these complainants that such accommodations would not be furnished to him, when furnished to others, upon reasonable request and payment of the customary charge. Nor is there anything to show that in case any of these complainants offers himself as a passenger on any of these roads and is refused accommodations equal to those afforded to others on a like journey, he will not have an adequate remedy at law. The desire to obtain a sweeping injunction cannot be accepted as a substitute for compliance with the general rule that the complainant must present facts sufficient to show that his individual need requires the remedy for which he asks. The bill is wholly destitute of any sufficient ground for injunction and unless we are to ignore settled principles governing equitable relief, the decree must be affirmed.

Decree affirmed.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE, MR. JUSTICE HOLMES, MR. JUSTICE LAMAR and MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS concur in the result.

LOUISIANA RAILWAY & NAVIGATION COMPANY v. BEHRMAN, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA.

No. 49. Argued November 4, 5, 1914.-Decided November 30, 1914. While the jurisdiction of this court under § 237, Judicial Code, may not attach where the state court gave no effect to the state enactment claimed to have impaired the obligation of a contract, where the State does give effect to later legislation which does impair the obligation of a contract, if one exists, this court has jurisdiction to, and must, determine for itself whether there is an existing contract, even though the state court may have put its decision upon the ground

that the contract was not made, was invalid, or had become inoperative.

In determining whether effect has been given to later legislation, this court is not limited to mere consideration of the language of the opinion of the state court.

This court has jurisdiction under § 237, Judicial Code, to determine whether there is a contractual obligation which plaintiff in error is entitled to enforce without its being impaired by the operation of subsequent legislation enacted by or under the authority of the State. While courts should give them a fair and reasonable interpretation, public grants are not to be extended by implication beyond their clear intent.

As the ordinance on which the contract claimed to have been impaired was based, was intended to confer rights exclusively with reference to an existing plan of construction, and as that plan proved abortive because of legal obstacles to its fulfillment, no rights were conferred thereby, and a later ordinance on the same subject cannot be deemed invalid under the impairment of obligation clause of the Federal Constitution.

An ordinance of the City of New Orleans regarding construction of the Belt Railroad, held not unconstitutional because it impaired the obligation of a contract based on a former ordinance, as such contract was subject to a suspensive condition, and the event in which the obligation was to arise had not happened.

127 Louisiana, 775, affirmed.

THE facts, which involve the jurisdiction of this court under § 237, Judicial Code, and also the constitutionality under the impairment of obligation provision of the Federal Constitution of an ordinance of the City of New Orleans relating to the construction and operation of a belt railroad within the city, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. R. E. Milling, with whom Mr. M. J. Foster was on the brief, for plaintiff in error.

Mr. I. D. Moore for defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE HUGHES delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff in error seeks to review the judgment of the state court upon the ground that it denied a Federal right

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235 U. S.

asserted under the contract clause of the Constitution. Art. 1, § 10.

The suit was brought by the Mayor of the City of New Orleans, in his official capacity, to restrain the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company from proceeding under a municipal ordinance No. 1997, New Council Series, dated September 4, 1903—to construct and operate tracks over a public belt railroad reservation, and from operating cars, etc., over public belt railroad tracks, and to have the ordinance, so far as it granted to that Company such privileges of construction and operation, declared null and void. The facts, so far as it is necessary to state them, are these:

The authorities of the City of New Orleans devised the plan of establishing a public belt railroad along the river front. On March 1, 1899, the City adopted an ordinance (No. 15,080, C. S.) under which, in consideration of certain concessions, the Illinois Central Railroad Company built about two miles of the projected system, that is, from the upper limit of the City to the upper boundary of Audubon Park. This was followed by ordinance No. 147, N. C. S., adopted August 7, 1900, which created a Belt Railroad Board, composed of the Mayor and certain city officials, to construct, control and operate the belt railroad for the benefit of the City; and on August 12, 1902, the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans, called the 'Dock Board,'-a body exercising state authority over a part of the area to be traversed by the proposed road-approved the dedication for the purpose stated. This approval was to remain in force only so long as the belt railroad was 'operated and controlled by a public commission' in accordance with the provisions of ordinance No. 147.

On February 10, 1903, a further ordinance was adopted -No. 1615, N. C. S.-which, among other things, granted to the New Orleans & San Francisco Railroad Company

a right of way over the belt line and reservation from the upper limit of the City to Henderson Street. The condition was that the company, at its own expense, should construct and dedicate to perpetual public use the tracks as projected from the end of the line already built, on the upper side of Audubon Park, to Henderson Street (a distance of about five miles), the construction to be completed before July 1, 1904. Other provisions looked to still further construction through contributions from other railroads. The validity of this ordinance was at once challenged in a suit brought by the Mayor, on behalf of the City, which resulted in favor of the Railroad Company. Capdevielle, Mayor, v. New Orleans R. R. Co., 110 Louisiana, 904. The terms of the ordinance, however, did not conform to the conditions upon which the Dock Board had consented to the building of the belt road, and, in a suit brought by that Board against the Railroad Company, the carrying out of ordinance No. 1615 was restrained so far as it authorized the construction of the railroad upon the property subject to the Board's jurisdiction. Board of Commissioners v. New Orleans & San Francisco R. R. Co., 112 Louisiana, 1011. Following this decision, it appears that the New Orleans & San Francisco Railroad Company abandoned the building of the belt line contemplated by the ordinance; no part of it was constructed thereunder.

On September 4, 1903, while the suit of the Dock Board was pending, and after the final decision in the Capdevielle suit, the City adopted ordinance No. 1997, N. C. S.,—the ordinance here in question (127 Louisiana, pp. 784-792). Without passing now upon points in controversy, it may be said that this ordinance, reciting that under ordinance No. 1615 there had already been granted to the New Orleans & San Francisco Railroad Company the right to construct the belt line over the reservation from the place at which the rails then terminated to Henderson Street,

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235 U. S.

granted to the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company-the plaintiff in error-a right of way over 'the double track belt line and reservation' to that point, upon stated terms and conditions, among which may be noted the following: That when the plaintiff in error had operated its equipment over the described belt tracks for thirty days, it should pay to the City the sum of $50,000; that in case the New Orleans & San Francisco Railroad Company failed 'without legal excuse' to build the described line to Henderson Street, as provided in ordinance No. 1615, the plaintiff in error should build that line in place of the first-mentioned company-this construction to be in lieu of the payment of $50,000 and the belt tracks so built, as soon as completed to Henderson Street, to be 'turned over to the immediate ownership of the City of New Orleans' and to be under 'the control and management of the Public Belt authority'; and, further, that in case the New Orleans & San Francisco Railroad Company should from any cause complete only a portion of the described tracks, the plaintiff in error should have the right to use so much of the described belt line as had been built, on payment of a proportionate part of the specified sum. This ordinance the plaintiff in error formally accepted on September 17, 1903.

The suit brought by the Dock Board against the New Orleans & San Francisco Railroad Company was decided by the Supreme Court of the State in May, 1904, and, in the October following, the City adopted ordinance No. 2683, N. C. S., which made comprehensive provision for municipal construction and operation of the belt line system. All conflicting ordinances were repealed, and it cannot be doubted that this ordinance, if enforced, would make it impossible for the plaintiff in error to exercise the rights it might otherwise have under ordinance No. 1997. The belt board was reorganized by the establishment of a new Public Belt Railroad Commission, com