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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