The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company, a corporation of the state of Ohio, owning and operating a railway running through the states of West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, under the laws of those states, and crossing the Ohio river, a navigable stream forming the boundary between the states of West Virginia and Ohio, by means of a bridge built, owned, and controlled by the plaintiff, filed in the circuit court of the United States for the district of West Virginia a bill in equity against the board of public works of the state of West Virginia, a public corporation, against its members individually (being the governor, the auditor, the treasurer, the superintendent of free schools, and the attorney general of the state), and against one Cowan, sheriff of Brooke county, all of them citizens of that state, to restrain the assessment and collection of taxes upon the bridge, under section 67 of chapter 29 of the Code of West Virginia of 1891.
The bill alleged that, under and by virtue of that section of the Code, the plaintiff was required, through its principal officers, to make return in writing, under oath, to the auditor of the state, on or before the 1st of April in each year, and in the manner prescribed by that section, of its property subject to taxation in the state; the auditor was required to bring the return, as soon as practicable, before the board of public works; that board was authorized either to approve the return, or to proceed to assess and fix the fair cash value of all the property of railroad companies which they were so required to return for taxation; and it was further provided that, as soon as possible after the value of any railroad property was fixed for purposes of taxation by one of the several methods designated by that section, the auditor should assess and charge such property with the taxes properly chargeable thereon.
The bill also alleged that the plaintiff's main line of railway ran through the state of West Virginia for a distance of 7.11 miles, of which 6.53 miles were in the county of Brooke, and 58 miles in the county of Hancock; that its bridge across the Ohio river was part of its railway; that the total length of the bridge, including its abutments, was 2,044 feet, of which 1,518 feet were in West Virginia and 526 feet in Ohio; and that the plaintiff, before April 1, 1894, as required by section 67 of chapter 29 of the Code, made to the auditor of the state of West Virginia a return of its property subject to taxation in the state for the year 1894 (a copy of which was annexed to and made part of the bill, and is set out in the margin ), and, in making that return, included, in the 7.11 miles of its main track, so much of the bridge as lay within the state, amounting to 1,518 feet.
The bill further alleged that some time in September, 1894, the board of public works, meeting at Charleston, in that state, as provided by that section of the Code, to assess and fix the valuation of railroad property for the purposes of taxation, refused to approve the plaintiff's return, and proceeded, among other things, to assess the plaintiff with 6.53 miles of main track and 6.53 miles of second track in the county of Brooke, which assessment and valuation covered the entire length of its railroad in the state of West Virginia, including so much of the bridge as lay within the state; and, in addition thereto, valued and assessed the bridge, as a separate structure, at the sum of $200,000, placing the tax upon the bridge at $3,060, and the auditor proceeded to assess the plaintiff with this sum of $3,060, thereby assessing it with the entire length of the bridge in West Virginia as a part of its railway in the state, and also assessing it with the bridge as a separate structure, thus taxing the plaintiff a second time for that part of its bridge which lay in West Virginia, whereas the bridge should only have been assessed as so many feet of the railway,