Carson River Lumbering Co. v. Patterson

By the Court, Shafter, J.: The principal question in this case is as to the constitutionality of an Act of the Legislature, approved March 22d, 1866, and entitled “ An Act granting to the Board of Supervisors of Alpine County the right to charge and collect toll for the floating and transportation of wood, saw logs and lumber down the main Carson River, in said county.” (Acts 1865-6, p. 350.)

The Act “ places ” the main Carson Biver in the County of Alpine, “ under the supervision and control of the Board of Supervisors of the county, for the purposes of the Act.” The Board is authorized “ to grant or license the use of said river for the floating, driving or transporting firewood, saw logs, and lumber down said stream at a rate of toll not to exceed the sum of one dollar for each cord of firewood, one dollar for each thousand feet of lumber, and one dollar for each thousand feet of saw logs. Provision is made for the enforcement of this law through a “ Toll Collector,” who is authorized, in case of neglect or refusal on the part of any one using the stream to pay the prescribed toll, to seize the wood, etc., or any other personal property of the defaulter, and to summarily sell the same to satisfy the toll, together with costs and expenses. The Act makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by fine, or imprisonment, for any one to use the river for the purposes stated without a license from the Board of Supervisors. The money arising from the tolls is to be [339]paid into the treasury of the county—seventy-five per cent to the credit of the General Fund, and the residue to the credit of the Common School Fund.

This action is brought upon a promissory note for one thousand nine hundred dollars, given by the company to the plaintiff—toll gatherer for the time being—for tolls claimed by him to be due under the Act,

The answer of the defendants alleges, amongst other things, that the tolls covered by the note accrued on saw logs and cordwood cut by the company upon public lands of the United States, situated on both sides of the East Fork of the Carson River, in the County of Alpine, for the purpose of floating the same on said river to the markets of Empire City, Gold Hill and Virginia City, in the State of Nevada; that the company had used said Fork for floating wood and timber to those markets since the year 1861, and had expended large sums of money in improving the river; that the wood on which the tolls in question were claimed had been seized by the plaintiff under the Act of 1866, and that the note was given to procure a release from the seizure.