Opinion of the Court. cise of the police power, of regulating the enjoyment of that right, denying or permitting it, according as public security and good may or may not demand. "If section 18 was designed for any practical object, it could only have been to secure to the contiguous owners, beyond the possibility of a doubt, their indisputable rights, subjecting them, however, to the control of the municipal authorities, as the improvident or careless exercise of such rights across the river bank and through the public street of a populous metropolis might be attended with great calamitous consequences, inflicting incalculable wrong and injury." 35 La. Ann. 1111. A writ of error from this court was allowed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, upon the plaintiff's petition representing "that said plaintiff set up to its charter as a contract between it and said city of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana; and that the ordinance of said city in favor of said defendant, the Louisiana Sugar Refining Company, was a violation of said contract, which was protected by the Constitution of the United States; and said Supreme Court in its decree maintained the legality of said ordinance, and decreed it to be no violation of said contract." Mr. J. R. Beckwith for plaintiff in error. Mr. S. Teakle Wallis for defendant in error. MR. JUSTICE GRAY, after stating the case as above reported, delivered the opinion of the court. The plaintiff in its original petition relied on a charter from the legislature of Louisiana, which granted to it the exclusive privilege of supplying the city of New Orleans and its inhabitants with water from the Mississippi River, but provided that the city council should not be thereby prevented from granting to any person "contiguous to the river" the privilege of laying pipes to the river for his own use. The only matter complained of by the plaintiff, as impairing the obligation of the contract contained in its charter, was an ordinance of the city council, granting to the Louisiana Sugar Refining Com Opinion of the Court. pany permission to lay pipes from the river to its factory, which, the plaintiff contended, was not contiguous to the river. The Louisiana Sugar Refining Company in its answer alleged that its factory was contiguous to the river, that it had the right as a riparian proprietor to draw water from the river for its own use, that its pipes were being laid for its own use only, that the plaintiff had no exclusive privilege that would impair such use of the water by the defendant company, and that the rights and privileges claimed by the plaintiff would constitute a monopoly and be therefore null and void. The evidence showed that the pipes of the defendant company were being laid exclusively for the use of its factory, and that no private ownership intervened between it and the river, but only a public street, and a broad quay or levee, owned by the city and open to the public, except that some large sugar sheds, occupied by lessees of the city, stood upon it, and that the tracks of a railroad were laid across it. The grounds upon which the Supreme Court of Louisiana gave judgment for the defendants appear by its opinion, which, under the practice of that state, is strictly part of the record, and has always been so considered by this court on writs of error, as well under the Judiciary Act of 1789, which provided that "no other error shall be assigned or regarded as a ground of reversal than such as appears on the face of the record," as under the later acts, in which that provision is omitted. Acts of September 24, 1789, c. 20, § 25, 1 Stat. 86; February 5, 1867, c. 28, § 2, 14 Stat. 386; Rev. Stat. § 709; Almonester v. Kenton, 9 How. 1, 9; Grand Gulf Railroad v. Marshall, 12 How. 165; Cousin v. Blanc, 19 How. 202; Delmas v. Insurance Co., 14 Wall. 661, 663, 667; Crossley v. New Orleans, 108 U. S. 105; Crescent City Co. v. Butchers' Union Co., 120 U. S. 141, 146. That opinion, as printed in 35 La. Ann. 1111, and in the record before us, shows that the grounds of the judgment were, that the right conferred by the legislature of the State upon the Commercial Bank by its charter in 1833, and confirmed to the plaintiff by its charter in 1877, was the exclusive privilege Opinion of the Court. of supplying the city and its inhabitants with water by means of pipes and conduits through the streets and lands of the city; that by the general law of Louisiana, independently of anything in those statutes, riparian or contiguous proprietors had the right of laying pipes to the river to draw the water necessary for their own use, subject to the authority of the State and the city, in the exercise of the police power, to regulate this right, as the public security and the public good might require; that section 18 of the plaintiff's charter had no other object than to secure, beyond the possibility of doubt, this right of the contiguous owners and the control of the municipal authorities; and that the city was authorized to permit the defendant company to lay pipes across the quay and through the streets from the river to its factory, for the purpose of supplying it with water for its own use. The Constitution of Louisiana of 1879 does provide, in article 258, that "the monopoly features in the charter of any corporation now existing in the State, save such as may be contained in the charters of railroad companies, are hereby abolished." But the opinion of the Supreme Court of the State shows that it thought it unnecessary and "entirely out of place" to consider the effect of that provision upon the exclusive privilege of the plaintiff; and it was not suggested, either in the petition for the writ of error, or in the assignment of errors, or in any of the briefs filed in this court, that any effect was given by the judgment of the State court to that provision of the Constitution of the State. The only grounds, on which the plaintiff in error attacks the judgment of the State court, are that the court erred in its construction of the contract between the State and the plaintiff, contained in the plaintiff's charter; and in not adjudging that the ordinance of the city council, granting to the defendant company permission to lay pipes from its factory to the river, was void, because it impaired the obligation of that contract. The arguments at the bar were principally directed to the question whether upon the facts proved the factory of the defendant company was contiguous to the river. But that is Opinion of the Court. not a question which this court upon this record is authorized to consider. This being a writ of error to the highest court of a State, a federal question must have been decided by that court against the plaintiff in error; else this court has no jurisdiction to review the judgment. As was said by Mr. Justice Story, fifty years ago, upon a full review of the earlier decisions, "it is sufficient if it appears by clear and necessary intendment that the question must have been raised, and must have been decided in order to have induced the judgment," and "it is not sufficient to show that a question might have arisen or been applicable to the case, unless it is further shown, on the record, that it did arise, and was applied by the State court to the case." Crowell v. Randall, 10 Pet. 368, 398. The rule so laid down has been often affirmed, and constantly acted on. Grand Gulf Railroad v. Marshall, 12 How. 165, 167; Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken Co., 1 Wall. 116, 143; Steines v. Franklin County, 14 Wall. 15, 21. In Klinger v. Missouri, 13 Wall. 257, 263, Mr. Justice Bradley declared the rule to be well settled that "where it appears by the record that the judgment of the State court might have been based either upon a law which would raise a question of repugnancy to the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States, or upon some other independent ground; and it appears that the court did, in fact, base its judgment on such independent ground, and not on the law raising the federal question, this court will not take jurisdiction of the case, even though it might think the position of the State court an unsound one." And in many recent cases, under § 709 of the Revised Statutes, this court, speaking by the Chief Justice, has reasserted the rule, that to give it jurisdiction of a writ of error to a State court, it must appear affirmatively, not only that a federal question was presented for decision to the highest court of the State having jurisdiction, but that "its decision was necessary to the determination of the cause, and that it was actually decided, or that the judgment as rendered could not have been given without deciding it." Brown v. Atwell, 92 U. S. 327; Citizens' Bank v. Bank of Liquidation, 98 U. S. 140; Chouteau v. Gibson, Opinion of the Court. 111 U. S. 200; Adams County v. Burlington & Missouri Railroad, 112 U. S. 123; Detroit Railway v. Guthard, 114 U. S. 133. In order to come within the provision of the Constitution of the United States which declares that no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, not only must the obligation of a contract have been impaired, but it must have been impaired by a law of the State. The prohibition is aimed at the legislative power of the State, and not at the decisions of its courts, or the acts of administrative or executive boards or officers, or the doings of corporations or individuals. This court, therefore, has no jurisdiction to review a judgment of the highest court of a State, on the ground that the obligation of a contract has been impaired, unless some legislative act of the State has been upheld by the judgment sought to be reviewed. The general rule, as applied to this class of cases, has been clearly stated in two opinions of this court, delivered by Mr. Justice Miller. "It must be the Constitution or some law of the State, which impairs the obligation of the contract, or which is otherwise in conflict with the Constitution of the United States; and the decision of the State court must sustain the law or constitution of the State, in the matter in which the conflict is supposed to exist; or the case for this court does not arise." Railroad Co. v. Rock, 4 Wall. 177, 181. "We are not authorized by the Judiciary Act to review the judgments of the State courts, because their judgments refuse to give effect to valid contracts, or because those judgments, in their effect, impair the obligation of contracts. If we did, every case decided in a State court could be brought here, where the party setting up a contract alleged that the court had taken a different view of its obligation to that which he held." Knox v. Exchange Bank, 12 Wall. 379, 383. As later decisions have shown, it is not strictly and literally true, that a law of a State, in order to come within the constitutional prohibition, must be either in the form of a statute enacted by the legislature in the ordinary course of legislation, or in the form of a constitution established by the people of the State as their fundamental law. |