Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Chicago
The Court ruled that the Constitution's due process guarantee requires governments to pay just compensation whenever they take private property for public use, and that this requirement binds state courts and legislatures alike through the Fourteenth Amendment.
But because a properly instructed jury had already decided the railroad's crossing was worth only one dollar, and because the Seventh Amendment bars federal courts from re-examining facts a jury has found, the Court let the one-dollar award stand and affirmed the judgment against the railroad.
“Due process of law as applied to judicial proceedings instituted for the taking of private property for public use means, therefore, such process as recognizes the right of the owner to be compensated if his property be wrested from him and transferred to the public.”
The Court's core holding that due process requires compensation whenever government takes private property.
How it got here: Illinois courts condemned part of the railroad's right of way for a street, a jury awarded the railroad one dollar, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed, and the railroad brought a federal writ of error.
The Case in Depth
What happened
The city of Chicago passed an ordinance to widen a street, requiring it to cross part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's right of way. The city filed a condemnation proceeding under Illinois law, and a jury awarded individual landowners along the route thousands of dollars each but gave the railroad only one dollar for the portion of its right of way crossed by the new street.
The question before the Court
When a city opened a street across a railroad's land but a jury awarded the railroad only one dollar, did that violate the railroad's right to just compensation under the Constitution?
Why it matters
This decision established that state and local governments must pay real compensation whenever they take private property, a rule that still underlies eminent domain law today. At the same time, it shows how hard it is to overturn a jury's compensation finding in court, meaning property owners bear real risk that a jury may value their loss at very little.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision resolving the railroad's constitutional challenge; there is no remand because the state court's judgment was affirmed. The one-dollar compensation award stands as final. The broader constitutional rule the Court announced -- that just compensation is required by due process -- continued to govern future condemnation cases, even though this particular railroad recovered almost nothing under it.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide that every taking must be compensated with substantial money; it held only that the Constitution requires some process guaranteeing compensation, leaving the amount to the jury's factual findings, which federal courts generally cannot second-guess. It also did not decide that railroads can be forced to bear all future crossing-safety costs without limit, only that these specific costs were a valid safety regulation here.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Brewer
“The abundant promises of the fore part of the opinion vanish into nothing when the conclusion is reached. They amount to a mere brutum fulmen.”Brewer's objection that the majority's compensation guarantee proved meaningless in practice.
Justice Brewer agreed that due process requires compensation for takings but argued the majority's promise was hollow because it let a one-dollar award stand. He argued the railroad lost real value -- the exclusive use of its land, the possibility of using it for depots or other structures, and freedom from having to pay for safety measures like gates and crossings -- none of which was reflected in the nominal award. He would have required genuine compensation reflecting the property's full value and the new burdens imposed on the company.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first held it had jurisdiction to review the case, explaining that a federal constitutional claim need not be raised in a formal answer if the record otherwise shows it was clearly asserted and necessarily rejected by the state court's judgment.
- The Court then addressed whether due process of law -- the constitutional guarantee of fair legal procedure before government action -- requires compensation whenever private property is taken for public use, concluding that a state judgment taking property without compensation is itself a due process violation, whether done by a legislature or a court.
- Having established that compensation is constitutionally required, the Court turned to how much compensation was owed, and held that under Illinois law the city was not taking the land itself but only a shared right to cross it with a street, so the railroad's compensation should reflect only the reduced value of using the crossing for railroad purposes, not the land's full market value.
- The Court then invoked the Seventh Amendment's rule that facts found by a jury cannot be re-examined by federal courts except under common-law methods like ordering a new trial, holding that this rule applies to state-court jury verdicts reviewed on writ of error, not just federal jury trials.
- Applying that rule, the Court reasoned that whether the jury undervalued the railroad's loss was a factual question for the jury alone, and the Court could intervene only if the trial court's legal instructions had entirely foreclosed any compensation, which they had not.
- The Court also concluded that requiring the railroad to bear the cost of safety measures like gates and crossing planks was a valid exercise of the state's police power to protect public safety, not a compensable taking, and that the one-dollar verdict did not deny equal protection merely because individual landowners received larger awards for different types of losses.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Davidson v. New Orleans (96 U.S. 97)
Relied on as establishing that a law directly transferring one person's land to another violates due process.
Reaffirms Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co. (13 Wall. 166)
Cited approvingly for the principle that compensation is an inseparable part of the power to take property.
Reaffirms The Justices v. Murray (9 Wall. 274)
Relied on to hold the Seventh Amendment's bar on re-examining jury facts applies to state-court cases reviewed here.