ad an opportunity to test the reasonableness of the rate,
and that its deviation therefrom, by collection of an overcharge, did
not proceed from any belief that the rate was invalid, the validity of
the penalty imposed is not to be tested by comparison with the amount of
the overcharge. Inasmuch as it is imposed as punishment for violation of
a law, the legislature may adjust its amount to the public wrong rather
than the private injury, and the only limitation which the Fourteenth
Amendment imposes is that the penalty prescribed shall not be "so severe
and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense and
obviously unreasonable." In accordance with the latter standard, a
statute granting an aggrieved passenger (who recovered $100 for an
overcharge of 60 cents) the right to recover in a civil suit not less
than $50 nor more than $300 plus costs and a reasonable attorney's fee
is constitutional.[280]

For like reasons, a statute requiring railroads to erect and maintain
fences and cattle guards, and making them liable in double amount of
damages for their failure to so maintain them is not
unconstitutional.[281] Nor is a Nebraska law which establishes a minimum
rate of speed for delivery of livestock and which requires every carrier
violating the same to pay the owner of such livestock the sum of $10 per
car per hour.[282] On the other hand, when a telephone company, in
accordance with its established and uncontested regulations, suspends
the service of a patron in arrears, infliction upon it of penalties
aggregating $3,600, levied pursuant to a statute imposing fines of $100
per day for alleged discrimination, is so plainly arbitrary and
oppressive as to take property without due process.[283]

REGULATION OF CORPORATIONS, BUSINESS, PROFESSIONS, AND TRADES

Domestic Corporations

Although a corporation is the creation of a State which reserves the
power to amend or repeal corporate charters, the retention of such power
will not support the taking of the corporate property without due
process of law. To terminate the life of a corporation by annulling its
charter is not to confiscate its property but to turn it over to the
stockholders after liquidation.[284] Conversely, unreasonable
regulation, as by the imposition of confiscatory rates, although it
ostensibly falls short of termination of the corporate existence,
entails an invalid deprivation.[285]

Foreign Corporations

Foreign corporations al