warehouse Co. v. Trust Co. of North America, 99.
1. Under the act of June 16, 1880, c. 244, the Court of Claims has juris- diction of an action to recover an excess of payment for lands within the limits of a railroad grant, which grant was, after the payment, forfeited by act of Congress for nonconstruction of the road. Med- bury v. United States, 492.
2. When in such case, by reason of the negligence of the railroad com-
pany for many years to construct its road, Congress enacts a for- feiture of the grant, the Government is under no obligation to repay the excess of price paid by the purchaser of such lands in consequence of their being within the limits of the forfeited grant. Ib.
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