Bedford-Bowling Green Stone Co. v. Oman

134 F. 441, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 5170
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Kentucky
DecidedJune 10, 1904
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 134 F. 441 (Bedford-Bowling Green Stone Co. v. Oman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bedford-Bowling Green Stone Co. v. Oman, 134 F. 441, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 5170 (circtwdky 1904).

Opinion

EVANS, District Judge.

Through the medium of certain conveyances, the complainant became the owner in fee of part of all of a certain tract of land in Warren county, Ky., known in this and a former litigation- as the “Loving Tract.” Some years previous the defendants or their ancestor had purchased an easement therein described as the [443]*443undivided one-third of the cutting-stone rights in the land. In a proceeding in the Warren circuit court a division was had between the ..co-owners of the cutting-stone rights, and the share of the defendants therein according to the division thereafter made was confined to certain portions of the lands described in the plat of it as Nos. 2 and 4-, though a small part (150 feet) on the eastern front of No. 4 was yielded to the complainant. Other parts of the laud — especially a lot known as No. 1 — were not included in the portion allotted to the defendants. The order of the Warren circuit court directing the division by the commissioners, which order was made December 22, 1900, contained a clause in this language:

“In dividing the knob land said commissioners shall take into consideration the accessibility of those portions allotted to each party to the railroad running from Memphis Junction to the White Stone Quarry, and shall, as far as possible, so divide said land as to render each portion thereof into which it is divided equally accessible to said railroad.”

The deed of the commissioners who made the division contained this clause:

“It is especially understood and agreed in the foregoing conveyances, that only the cutting-stone right or interest in said land is conveyed to said parties, and no right or claim therein other than the cutting stone is conveyed. Each of said parties takes the cutting stone in the land described above as conveyed to it or her, and no other right or interest in the land is conveyed or waived by either party, but each holds and maintains its ownership except as to the cutting stone therein as is now vested, or may hereafter be vested in said parties.”

A certain agreement, without date, but probably made in 1901, between the parties in interest, in respect to the division, contains the following clause:

“In this agreement and division it is distinctly understood that nothing is granted save the cutting stone in the lands above described. So far as other rights and interests are concerned each party holds and maintains its ownership therein as is now vested in said parties respectively.”

Under certain other agreements between various persons previously interested, a railroad track was laid many years ago by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, extending from its main line, near Memphis Junction, to the quarries now owned by the complainant. This track, up to a few months ago, was owned by the railroad company, and was operated by it under certain agreements found in the record; but the railroad company only owned the superstructure, and not the land on which it was erected. This track extended over lot No. 1, and nearly across lot No. 4.. The defendants opened a quarry on lot No. 2, not far from the end of the railroad track on No. 4, and claimed that they had the right, upon the facts disclosed by the record, to bring their stone to the railroad track on that lot, and that it was the duty of the railroad company to give them facilities for its transportation equal to those afforded to the complainant. In this situation the complainant brought a suit in equity in the Warren circuit court against the defendants in the present suit and others to secure an adjudication of its rights. The result of that suit, as finally settled in the fore part of 1903, was a judgment to the effect, first, that the defendants did not own, nor have any interest in, the railroad, either on lot No. 1 or [444]*444lot No. 4, or anywhere else, notwithstanding the clauses above recited as having been contained in the commissioners’ deed,, and in the agreement without date, and in the order of the Warren circuit court directing the division of the cutting-stone rights; second, that the railroad company, being a common carrier, was, as such, bound to furnish to the defendants facilities for the transportation of their, stone upon an equality with the complainant; but, third, though not expressly, it was necessarily, and in the nature of the case, confined to the time when the railroad company should own or operate the track. The judgment unquestionably adjudicated and settled the rights and duties of the litigants in that suit up to July, 1903, and would have settled them for all time to come if the then existing status had continued. But it did not continue. Some time after that judgment was made final, the complainant and the railroad company abrogated the agreement referred to in the opinion of the Court of'Appeals as to the track on lots Nos.-1 and 4, as unquestionably they had the right to do, and the complainant purchased from the railroad company all those portions of the track, and became thenceforward the sole owner thereof; leaving in the railroad company neither ownership in it, nor management or control over it. Nor after that date did the railroad company operate, or manage that portion of the track, nor claim or exercise the right to-do so. The defendants, however, continued to insist that they had the right to have their stone and other freight transported over the track on lots Nos. 1 and 4, and the complainant brought this action to obtain the relief asked in the prayer of the bill of complaint as amended.

The complainant, on such partial presentation of the case as could be made by ex parte affidavits, asked a temporary injunction pendente lite. After a most painstaking consideration, the court on January 26, 1904, delivered an opinion dealing with the case as then developed.

To that opinion it fully adheres, after a further and very industrious reinvestigation of the case. That opinion, as far as it goes, expresses our view upon the questions then presented, and makes it unnecessary again to go into details upon the propositions then discussed, though some others have risen at the final trial which must also be dealt with.

1. In the suit in the state court the defendants Oman filed an answer which they made a cross-petition against the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company and others; and upon the issues raised on that pleading the state circuit court, inter alia, adjudged that:

“The defendant the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company is ordered and enjoined to haul and carry for said defendants Oman such supplies and other stores as said defendants may demand, from the Memphis Junction of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company to said Omans’ quarry land on the railroad as now constructed into the land allotted to said Omans in the division between the said Omans and the Bowling Green Stone Company, and. to haul and carry for said Omans the product of their said quarry over said road to Memphis junction.”

The judgment upon those issues was affirmed by the Court of Appeals (115 Ky. 369, 73 S. W. 1038), and Judge Barker, in delivering its opinion, said:

“We think, under his right to the cutting stone, as now fixed by contract, appellee is entitled to ship and receive freight at any reasonable point along the road as now constructed, which lies upon any part of the Loving tract, [445]

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Bluebook (online)
134 F. 441, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 5170, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bedford-bowling-green-stone-co-v-oman-circtwdky-1904.