ordinary courts of justice, any action, suit or motion against any
transportation or transmission company, for any claim or cause of
action against such company, shall not be extinguished or
impaired, by reason of any fine or other penalty which the
commission may impose, or be authorized to impose, upon such
company because of its breach of any public duty, or because of
its failure to comply with any order or requirement of the
commission; but, in no such proceeding by any person against such
corporation, nor in any collateral proceeding, shall the
reasonableness, justness or validity of any rate, charge,
classification or traffic, rule, regulation or requirement,
theretofore prescribed by the commission, within the scope of its
authority, and then in force, be questioned: provided, however,
that no ease based upon or involving any order of the commission
shall be heard, or disposed of, against the objection of either
party, so long as such order is suspended in its operation by an
order of the Supreme Court of Appeals as authorized by this
Constitution or by any law passed in pursuance thereof.
(i) The commission shall make annual reports to the Governor of
its proceedings, in which reports it shall recommend, from time to
time, such new or additional legislation in reference to its
powers or duties, or to the creation, supervision, regulation or
control of corporations, or to the subject of taxation, as it may
deem wise or expedient, or as may be required by law.
(k) Upon the organization of the State Corporation Commission, the
Board of Public Works and the office of Railroad Commissioner,
shall cease to exist; and all books, papers and documents
pertaining thereto, shall be transferred to, and become a part of
the records of, the office of the State Corporation Commission.
(l) After the first day of January, nineteen hundred and five, in
addition to the modes of amendment provided for in Article fifteen
of this Constitution, the General Assembly, upon the
recommendation of the State Corporation Commission, may, by law,
from time to time, amend sub-sections a to i, inclusive, of this
section, or any of them, or any such amendment thereof: provided,
that no amendment made under authority of this sub-section shall
contravene the provisions of any part of this Constitution other
than the sub-sections last above referred to or any such amendment
thereof.
SEC. 157. Provision shall be made by general laws for the payment
of a fee to the Commonwealth by every domestic corporation, upon
the granting, amendment or extension of its charter, and by every
foreign corporation upon obtaining a license to do business in
this State as specified in this section; and also for the payment,
by every domestic corporation, and foreign corporation doing
business in this State, of an annual registration fee of not less
than five dollars nor more than twenty-five dollars, which shall
be irrespective of any specific license, or other, tax imposed by
law upon such company for the privilege of carrying on its
business in this State, or upon its franchise or property; and for
the making, by every such corporation (at the time of paying such
annual registration fee), of such report to the State Corporation
Commission, of the status, business or condition of such
corporation, as the General Assembly may prescribe. No foreign
corporation shall have authority to do business in this State,
until it shall have first obtained from the commission a license
to do business in this State, upon such terms and conditions as
may be prescribed by law. The failure by any corporation for two
successive years to pay its annual registration fee, or to make
its said annual reports, shall, when such failure shall have
continued for ninety days after the expiration of such two years,
operate as a revocation and annulment of the charter of such
corporation if it be a domestic company, or, of its license to do
business in this State if it be a foreign company; and the General
Assembly shall provide additional and suitable penalties for the
failure of any corporation to comply promptly with the
requirements of this section, or of any laws passed in pursuance
thereof. The commission shall compel all corporations to comply
promptly with such requirements, by enforcing, in the manner
hereinbefore authorized, such fines and penalties against the
delinquent company as may be provided for, or authorized by, this
article; but the General Assembly may relieve from the payment of
the said registration fee any purely charitable institution or
institutions.
SEC. 158. Every corporation heretofore chartered in this State,
which shall hereafter accept, or effect, any amendment or
extension of its charter, shall be conclusively presumed to have
thereby surrendered every exemption from taxation, and every non-
repealable feature of its charter and of the amendments thereof,
and also all exclusive rights or privileges theretofore granted to
it by the General Assembly and not enjoyed by other corporations
of a similar general character; and to have thereby agreed to
thereafter hold its charter and franchises, and all amendments
thereof, under the provisions and subject to all the requirements,
terms and conditions of this Constitution and of any laws passed
in pursuance thereof, so far as the same may be applicable to such
corporation.
SEC. 159. The exercise of the right of eminent domain shall never
be abridged, nor so construed as to prevent the General Assembly
from taking the property and franchises of corporations and
subjecting them to public use, the same as the property of
individuals; and the exercise of the police power of the State
shall never be abridged, nor so construed as to permit
corporations to conduct their business in such manner as to
infringe the equal rights of individuals or the general well-being
of the State.
SEC. 160. No transportation or transmission company shall charge
or receive any greater compensation, in the aggregate, for
transporting the same class of passengers or property, or for
transmitting the same class of messages, over a shorter than over
a longer distance, along the same line and in the same direction--
the shorter being included in the longer distance, but this
section shall not be construed as authoring any such company to
charge or reserve as great compensation for a shorter as for a
longer distance the State Corporation Commission may, from time to
time, authorize any such company to disregard the foregoing
provisions of this section, by charging such rates as the
commission may prescribe as just and equitable between such
company and the public, to or from any junctional or competitive
points or localities, or where the competition of points located
without this State may make necessary the prescribing of special
rates for the protection of the commerce of this State, but this
section shall not apply to mileage tickets, or to any special
excursion, or commutation, rates, or to special rates for services
rendered to the government of this State, or of the United States,
or in the interest of some public object, when such tickets or
rates shall have been prescribed or authorized by the commission
SEC. 161. No transportation or transmission company doing business
in this State shall grant to any member of the General Assembly,
or to any state, county, district or municipal officer, except to
members and officers of the State Corporation Commission for then
personal use while in office, any frank, free pass, free
transportation or any rebate or reduction in the rates charged by
such company to the general public for like services. For
violation of the provisions of this section the offending company
shall be liable to such penalties as may be prescribed by law, and
any member of the General Assembly, or any such officer, who
shall, while in office, accept any gift, privilege or benefit as
is prohibited by this section, shall thereby forfeit his office,
and be subject to such further penalties as may be prescribed by
law, but this section shall not prevent a street railway company
from transporting free of charge any member of the police force or
fire department while in the discharge of his official duties, nor
prohibit the acceptance by any such policeman or fireman of such
free transportation.
SEC 102. The doctrine of fellow servant, so far as it affects the
liability of the master for injuries to his servant resulting from
the acts or omissions of any other servant or servants of the
common master, is, to the extent hereinafter stated, abolished as
to every employee of a railroad company, engaged in the physical
construction, repair or maintenance of its roadway, track or any
of the structures connected therewith, or in any work in or upon a
car or engine standing upon a track, or in the physical operation
of a train, car, engine, or switch, or in any service requiring
his presence upon a train, car or engine, and every such employee
shall have the same right to recovery for every injury suffered by
him from the acts or omissions of any other employee or employees
of the common master, that a servant would have (at the time when
this Constitution goes into effect), if such acts or omissions
were those of the master himself in the performance of a non-
assignable duty provided, that the injury, so suffered by such
railroad employee, result from the negligence of an officer, or
agent, of the company of a higher grade of service than himself,
or from that of a person, employed by the company, having the
right, or charged with the duty, to control or direct the general
services or the immediate work of the party injured, or the
general services or the immediate work of the co employee through,
or by whose act or omission he is injured, or that it result from
the negligence of a co employee engaged in another department of
labor, or engaged upon, or in charge of, any car upon which, or
upon the train of which it is a part, the injured employee is not
at the time of receiving the injury, or who is in charge of any
switch, signal point, or locomotive engine, or is charged with
dispatching trains or transmitting telegraphic or telephonic
orders therefore, and whether such negligence be in the
performance of an assignable or non assignable duty. The physical
construction, repair or maintenance of the roadway, track or any
of the structures connected therewith, and the physical
construction, repair, maintenance, cleaning or operation of
trains, cars or engines, shall be regarded as different
departments of labor within the meaning of this section.
Knowledge, by any such railroad employee injured, of the defective
or unsafe character or condition of any machinery, ways,
appliances or structures, shall be no defence to an action for
injury caused thereby. When death, whether instantaneous or not,
results to such an employee from any injury for which he could
have recovered, under the above provisions, had death not
occurred, then his legal or personal representative, surviving
consort, and relatives (and any trustee, curator committee or
guardian of such consort or relatives) shall, respectively, have
the same rights and remedies with respect thereto as if his death
had been caused by the negligence of a co employee while in the
performance, as vice-principal, of a non assignable duty of the
master. Every contract or agreement, express or implied, made by
an employee, to waive the benefit of this section, shall be null
and void This section shall not be construed to deprive any
employee, or his legal or personal representative, surviving
consort or relatives (or any trustee, curator, committee or
guardian of such consort or relatives), of an\ rights or remedies
that he or they may have by the law of the land, at the time this
Constitution goes into effect Nothing contained in this section
shall restrict the power of the General Assembly to further
enlarge, for the above named class of employees, the rights and
remedies hereinbefore provided for, or to extend such rights and
remedies to, or otherwise enlarge the present rights and remedies
of, any other class of employees of railroads or of employees of
any person, firm or corporation
SEC 163 No foreign corporation shall be authored to carry on, m
this State, the business, or to exercise any of the powers or
functions, of a public service corporation, or be permitted to do
anything which domestic corporations are prohibited from doing or
be relieved from compliance with any of the requirements made of
similar domestic corporations by the Constitution and laws of this
State, where the same can be made applicable to such foreign
corporation without discriminating against it But this section
shall not affect any public service corporation whose line or
route extends across the boundary of this Commonwealth, nor
prevent any foreign corporation from continuing in such lawful
business as it may be actually engaged in within this State, when
this Constitution goes into effect; but any such foreign public
service corporation, so engaged, shall not, without first becoming
incorporated under the laws of this State, be authorized to
acquire, lease, use or operate, within this State, any public or
municipal franchise or franchises in addition to such as it may
own, lease, use or operate when this Constitution goes into
effect. The property, within this State, of foreign corporations
shall always be subject to attachment, the same as that of non-
resident individuals; and nothing in this section shall restrict
the power of the General Assembly to discriminate against foreign
corporations whenever, and in whatsoever respect, it may deem wise
or expedient.
SEC. 164. The right of the Commonwealth, through such
instrumentalities as it may select, to prescribe and define the
public duties of all common carriers and public service
corporations, to regulate and control them in the performance of
their public duties, and to fix and limit their charges therefor,
shall never be surrendered nor abridged.
SEC. 165. The General Assembly shall enact laws preventing all
trusts, combinations and monopolies, inimical to the public
welfare.
SEC. 166. The exclusive right to build or operate railroads
parallel to its own, or any other, line of railroad, shall not be
granted to any company; but every railroad company shall have the
right, subject to such reasonable regulations as may be prescribed
by law, to parallel, intersect, connect with or cross, with its
roadway, any other railroad or railroads; but no railroad company
shall build or operate any line of railroad not specified in its
charter, or in some amendment thereof. All railroad companies,
whose lines of railroad connect, shall receive and transport each
other's passengers, freight, loaded or empty cars, without delay
or discrimination. Nothing in this section shall deprive the
General Assembly of the right to prevent by statute, repealable at
pleasure, any railroad from being built parallel to the present
line of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac railroad.
SEC. 167. The General Assembly shall enact general laws regulating
and controlling all issues of stock and bonds by corporations.
Whenever stock or bonds are to be issued by a corporation, it
shall, before issuing the same, file with the State Corporation
Commission a statement (verified by the oath of the president or
secretary of the corporation, and in such form as may be
prescribed or permitted by the commission) setting forth fully and
accurately the basis, or financial plan, upon which such stock or
bonds are to be issued; and where such basis or plan includes
services or property (other than money), received or to be
received by the company, such statement shall accurately specify
and describe, in the manner prescribed, or permitted, by the
commission, the services and property, together with the valuation
at which the same are received or to be received; and such
corporation shall comply with any other requirements or
restrictions which may be imposed by law. The General Assembly
shall provide adequate penalties for the violation of this
section, or of any laws passed in pursuance thereof; and it shall
be the duty of the commission to adjudge, and enforce (in the
manner hereinbefore provided), against any corporation refusing or
failing to comply with the provisions of this section, or of any
laws passed in prey nuance thereof, such fines and penalties as
are authorized by this Constitution, or may be prescribed by law.
ARTICLE XIII.
TAXATION AND FINANCE.
SEC. 168. All property, except as hereinafter provided, shall be
taxed; all taxes, whether state, local, or municipal, shall be
uniform upon the same class of subjects within the territorial
limits of the authority levying the tax, and shall be levied and
collected under general laws.
SEC. 169. Except as hereinafter provided, all assessments of real
estate and tangible personal property shall be at their fair
market value, to be ascertained as prescribed by law. The General
Assembly may allow a lower rate of taxation to be imposed for a
period of years by a city or town upon land added to its corporate
limits, than is imposed on similar property within its limits at
the time such land is added. Nothing in this Constitution shall
prevent the General Assembly, after the first day of January,
nineteen hundred and thirteen, from segregating for the purposes
of taxation, the several kinds or classes of property, so as to
specify and determine upon what subjects, state taxes, and upon
what subjects, local taxes may be levied.
SEC. 170. The General Assembly may levy a tax on incomes in excess
of six hundred dollars per annum; may levy a license tax upon any
business which cannot be reached by the ad valorem system; and may
impose state franchise taxes, and in imposing a franchise tax,
may, in its discretion, make the same in lieu of taxes upon other
property, in whole or in part, of a transportation, industrial, or
commercial corporation. Whenever a franchise tax shall be imposed
upon a corporation doing business in this State, or whenever all
the capital, however invested, of a corporation chartered under
the laws of this State, shall be taxed, the shares of stock issued
by any such corporation, shall not be further taxed. No city or
town shall impose any tax or assessment upon abutting land owners
for street or other public local improvements, except for making
and improving the walkways upon then existing streets, and
improving and paving then existing alleys, and for either the
construction, or for the use of sewers; and the same when imposed,
shall not be in excess of the peculiar benefits resulting
therefrom to such abutting land owners. Except in cities and
towns, no such taxes or assessments, for local public improvements
shall be imposed on abutting land owners.
SEC. 171. The General Assembly shall provide for a re-assessment
of real estate, in the year nineteen, hundred and five, and every
fifth year thereafter, except that of railway and canal
corporations, which, after the January the first, nineteen hundred
and thirteen, may be assessed as the General Assembly may provide
SEC 172 The General Assembly shall provide for the special and
separate assessment of all coal and other mineral land, but until
such special assessment is made, such land shall be assessed under
existing laws
SEC 173 The General Assembly shall levy a state capitation tax of,
and not exceeding, one dollar and fifty cents per annum on every
male resident of the State not less than twenty one years of age,
except those pensioned by this State for military services, one
dollar of which shall be applied exclusively in aid of the public
free schools, in proportion to the school population, and the
residue shall be returned and paid by the State into the treasury
of the county or city in which it was collected, to be
appropriated by the proper county or city authorities to such
county or city purposes as they shall respectively determine, but
said state capitation tax shall not be a lien upon, nor collected
by legal process from, the personal property which may be exempt
from levy or distress under the poor debtor's law. The General
Assembly may authorize the board of supervisors of any county, or
the council of any city or town, to levy an additional capitation
tax not exceeding one dollar per annum on every such resident
within its limits, which shall be applied in aid of the public
schools of such county, city or town, or for such other county,
city or town purposes as they shall determine
SEC 174 After this Constitution shall be in force, no statute of
limitation shall run against any claim of the State for taxes upon
any property, nor shall the failure to assess property for
taxation defeat a subsequent assessment for and collection of
taxes for any preceding year or years, unless such property shall
have passed to a bona fide purchaser of value, without notice, in
which latter case the property shall be assessed for taxation
against such purchaser from the date of his purchase
SEC 175 The natural oyster beds, rocks and shoals, in the waters
of this State, shall not be leased, rented or sold, but shall be
held in trust for the benefit of the people of this State, subject
to such regulations and restrictions as the General Assembly may
prescribe, but the General Assembly may, from time to time, define
and determine such natural beds, rocks or shoals, by surveys or
otherwise
SEC 176 The State Corporation Commission shall annually ascertain
and assess, at the time hereinafter mentioned, and in the manner
required of the Board of Public Works, by the law in force on
January the first nineteen hundred and two, the value of the
roadbed, and other real estate, rolling stock, and all other
personal property whatsoever (except its franchise and the non
taxable shares of stock issued by other corporations) in this
State, of each railway corporation, whatever its motive power, now
or hereafter liable for taxation upon such property, the canal bed
and other real estate, the boats and all other personal property
whatsoever (except its franchise and the non taxable shares of
stock issued by other corporations) in this State, of each canal
corporation, empowered to conduct transportation, and such
property shall be taxed for state, county, city, town and district
purposes in the same manner as authorized by said law, at such
rates of taxation as may be imposed by them, respectively, from
time to time, upon the real estate and personal property of
natural persons provided, that no tax shall be laid upon the net
income of such corporations.
SEC. 177. Each such railway or canal corporation, including also
any such as is exempt from taxation as to its works, visible
property, or profits, shall also pay an annual state franchise tax
equal to one per centum upon the gross receipts hereinafter
specified in section One Hundred and Seventy eight for the
privilege of exercising its franchise in this State, which, with
the taxes provided for in section One Hundred and Seventy six,
shall be in lieu of all other taxes or license charges whatsoever
upon the franchises of such corporation, the shares of stock
issued by it, and upon its property assessed under section One
Hundred and Seventy six provided, that nothing herein contained
shall exempt such corporation from the annual fee required by
section One Hundred and fifty seven of this Constitution, or from
assessments for street and other public local improvements
authorized by section One Hundred and Seventy, and provided,
further, that nothing herein contained shall annul or interfere
with, or prevent any contract or agreement by ordinance between
street railway corporations and municipalities, as to compensation
for the use of the streets or alleys of such municipalities by
such railway corporations.
SEC 178 The amount of such franchise tax shall be equal to one per
centum of the gross transportation receipts of such corporation,
for the year ending June the thirtieth of each year, to be
ascertained by the State Corporation Commission, in the following
manner: