Blackwell Lumber Co. v. Empire Mill Co.

155 P. 680, 28 Idaho 556, 1916 Ida. LEXIS 29
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 19, 1916
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 155 P. 680 (Blackwell Lumber Co. v. Empire Mill Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Blackwell Lumber Co. v. Empire Mill Co., 155 P. 680, 28 Idaho 556, 1916 Ida. LEXIS 29 (Idaho 1916).

Opinions

SULLIVAN, C. J.

The plaintiff corporation, the Blackwell Lumber Co., commenced this proceeding for condemnation of a right of way for a logging railroad. A general demurrer was sustained to the complaint. Thereafter the plaintiff declined to amend and elected to stand upon its complaint and judgment of dismissal was entered. The appeal is from the judgment, and it is recited in the notice of appeal that the appeal is taken from the order sustaining defendant’s demurrer and from the judgment.

The complaint in effect alleges that the plaintiff is an Idaho corporation engaged in the lumbering industry, with authority to build, erect, operate and control sawmills and lumber manufacturing plants; to deal in lumber and timber products; to own, improve, buy and sell lands and the timber thereon; to construct, maintain and operate plants and works for the improvement and development of such lands and to acquire,[561]*561construct and operate lumber and logging railroads, roads, tramways, chutes, ditches and flumes; that the plaintiff is the owner of a large amount of standing timber and timber lands in Kootenai and Shoshone counties, Idaho, and that that portion thereof where the lands of the plaintiff, from which it desires to remove its timber, are situated, is principally a lumbering country and the chief industry carried on there is the lumbering business; that large numbers of people are engaged in logging operations and in the transportation of logs to market; that the prosperity of the country depends on the lumber industry; that the business conducted in that part of Shoshone county where these particular lands are situated is entirely dependent upon the lumber industry; that plaintiff owns sawmills, one at Fernwood, Idaho, and one at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, which employ large numbers of men, which mills furnish employment to a large number of people, upon which the prosperity of that part of the country largely depends; that while the forests are valuable for timber products thereon, their value is dependent upon the ability of the owners to transport the timber to the mills; that among other lands owned by plaintiff are 400 acres upon which there are quantities of valuable timber which the plaintiff desires to transport to its said mills, and that the only reasonable or practicable method of removing said timber and transporting same to its mills is by transportation of the same from said lands to the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad by a temporary spur or logging railroad; that is, a railroad graded from a point on the line of said Milwaukee railway to points upon said lands of the plaintiff, and laying steel rails and the transporting of said logs from the lands over said temporary logging spur or railroad with shay or geared engines; that none of the timber standing upon said lands of the plaintiff can be profitably or economically or feasibly or at all transported to the mills of the plaintiff or to the market except by means of the transportation above described, and unless the plaintiff can so construct such temporary logging railroad and is given power to condemn a right of way for said logging railroad, the said timber lands and the timber [562]*562thereon will remain undeveloped and the development of that material resource of the state be seriously and continuously retarded, so far as the said lands are concerned; that there is but one reasonable or feasible route and that in part extends over and across certain lands of the defendant, which lands are described in the complaint as the lands sought to be condemned; that none of the timber standing upon the lands of the plaintiff, described in the complaint, can be profitably or economically transported except by means of the construction of said proposed logging road; that there is a necessity for the appropriation and condemnation of said land, and that the removal of said timber develops one of the material resources of the state of Idaho; that there is no other way by which said timber can be transported; that the denial of the right to the use of the lands of defendant and of others similarly situated would be disastrous to the growth and prosperity of the state and largely hinder and retard the development of one of its material resources; that the right of way sought to be acquired over defendant’s lands is a way of necessity, because of the situation of plaintiff’s and defendant’s lands and the topography of the country adjoining; that the road which the plaintiff desires to construct from the main line of said Milwaukee railroad, except over the lands of the defendant, crosses only the lands owned by the plaintiff or lands across which plaintiff has procured the right of way to build said logging railroad; that the plaintiff has been unable to secure any settlement with defendant or to acquire said right of way across its said land ; that the plaintiff will be able to remove from its lands and transport across said right of way sought to be acquired in this action, all of the timber which it desires to remove at this time in a very few months and the use sought for the lands of the defendant is therefore but temporary; that plaintiff will not materially affect or injure the lands of the defendant or injure the same at all; that while plaintiff is operating its said road across the land of defendant, it will be perfectly willing that it shall use the said line or road, the said use to be in such a manner as not to interfere with the [563]*563plaintiff’s use thereof; or, at the election of the defendant, the plaintiff will, for a reasonable consideration, transport any logs or timber products from the lands of the defendant to the Milwaukee railway while plaintiff is operating its said road and engaged in removing its said timber; that after plaintiff has removed its said timber and ceased to operate upon its said lands, it will, within a reasonable time, remove the ties and rails placed across the land of the plaintiff, leaving the grade only of said railroad upon said land.

As above stated, the court sustained a general demurrer to said complaint.

It is contended by counsel for respondent that said complaint contains conclusions of law and many irrelevant, redundant and immaterial allegations that have no place in the complaint and the truth of which for that reason is not admitted by the demurrer, but stripped of- such immaterial matter there is nothing left of the complaint which the lower court could have taken cognizance of in arriving at its decision on said demurrer other than the allegations to the effect that the plaintiff is a corporation; that the defendant is a corporation; that appellant owns 400 acres of land; that the respondent is the owner of 120 acres of land; that appellant desires to construct a temporary logging road over and through said 1201 acres of timber land of the respondent for the temporary use of plaintiff for the purpose of transporting thereover any timber it may remove from its said 400 acres of land, and thereafter within a few months it will take up the temporary railroad and remove the same from the strip of respondent’s land from which appellant has cut a swath of respondent’s timber for the purpose of constructing said logging railroad.

This court held in Idaho-Western R. Co. v. Columbia Conference etc. Synod, 20 Ida. 568, 119 Pac. 60, 38 L. R. A., N. S., 497, as follows:

“The statute requires the condemnor to disclose the purpose for which he is seeking to condemn the property and the general nature and character of the improvement or structure he expects to erect in order to bring himself within [564]*564the constitution and statute (sec.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
155 P. 680, 28 Idaho 556, 1916 Ida. LEXIS 29, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/blackwell-lumber-co-v-empire-mill-co-idaho-1916.