Northern Pacific Company v. Territory of Washington Dustin/Dissent Brewer

BREWER, J.

I dissent from the opinion and judgment in this case.

The question is not whether a railroad company can be compelled to build a depot and stop its trains at any place where are gathered two or three homes and families, nor whether courts can determine at what locality in a city or town the depot shall be placed, nor even whether, when there are two villages contiguous, the courts may determine at which of the two the company shall make its stopping-place, or compel depots at both. But the case here presented is this: A railroad company builds its road into a county, finds the county-seat already established and inhabited, the largest and most prosperous town in the county, and along the line of its road for many miles. It builds its road to and through that county-seat. There is no reason of a public nature why that should not be made a stopping-place. For some reason undisclosed-perhaps because that county-seat will not pay to the managers a bonus, or because they seek a real-estate speculation in establishing a new town,-it locates its depot on the site of a 'paper' town, the title to which it holds, contiguous to this established county-seat; stops only at the one, and refuses to stop at the other; and thus, for private interests, builds up a new place at the expense of the old; and for this subservience of its public duty to its private interests we are told that there is in the courts no redress; and this because congress in chartering this Northern Pacific road did not name Yakima city as a stopping-place, and has not in terms delegated to the courts the power to interfere in the matter.

A railroad corporation has a public duty to perform as well as a private interest to subserve, and I never before believed that the courts would permit it to abandon the one to promote the other. Nowhere in its charter is in terms expressed the duty of carrying passengers and freight. Are the courts impotent to compel the performance of this duty? Is the duty of carrying passengers and freight any more of a public duty than that of placing its depots and stopping its trains at those places which will best accommodate the public? If the state of Indiana incorporates a railroad to build a road from New Albany through Indianapolis to South Bend, and that road is built, can it be that the courts may compel the road to receive passengers and transport freight, but, in the absence of a specific direction from the legislature, are powerless to compel the road to stop its trains and build a depot at Indianapolis? I do not so belittle the power or duty of the courts.

Mr. Justice FIELD and Mr. Justice HARLAN concur with me in this dissent.