Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad Inc. v. City of Chicago (Bill of Rights Rail)

Chicago's requirement that the railroad construct grade separations at its own expense effectively took the railroad's property by stripping it of its right to use the land in its existing manner and forcing it to bear costs for public benefit without compensation. Though the city imposed this requirement for the legitimate public purpose of managing street-railroad intersections, it did so without providing payment—the essential protection the Fifth Amendment guarantees when property is taken for public use. The Court applied the incorporation doctrine to find that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause extends the Fifth Amendment's Just Compensation requirement to the states, meaning Chicago could not accomplish through a state-mandated burden what the federal government was constitutionally prohibited from doing. The railroad's loss of property rights and economic burden, imposed by state judicial proceedings for public purpose without compensation, therefore violated due process.