Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Appeals of the State of New York Volume 24 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 Excerpt: ...track. But the statute declares that the highway may be laid across the. track without compensation to the corporation owning the railroad. This, it is argued, is repugnant to the Constitution, as the taking of private property for the use of the public without recompensing the owner. Upon this my opinion is, that the railroad companies under the general act do not acquire the same unqualified title and right of disposition, to the real estate taken for the road and paid for according to the act, which individuals have in their lands. The statute declares the effect of the proceedings which it authorizes to be, that the company "shall be entitled to enter upon, take possession of, and use the said land for the purposes of its incorporation during the continuance of its corporate existence;" and it further declares that the land which it thus appropriates shall be deemed to be acquired for public use. The title to the land being thus limited to its use for the purposes of the railroad enterprise, it is necessarily subject to the exercise of all those powers reserved to the legislature to which the franchises of the corporation are subject. If the latter can be restricted or modified by subsequent legislation, the uses to which the land which the corporation has acquired may be changed by the same authority. It has long been the policy of the legislature to qualify corporate franchises in such a manner as to render them subject to the control of the law-making power. For The Albany Northern Railroad Company v. Brownell. this purpose the Revised Statutes provided that the charter of every corporation which should thereafter be granted by the legislature should be subject to alteration, suspension or repeal at its discretion. (1 R. S., p. 600, ...