Hiawassee River Power Co. v. Carolina-Tennessee Power Co.

Background

The Carolina-Tennessee Power Company, a public utility created by a private North Carolina law that allowed it to take riparian land and water rights, located sites for two hydroelectric plants on the Hiawassee River and acquired needed lands and water rights by purchase and condemnation. A rival, organized later under the State’s general laws, threatened to build competing plants that would interfere. Carolina-Tennessee sued in the Cherokee County Superior Court to quiet title. After a jury trial, the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial, and following a second trial the state high court affirmed a decree for Carolina-Tennessee. The losing party brought the case here by writ of error.

Reasoning

The company argued that the private law giving it broad eminent-domain power violated the Fourteenth Amendment because the general law did not give the rival company the same power. The Court said that federal review requires the federal constitutional claim to have been presented and decided by the state’s highest court. At trial an objection mentioned the state constitution and a general bill-of-rights complaint, but the Fourteenth Amendment was not raised in the state Supreme Court’s assignments of error or argued there. The private law was admissible evidence regardless of validity, so no federal right was necessarily involved in that ruling. Because the federal claim was not properly preserved and passed upon below, this Court lacked authority to consider the constitutional question and declined to reach the merits.

Real world impact

The state-court rulings remain in effect and the Supreme Court will not resolve the constitutional dispute here. Parties must present federal constitutional claims clearly in state appellate proceedings before seeking this Court’s review, or federal review will be denied.