Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago

No. 129. Argued November 6 and 9, 1896. Decided March 1, 1897. Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois. Judgment affirmed. Opinion of the Court by Justice Harlan; a separate dissenting opinion was filed; the Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Editorial note. The City of Chicago instituted condemnation proceedings to open a street across the right of way and tracks of the railroad company. The jury assessed the company's compensation for the land taken at one dollar, on the view that the company retained the use of its right of way subject only to the crossing and sustained no substantial pecuniary loss; the expense of planking, gates, and flagmen was treated as an incident of the railroad's obligation to the public rather than as compensable taking. The company assigned as error that the proceeding deprived it of property without due process of law.

Editorial note. The issue was whether this Court may re-examine a state condemnation judgment on the ground that no just compensation was made, and whether the award satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court held that it has that authority: a judgment of a state court taking private property for public use without compensation deprives the owner of property without due process of law, and the Fourteenth Amendment therefore imports the substance of the just-compensation requirement into the restraints on state power. Applying that standard, the Court found no federal error in the award. The rule that follows is that just compensation is a constitutional condition on state as well as federal expropriation, and the adequacy of compensation is a federal question.

Editorial note. Justice Harlan reasoned that due process of law protects the substance of the right of property, and that a State cannot, consistently with that guarantee, appropriate private property to public use and leave the owner uncompensated — whatever forms of procedure it observes. On the merits, the Court accepted the state courts' determination of what had actually been taken: the railroad retained its right of way and continued to operate its tracks, and the burdens of maintaining a safe crossing arose from duties the company already owed the public. Compensation measured against the interest actually appropriated was therefore not constitutionally deficient.

Editorial note. This decision is the historical bridge between the federal Takings Clause and state eminent-domain practice, and it is treated in the treatise as the point at which just compensation became a nationally enforceable limit on the taking of land. It also illustrates a durable analytical discipline: the constitutional question is first what interest the State appropriated, and only then what that interest is worth.

Editorial note. Followed. The principle that the just-compensation requirement restrains the States is assumed in the modern takings cases, including Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922), and Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104 (1978). Later decisions on the mechanics of state-court takings litigation, notably Knick v. Township of Scott, 588 U.S. 180 (2019), rest on the same premise without disturbing this holding.

Editorial note. Read with U.S. Const. amend. V (Takings Clause) and U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1.