Sentell v. New Orleans & Carrollton Railroad Co.

Sentell (plaintiff) was walking with his Newfoundland dog near a railroad track in the City of New Orleans. The dog was valuable to Sentell, who kept her for breeding purposes, and she was pregnant with puppies at the time. The dog stepped onto the railroad tracks and was struck and killed by an electric rail car. Sentell sued the railroad company, New Orleans & Carrollton Railroad Co. (company) (defendant) for negligently killing the dog. The company included in its defense two legislative factors related to dog ownership with which Sentell had failed to comply. The first was that there was a city ordinance in New Orleans that required dog owners to purchase a license tag for their dogs, but Sentell had not purchased one for his dog. Second, there was a Louisiana state law that provided that a dog would only be considered to be personal property if it was registered on state assessment roles. Under the law, an owner who so registered a dog could recover in civil actions for harm done to the dog, but only up to the amount of value that the owner had claimed for the dog on the latest assessment. Sentell had not registered the dog on the assessment roles. Sentell argued that failing to comply with the city ordinance should not affect his right to recover damages and also argued that the state law amounted to an unconstitutional taking of his property without due process of law because it removed legal protection from his property unless listed for taxation. The local court entered a verdict for Sentell for $250. The company appealed. The court of appeals reversed the lower court, holding that Sentell was required to comply with the state and city laws in order to recover. Sentell brought a writ of error for the case to the Supreme Court.