The Court's opinions in earlier cases such as Dartmouth College v. Woodward had recognized that corporations were entitled to some of the protections of the Constitution.

The taxpaying railroads challenged this law, based on a conflicting federal statute of 1866 which gave them privileges inconsistent with state taxation (14 Stat.

He said the following: One of the points made and discussed at length in the brief of counsel for defendants in error was that 'corporations are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.'

Before publication in United States Reports, Davis wrote a letter to Chief Justice Morrison Waite, dated May 26, 1886, to make sure his headnote was correct: Dear Chief Justice, I have a memorandum in the California Cases Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific &c As follows.

In opening the Court stated that it did not wish to hear argument on the question whether the Fourteenth Amendment applies to such corporations as are parties in these suits.

Author Jack Beatty wrote about the lingering questions as to how the reporter's note reflected a quotation that was absent from the opinion itself.

[6] While the decision of the Court did not rest on the Fourteenth Amendment, an argument on this ground had been delivered by the defense: That the provisions of the Constitution and laws of California in respect to the assessment for taxation of the property of railway corporations operating railroads in more than one county, are in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution insofar as they require the assessment of their property at its full money value without making deduction, as in the case of railroads operated in one county and of other corporations and of natural persons, for the value of the mortgages covering the property assessed, thus imposing upon the defendant unequal burdens, and to that extent denying to it the equal protection of the laws.A unanimous decision, written by Justice Harlan, ruled on the matter of fences, holding that the state of California illegally included the fences running beside the tracks in its assessment of the total value of the railroad's property.

The circuit judge in addition held that § 3664 of the Political Code had not been passed in the mode required by the state constitution, and consequently was no part of the law of California.

Whether the present cases require a decision of them depends upon the soundness of another proposition upon which the court below, in view of its conclusions upon other issues, did not deem it necessary to pass.

Nevertheless, the case has been allowed to have clear constitutional consequences, as it has been subsequently cited as affirming the protection of corporations under the Fourteenth Amendment.

At the very least, this is an unusual exception to the normal understanding of the workings of the Court's rule of stare decisis – the reliance on precedent.