Western New York & Pennsylvania Railway Co. v. City of Buffalo

The validity of the agreements whereby appellant City of Buffalo undertook to bear the expense of repairing the structures here involved can not be questioned. (Matter of Ward v. Erie R. R. Co., 215 N. Y. 629.) In the light of the settled principle that a statute will not — in the absence of an unequivocal expression of such legislative intent — be given retrospective effect so as to interfere with antecedent rights (Hastings v. Byllesby & Co. [Granbery], 293 N. Y. 413, 419; see, also, Shielcrawt v. Moffett, 294 N. Y. 180, 189; Jacobus v. Colgate, 217 N. Y. 235, 240), the 1937 amendment .(L.…