legal-history kansas
Where can I find the past laws for the state of Kansas?
<p>I was doing some research about <a href="https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/31257/was-there-a-law-ever-passed-that-prevented-two-trains-from-proceeding-at-a-cross">a claimed law in kansas</a>, which I have decided most likely isn't in effect now, but it's likely that it was passed at some point (between 1915-1953).</p>

<p>I was able to find <a href="http://www.kslegislature.org/li_2012/b2011_12/statute/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">current kansas laws</a> but not past ones.</p>

<p>Is there somewhere I can search through past legislation in Kansas?</p>

<p>Laws organized by the year they were enacted, rather than codified by subject, are called "session laws". Kansas has <a href="http://www.kansas.gov/government/legislative/sessionlaws/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">online copies back to 1996</a>. The state supreme court law library, the library any law school in the state, many county courthouse libraries, and the larger public and university libraries would often have copies available. Session laws should also be available via interlibrary loan from any library that is part of the interlibrary loan system.</p>

<p>There should also be a set of codified statutes issued each year that would be available at most of these locations (there might be a few war years in which no net set was published). The law in question should have a citation in the general form: G.S.1949, 8-566 where the abbreviation stands for "general statute", the next four numbers are the year, and the number is the section number with "8" being the number of transportation related statutes and the remaining three numbers being a section number within the transportation statutes.</p>

<p>No published appellate case in Kansas has ever addressed the statute you link to, which isn't surprising. Overwhelmingly, lawsuits arise when trains hit people or motor vehicles and the train wins causing injuries and damage. Trains tend not to hit other trains, and when they do, the trains often belong to the same railroad company or the dispute is settled out of court. I don't have electronic access to Kansas statutes that old so I don't know if the statute is legitimate or not, although it wouldn't surprise me (and double tracks with switches were not that uncommon in the heyday of rail traffic when these statutes would have been enacted, especially in urban areas).</p>
