6. Ayers v. Watson, 137 U. S. 584, affirmed and applied. Simmons Creek Coal Co. v. Doran, 417.
7. United States v. Mosby, 133 U. S. 273, affirmed and applied. Phelps v. Siegfried, 602.
8. Oberteuffer v. Robertson, 116 U. S. 499, affirmed and applied. Magone v. Rosenstein, 604.
See LACHES, 2;
PUBLIC LAND, 14.
CASES DISAPPROVED.
See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, A, 16.
CASES DISTINGUISHED OR EXPLAINED.
1. New Jersey Steamboat Co. v. Brockett, 121 U. S. 637, distinguished. New Orleans & Northeastern Railroad Co. v. Jopes, 18.
2. Hughes v. Blake, 6 Wheat. 453, explained and distinguished from this case. Pearce v. Rice, 28.
3. Brownsville v. Loague, 129 U. S. 493, examined and explained. Franklin County v. German Savings Bank, 93.
4. Medley, Petitioner, 134 U. S. 160, explained. McElvaine v. Brush, 155. 5. Lake County v. Graham, 130 U. S. 674, and Dixon County v. Field, 111 U. S. 83, affirmed and distinguished from this case. Chaffee County v. Potter, 355.
1. The rule of caveat emptor applies exclusively to a purchaser, who must take care, and make due inquiries, and is bound by constructive as well as by actual notice - the latter being equivalent in effect to the former: but, in applying the rule, each case must be governed, in these respects, by its own peculiar circumstances. Simmons Creek Coal Co. v. Doran, 417.
2. Actual and unequivocal adverse possession is notice to a purchaser of land: because it is incumbent upon him to ascertain by whom and in what right it is held, and the unexplained neglect of this duty is equiv- alent to notice. Ib.
3. In this case the defendants had such notice as to put them on inquiry, and to charge them with knowledge of the facts. Ib.
See CORPORATION;
RESCISSION OF CONTRACT.
COMMON CARRIER.
See RAILROAD, 1.
CONFLICT OF LAWS.
See CONTRACT, 2.
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.
A. OF THE UNITED STATES.
1. In order to constitute a violation of the constitutional provision against depriving a person of his own property without due process of law, it should appear that such person has a property in the particular thing of which he is alleged to have been deprived. New Orleans v. New Orleans Water Works Co., 79.
2. The contract between the city of New Orleans and the Water Works Company, which forms the basis of these proceedings, was void as being ultra vires; and, having been repudiated by the city, cannot now be set up by it as impaired by subsequent state legislation. Ib. 3. A municipal corporation, being a mere agent of the State, stands in its governmental or public character, in no contract relation with its sovereign, at whose pleasure its charter may be amended, changed or revoked without the impairment of any constitutional obligation; but such a corporation, in respect of its private or proprietary rights and interests, may be entitled to constitutional protection. Ib.
4. There was no contract between the city and the Water Works Com- pany, which was protected against state legislation by the Constitu- tion of the United States. Ib.
5. The repeal of a statute providing that a municipal government may set off the taxes of a water company against the company's rates for water, and the substitution of a different scheme of payment in its place, does not deprive the municipality of its property without due process of law, in the sense in which the word "property" is used in the Consti- tution of the United States. Ib.
6. The provisions in the New York Code of Criminal Procedure, (§§ 491, 492,) respecting the solitary confinement of convicts condemned to death, are not in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, as they are construed by the Court of Appeals of that State. Mc- Elvaine v. Brush, 155.
7. A state statute which requires every corporation, person or association operating a railroad within the State to pay an annual tax for the privilege of exercising its franchises therein, to be determined by the amount of its gross transportation receipts, and further provides that, when applied to a railroad lying partly within and partly without the State, or to one operated as a part of a line or system extending be- yond the State, the tax shall be equal to the proportion of the gross receipts in the State, to be ascertained in the manner provided by the statute, does not conflict with the Constitution of the United States; and the tax thereby imposed upon a foreign corporation, operating a line of railway, partly within and partly without the State, is one within the power of the State to levy. Maine v. Grand Trunk Rail- way Co., 217.
8. Proceedings under a state statute enacted before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment which, if taken before its adoption, would
not have violated the Constitution, may, when taken after its adoption, violate it, if prohibited by that amendment. Kaukauna Water Power Co. v. Green Bay & Miss. Canal Co., 254.
9. Under the circumstances disclosed in this case, there was no taking of the property of the plaintiff in error without due process of law. Ib. 10. The provisions in c. 40 of the General Statutes of South Carolina of 1882, requiring the salaries and expenses of the state railroad commis- sion to be borne by the several corporations owning or operating rail- roads within the State, are not in conflict with the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that a State shall not deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal pro- tection of the laws." Charlotte, Augusta & Columbia Railroad Co. v. Gibbes, 386.
11. It is again decided that private corporations are persons within the meaning of that amendment. Ib.
12. Requiring the burden of a public service by a corporation, in conse- quence of its existence and of the exercise of privileges obtained at its request, to be borne by it, is neither denying to it the equal protec- tion of the laws, nor making any unjust discrimination against it. Ib. 13. Under the 5th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which declares that "no person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," where a person is under examination before a grand jury, in an investigation into cer- tain alleged violations of the interstate commerce act of February 4, 1887, 24 Stat. 379, and the amendatory act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 855, he is not obliged to answer questions where he states that his answers might tend to criminate him, although § 860 of the Re- vised Statutes provides that no evidence given by him shall be in any manner used against him, in any court of the United States, in any criminal proceeding. Counselman v. Hitchcock, 547.
14. The case before the grand jury was a criminal case. lb. 15. The meaning of the constitutional provision is not merely that a per- son shall not be compelled to be a witness against himself in a crim- inal prosecution against himself; but its object is to insure that a person shall not be compelled, when acting as a witness in any inves- tigation, to give testimony which may tend to show that he himself has committed a crime.
16. The ruling in People v. Kelly, 24 N. Y. 74, that the words "criminal case" mean only a criminal prosecution against the witness himself, disapproved. Ib.
17. The protection afforded by § 860 is not co-extensive with the consti- tutional provision. Ib.
18. Adjudged cases on this subject, in courts of the United States, and of the States, reviewed. Ib.
19. As the manifest purpose of the constitutional provisions, both of the
States and of the United States, is to prohibit the compelling of tes- timony of a self-criminating kind from a party or a witness, the lib- eral construction which must be placed on constitutional provisions for the protection of personal rights, would seem to require that the constitutional guaranties, however differently worded, should have as far as possible the same interpretation. Ib. 20. It is a reasonable construction of the constitutional provision, that the witness is protected from being compelled to disclose the circum- stances of his offence, or the sources from which, or the means by which, evidence of its commission, or of his connection with it, may be obtained, or made effectual for his conviction without using his answers as direct admissions against him. Ib.
21. No statute which leaves the party or witness subject to prosecution, after he answers the criminating question put to him, can have the effect of supplanting the privilege conferred by the constitution. Ib. 22. In view of the constitutional provision, a statutory enactment, to be valid, must afford absolute immunity against future prosecution for the offence to which the question relates. Ib.
23. The witness, having been committed to custody for his refusal to answer, is entitled to be discharged on habeas corpus. Ib.
24. The act of March 3, 1891, c. 551, forbidding certain classes of alien immigrants to land in the United States, is constitutional and valid. Nishimura Ekiu v. The United States, 651.
See CRIMINAL LAW, 3;
EXPRESS COMPANIES;
INSPECTOR OF IMMIGRATION;
1. The act of the legislature of Missouri of May 16, 1889, "to define express companies, and to prescribe the mode of taxing the same, and to fix the rate of taxation thereon," imposes a tax only on business done within the State, and does not violate the requirements of uni- formity and equality of taxation prescribed by the constitution of the State of Missouri. Pacific Express Co. v. Seibert, 339.
2. The legislative and constitutional provision of the State of South Caro- lina that taxation of property shall be equal and uniform and in pro- portion to its value, is not violated by exacting a contribution accord- ing to their gross income of the several railroads, in proportion to the number of miles of railroad operated within the State, in order to meet the special service required of the State Railroad Commission. Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta Railroad Co. v. Gibbes, 386.
CONSTRUCTIVE NOTICE.
See CAVEAT EMPTOR, 1, 2;
CORPORATION.
1. When a contract for the payment of money at a future day, with inter-
est meanwhile payable semi-annually, is. made in one place, and is to be performed in another, both as to interest and principal, and the interest before maturity is payable according to the legal rate in the place of performance, the presumption is, in the absence of attendant circumstances to show the contrary, that the principal bears interest after maturity at the same rate. Coglan v. South Carolina Railroad Co., 101.
2. The obligation to perform a verbal agreement, made in Missouri, to accept and pay, on presentation at the place of business of the prom- isor in Illinois, all drafts drawn upon him by the promisee for live stock to be consigned by the promisee from Missouri to the promisor in Illinois, is to be determined by the law of Illinois, the place of per- formance, and not by the law of Missouri. Hall v. Cordell, 116. 3. The plaintiff agreed to construct a flour mill for the defendant, the work to be done at a specified day. After the expiration of that day defendant wrote to plaintiff that the mill was satisfactory, but that the corn-rolls did not work to his satisfaction, and that when they were made to do satisfactory work he should be ready to pay for the entire work. This was completed and accepted within about two months. Held, that this amounted to an agreement to pay if the com- pletion was done within a reasonable time, and that this was a ques- tion for the jury to determine, under proper instructions from the court. Van Stone v. Stillwell & Bierce Manufacturing Co., 128.
4. An oil company contracted with a railway company to purchase certain rolling stock and lease the same to the railway company at an agreed rental, the latter agreeing to purchase the same on or before a given day and pay for it in cash, or if it should be unable to do so to turn it over to the oil company, at the expiration of the contract, in good order and condition. It was further agreed that freights earned by the railway by transportation for the oil company might be applied to the payment of the rental and of the purchase money. The railway company was insolvent and, before the expiration of the contract, its mortgage bondholders had proceedings instituted in equity for the foreclosure of their mortgage, in which W. was appointed receiver. The receiver continued to use the rolling stock. The oil company intervened claiming to recover from the receiver the balance of the purchase money, and to secure the carrying out of the contract by the receiver, and the retention by it of the amount of freights due from it, and their application to the payments of the rent and the purchase money. The receiver answered, declining to complete the contract, and averring that the rental had been paid in full and that there was a balance due him for freight. He also filed a cross-petition to recover the surplus. Held, (1) That the contract provided that if the railway company became unable to pay its current debts in the ordinary course
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