ON THE

LAW OF RAILROADS

CONTAINING A CONSIDERATION OF THE ORGANIZATION, STATUS
AND POWERS OF RAILROAD CORPORATIONS, AND OF THE
RIGHTS AND LIABILITIES INCIDENT TO THE LOCATION,
CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF RAILROADS;
TOGETHER WITH THEIR DUTIES, RIGHTS AND
LIABILITIES AS. CARRIERS

INCLUDING BOTH

STREET AND INTERURBAN RAILWAYS

BY BYRON K. ELLIOTT

AND

WILLIAM F. ELLIOTT

Authors of ROADS AND STREETS, GENERAL PRACTICE, EVIDENCE

Third Edition

VOLUME I

INDIANAPOLIS

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

It is an interesting fact that no other book on the law of railroads in America has been published since the second edition of this work appeared in 1907. Whatever that fact may be taken to indicate, it places upon the author responsibilities in the preparation of a new edition, which he acknowledges with full appreciation of the significance of the present undertaking to the bench and bar of the country by reason of its being the only legal treatise in its important and extensive field.

Many changes in the law relating to railroads have been made since that date, both by statute and by judicial decision, and many new questions have arisen. The law of master and servant has been greatly altered, in cases of interstate commerce, by the Federal Employers' Liability Act, Safety Appliance Act, and Hours of Service Act and other federal statutes, and in cases of intrastate commerce by State Workmen's Compensation Acts and other state statutes. The Interstate Commerce Act has been amended in many important respects and new laws, both state and federal, have been adopted relative to bills of lading and other subjects often involved in railroad litigation. New questions were and are presented by conditions arising out of the late war and under the Federal Control Act and the Transportation Act, 1920. So too, much new litigation has arisen in regard to railroad and street railway regulation by public service or state railroad commissions and in regard to taxation of such companies.

The new subjects mentioned are treated and covered in this edition. Several hundred new sections and many new chapters have been added; several thousand new cases have been cited; and the text has been carefully revised.

If the standing and worth of a legal text book are accurately shown by the number of times the work is cited in the opinions of the courts then the author acknowledges with gratitude an extremely favorable verdict upon the original work and expresses the hope that the present edition may prove so generally serviceable.

WILLIAM F. ELLIOTT.