Opinion of the Court.

against the plaintiff's right to compensation for the injury to her property by the defendant, she is thereby deprived of the equal protection of the laws." The counsel of defendant in error, in their printed brief, make no point that the facts are not shown by this record, but discuss the question on its merits. We are referred in the printed briefs to our own case of Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Miller, 132 U. S. 76, in the report of which it appears that one Duncan, whose property abutted on Filbert Street, where that street was occupied by the elevated railroad in question, was permitted by the state courts to recover for damages suffered by having been deprived of access to and the free use of Filbert Street.

Conceding, for the sake of the argument, that the facts are as alleged by the plaintiff in error, we are unable to see any merit in the contention that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in distinguishing between the case of those who, like Duncan, were shut off from access to and use of the street by the construction thereon of the elevated railroad, and the case of those who suffered, not from the construction of the railroad on the street on which their property abutted, but from the injuries consequential on the operation of the railroad, as situated on defendant's own property, thereby deprived the plaintiff of the equal protection of the laws. The two classes of complainants differed in the critical particular that one class suffered direct and immediate damage from the construction of the railroad in such a way as to exclude them from the use of their accustomed highway, and the other class suffered damages which were consequential on the use by the defendant company of their franchise on their own property. The question thus raised is within the case of Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22, where it was said that "the clause in question means that no person or class of persons shall be denied the same protection of the laws which is enjoyed by other persons or classes in the same place and under like circumstances." So in Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68, where by a statute of the State of Missouri it was provided that, in capital cases, in cities having a population of over 100,000 inhabitants, the State shall be allowed fifteen peremptory challenges, while

Opinion of the Court.

elsewhere in the State it is allowed only eight peremptory challenges, it was held that such a distinction did not deny to a person accused and tried for murder in a city containing over 100,000 inhabitants the equal protection of the laws enjoined by the Fourteenth Amendment, and in the course of the discussion it was said: "The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States does not prohibit legislation which is limited either in the objects to which it is directed or by the territory within which it is to operate. It merely requires that all persons subjected to such legislation shall be treated alike, under like circumstances and conditions, both in the privileges conferred and in the liabilities imposed. As we said in Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, speaking of the Fourteenth Amendment: Class legislation, discriminating against some and favoring others, is prohibited, but legislation which, in carrying out a public purpose, is limited in its application, if within the sphere of its operation it affects alike all persons similarly situated, is not within the amendment.””

It should also be observed that the plaintiff does not complain that, by any legislative enactment, she has been denied rights granted to others, but she attributes error to the judg ment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in construing that provision of the constitution of the State which gives a remedy for property injured by the construction of a railroad, as not extending the remedy to embrace property injured by the lawful operation of the railroad. It is not pretended that, by such a construction of the law, the plaintiff has been deprived of any right previously enjoyed. The scope of the remedy added by the constitution of 1874 to those previously possessed by persons whose property is affected by the erection of a public work is declared by the court not to embrace the case of damages purely consequential.

In so holding, it does not appear to us that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has either deprived the plaintiff of property without due process of law, or denied her the equal protection of the law, and its judgment is accordingly

Affirmed.

Statement of the Case.

BRASS v. NORTH DAKOTA, ex rel. STOESER.

ERROR TO THE

SECOND JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT OF RAMSEY COUNTY, STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA.

No. 768. Argued April 26, 1894. - Decided May 14, 1894.

The act of March 7, 1891, c. 126, of North Dakota, "regulating grain warehouses and weighing and handling of grain," declaring elevators, etc., to be public warehouses, and their owners to be public warehousemen, and requiring them to give bond conditioned for the faithful performance of their duty as such, fixing rates of storage, and requiring them to keep insured for the benefit of the owners all grain stored with them, does not apply to elevators built by a person only for the purpose of storing his own grain, and not to receive and store the grain of others, and being so construed it does not deny the equal protection of the laws to the owner of an elevator made a public warehouse by it, does not deprive him of his property without due process of law, does not amount to a regulation of commerce between the States, and is not in conflict with the Constitution of the United States.

This case differs in no substantial respect from Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, and Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517, and an adherence to the rulings in those cases requires the affirmance of the judgment of the court below.

THIS case was submitted on the 15th day of December, 1892. On the 16th of October, 1893, the court ordered it to be restored to the docket, for argument before a full bench, and argument was had accordingly April 26, 1894. The case then made is stated by the court as follows:

Norman Brass, the plaintiff in error, owns and operates a grain elevator in the village of Grand Harbor, in the State of North Dakota. The defendant in error, Louis W. Stoeser, owns a farm adjoining the village, on which in the year 1891 he raised about four thousand bushels of wheat. On September 30, 1891, Stoeser applied to store a part of his wheat-crop for the compensation fixed by section eleven of chapter 126 of the Laws of North Dakota for the year 1891, which Brass refused to do unless paid therefor at a rate in excess of that fixed by the statute. On this refusal Stoeser filed in the

Statement of the Case.

District Court of Ramsey County, North Dakota, a petition for an alternative writ of mandamus. The District Court granted an alternative writ of mandamus as follows:

"The State of North Dakota to Norman Brass, respondent: Whereas the following facts have been made to appear to this court by the verified petition of the above-named relator, to wit: 1. That he is the relator in the above-entitled matter; that he owns and operates a farm containing 540 acres in the vicinity of the railroad station of Grand Harbor, in the county and State aforesaid, and during the year 1891 has raised on said farm about 4000 bushels of grain, principally wheat. 2. That the relator has not sufficient storage capacity on his farm or elsewhere for said grain so raised as aforesaid, but is dependent almost wholly upon the grain elevators and warehouses in the vicinity of said farm for storage capacity. 3. That fully fifty per cent of the grain raised in said Ramsey County, North Dakota, is dependent for storage capacity upon the grain elevators and warehouses at the various towns, villages, and railroad stations in said Ramsey County. 4. That the respondent, Norman Brass, is now and at all the time herein stated has owned and operated a grain elevator at the railroad station of Grand Harbor aforesaid for the purpose of buying, selling, storing, and shipping grain for profit. 5. That the relator on the 30th day of September, 1891, hauled fiftyeight bushels of wheat to the grain elevator of respondent, Norman Brass, at Grand Harbor aforesaid, and tendered the same at said elevator of said Norman Brass for storage, and requested said Norman Brass to receive, elevate, insure, and store said grain for twenty days, and at the time tendered to said Brass two cents per bushel for compensation for receiving, elevating, insuring, and storing said grain for twenty days; that said grain when so tendered as aforesaid was dry and in a suitable condition for storage, and there was in said grain elevator of said Brass at Grand Harbor aforesaid at said time storage capacity for over twenty-five thousand bushels of grain not in use and wholly unoccupied. 6. That said Brass then and there refused to receive said grain for the purpose aforesaid and wholly refused to store said grain at said price.

Statement of the Case.

7. That the relator endeavored to secure storage for said grain at the only other elevator in operation at said railroad station of Grand Harbor aforesaid, but said elevator refused to receive relator's grain upon the same ground as respondent. 8. That the relator is informed and believes that the owners of grain elevators and warehouses within a radius of fifty miles of Grand Harbor aforesaid refuse to receive grain for storage at said price: Now, therefore, this court, in order that justice may be done in this behalf to him, Louis W. Stoeser, relator, does hereby command and enjoin you that immediately upon receipt of this writ you do receive from relator, while your storage capacity at your elevator herein mentioned is sufficient for that purpose, all grain that may be tendered you by the relator in a dry and suitable condition for storage at a rate of compensation not exceeding the following schedule, viz., for receiving, elevating, insuring, delivering, and twenty days' storage, two cents per bushel; storage rates after the first twenty days, one-half cent per bushel for each fifteen days or fraction thereof, and shall not exceed five cents for six months, or that you show cause to the contrary before this court at the court-house, in the city of Devil's Lake, Ramsey County, North Dakota, on the 5th day of October, 1891, at ten o'clock in the forenoon of said day, or as soon thereafter as counsel can be heard; and how you have executed this writ make known to this court at the time and place aforesaid, and have you then and there this writ.

"Dated Sept. 30th, 1891."

To which writ appellant made return by answer as follows: "The return of the respondent to the alternate writ of mandamus issued in the above-entitled proceeding shows to the court

"1. That the respondent admits the truth of the facts. pleaded in said alternative writ.

"2. For a further return to the said alternative writ the respondent alleges that he owns and operates only one grain elevator in North Dakota or elsewhere; that the said elevator is the elevator mentioned in said alternative writ, and is situated at Grand Harbor, a small way station on the line of