Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co.

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 118 U.S. 394 (1886), argued 26–29 Jan. 1886, decided 10 May 1886 by vote of 9 to 0; Harlan for the Court. This was one of the legion of cases involving railroads and government agencies (at every level) that inundated the courts in the late nineteenth century. The State of California and certain affected counties sought to collect taxes that they claimed were owed by both the Southern Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. Argument focused almost entirely on whether the taxes were barred by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court did not address the constitutional issues posed by counsel. Instead, it based its ruling on a narrower issue: whether the fences on the railroads' property should have been assessed by either county or state taxing authorities. Justice John Marshall Harlan held that such fences could not be taxed as property subject to taxation under California statute; the Court's ruling upheld that of the California court.

Despite the Court's narrow holding, the case was not without constitutional consequence. In an unusual preface, entered before argument, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite observed that the Court would not consider the question “whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbade a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the Constitution, applied to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does” (p. 396). It followed that corporations enjoyed the same rights under the Fourteenth Amendment as did natural persons.

See also Due Process, Substantive; Private Corporation Charters.

Augustus M. Burns III