Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad v. Spool Stockyards Co.

220 F. Supp. 433, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7951
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Texas
DecidedJune 12, 1963
DocketCiv. No. 2829
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 220 F. Supp. 433 (Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad v. Spool Stockyards Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad v. Spool Stockyards Co., 220 F. Supp. 433, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7951 (N.D. Tex. 1963).

Opinion

ESTES, Chief Judge.

This is a suit for title to certain tracts of land in Potter County occupied by plaintiff’s tracks and formerly used as a portion of its main line, and for an injunction requiring defendant to remove a barrier erected by it and restraining further interference with plaintiff’s use and possession. By stipulations, disclaimers and admissions the controversy is now only with respect to the right of way covering a 200 foot strip across Section 124, Block 2, AB&M Survey. Until 1958 this constituted part of the main line of plaintiff (hereinafter referred to as “Rock Island”) and its predecessors Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf RR Co. and Choctaw, Oklahoma & Texas RR Co. (hereinafter referred to as “Choctaw”) extending in an easterly and westerly direction through Amarillo and connecting with Memphis, Tenn. to the east and Tucumcari, New Mexico to the west. Defendant (hereinafter referred to as “Spool”) denies plaintiff’s ownership.

In August, 1958, due to an enlargement of the Amarillo Air Force Base, said main line was relocated further south, but still over and through Section 124, under a new easement covering the new right of way. Since such relocation the strip in question, though still occupied by plaintiff’s track, which has not been abandoned, constitutes a part of a dead end spur branching off of the present main line at or near the west line oí' Section 124 and ending at the Air Base [434]*434Boundary. According to the deposition of its district general manager, plaintiff has been using this spur for the movement of materials in connection with Air Base construction, and desires to use it generally “for the purpose of leads into the industrial areas or upon which cars would be moved or be permitted to remain for the purpose of loading or unloading or for storage purposes.” Defendant contends that plaintiff has no right to use it for such purposes, and that its easement terminated when it ceased to be a part of the main line. No present right of condemnation is involved, the question being whether the right of way easement acquired by Choctaw in 1903 terminated with the relocation of the main line, or, at all events, whether its new use as an industrial spur authorized defendant to erect a barrier across it.

Choctaw’s easement was vested in it by the 1903 judgment of the District Court of Potter County in a suit brought by Kerr, the then owner of Section 124, against Choctaw in trespass to try title and for an injunction, in which Choctaw by cross bill sought condemnation, and was awarded an easement. The case here presented involves the construction and effect to be given this judgment.

The 1903 case, on the issue of damages (compensation) was submitted to a jury, but the awarding of the easement was in effect an instructed verdict, pursuant to which the jury found “for the defendant, the right of way across plaintiff’s land, as described in defendant’s answer and assess the plaintiff’s damage at $640.00.” The judgment was

“that plaintiff take nothing by reason of his suit of trespass to try title, that the defendant go hence as to the suit of trespass to try title and that the defendant have and recover of plaintiff on its plea of reconvention the right of way across the land in controversy as set up and described in defendant’s answer and here described as follows (describing the 200 foot strip across Sec. 124).”

Kerr’s trespass to try title suit sought judgment for the whole of Section 124, to which Choctaw pleaded not guilty. However, the general “take nothing” judgment is controlled and limited by the disclaimers in Choctaw’s answer so as to take it out from under the Permian case (Permian Oil Co. v. Smith, 129 Tex. 413, 73 S.W.2d 490, 107 S.W.2d 564, 111 A.L.R. 1152). Indeed it is not contended here that the judgment vested anything in Choctaw except the right of way expressly awarded, and in my view it is not to be taken as vesting in Choctaw anything disclaimed by it in its answer. See Hughey v. Atlantic Oil Prod. Company, 130 Tex. 255, 109 S.W.2d 1041. For this reason, as well as the reference in the judgment to the right of way “as set up and described in defendant’s answer,” it is necessary to examine that pleading.

Choctaw plead that it was incorporated for the purpose of constructing and operating a line of railway from Texola, on the line between Oklahoma and Texas, to Amarillo and thence westerly to Tucumcari; that it had completed its line as far as Yarnall, in Carson County, and was running its trains on regular schedule to that point on its own line and from there to Amarillo over the tracks of other companies; that it had staked out and was constructing its own line from Yarnall to Amarillo and Tucumcari, and that it would be necessary for it to appropriate and use for right of way purposes the 200 foot wide strip across Section 124; “that said land across plaintiff’s said section should be condemned for its use as right of way purposes, and that it be granted the use of such land for such purposes; and

defendant here disclaims as to all of said land in said petition described save and except so much thereof as is included within its right of way as above described, and disclaims as to this portion, save and except as to an easement therein and a user thereof as long as it maintains its said line of railway over and through said section of land.”

[435]*435The words “its said line of railway,” construed in the light of the entire pleading, obviously referred to the line of railway extending from Texola to Tucum-cari, which was a “main line” (Rock Island expressly pleads that the strip in question “may be further identified as having constituted a portion of plaintiff’s main line prior to the relocation.”) It is my view that the easement sought to be condemned by Choctaw was a right of way to continue “so long as it maintains its said line of railway over and through said section of land”; that the judgment awarding the easement “as set up and described in defendant’s answer” had the effect of awarding it the easement it sought, viz., an easement for right of way purposes, to continue so long as it maintained its main line across Sec. 124. Although the line has been relocated and is no longer maintained along the original right of way, it is maintained “over and through said section of land”, although at a different location, and it is my view that the easement has not terminated by reason of the time limitation.

We come then to the question whether or not the facts that the track along the old right of way is not, and cannot be, now used as a part of the main line and that Rock Island has been using it, and intends to continue to use it, as an industrial spur, so divested the railroad of its right to possession as to justify Spool in fencing it off.

The parties agree that land condemned for a certain use cannot be appropriated to another use to the detriment of the owner, at least without additional compensation. Rock Island’s position is that by the 1903 judgment it acquired a right of way for the construction of a railroad track and the operation of trains thereon; that the use as an industrial spur will still be as a railroad track and for the passage of trains, and so will not amount to any change in the character of use.

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Bluebook (online)
220 F. Supp. 433, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7951, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chicago-rock-island-pacific-railroad-v-spool-stockyards-co-txnd-1963.