Cincinnati (City) v. Pittsburgh, C. C. & St. L. Ry.

35 Ohio C.C. Dec. 41, 24 Ohio C.C. (n.s.) 305
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 6, 1915
StatusPublished

This text of 35 Ohio C.C. Dec. 41 (Cincinnati (City) v. Pittsburgh, C. C. & St. L. Ry.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cincinnati (City) v. Pittsburgh, C. C. & St. L. Ry., 35 Ohio C.C. Dec. 41, 24 Ohio C.C. (n.s.) 305 (Ohio Ct. App. 1915).

Opinion

GORMAN, J.

Tbe plaintiff brought this action in the common pleas court to enjoin the defendant from laying railroad tracks across Ludlow street, one of the dedicated and improved streets of the city, and from obstructing said street; and it also asked for a mandatory injunction requiring the defendant company to restore said Ludlow street, its sidewalks and gutters, to their former condition. The cause is here on an appeal from a judgment of the common pleas court.

[42]*42It is claimed by plaintiff in its petition that the defendant is proceeding to lay four or five tracks and switches across and in Ludlow street from east to west between Front street and the Ohio river, and has in furtherance of said work torn up the boulders in the street, changed the grade of some portions of the street, destroyed the sidewalks and the west gutter and partly destroyed the east gutter of said street, and piled on said street large quantities of earth and other debris, thereby obstructing the street and rendering it unfit for public travel, and has otherwise damaged said street and materially interfered with and impaired its usefulness; and that this has been done and is being done without legal right or authority and in violation of the rights of plaintiff and the public in and to said Ludlow street.

The defendant by an amended answer denies that it has unlawfully occupied said street; but says that its occupation of said street and its right to lay tracks across the same is lawful by virtue of certain ordinances and resolutions of the council of the city of Cincinnati adopted January 1, 1864; May 16, 1879; April 23, 1906, and especially by virtue of an ordinance adopted July 17,1905, number 984, which ordinance in substance granted permission to defendant company to construct and maintain three tracks and switch leads for two additional tracks across Ludlow street south of Front street, said three tracks and the leads running from three separate points from the west side of said Ludlow street and converging towards a common point at the southeast corner of Front and Ludlow streets and connecting with the track at present laid in the center of Front street at a point one hundred and fifty feet east of Ludlow.

Defendant avers that it accepted said ordinance August 11, 1905, and has complied with and is now ready and prepared to comply with the provisions thereof.

By reply the plaintiff challenges the validity of said ordinance and denies that it is binding upon the city of Cincinnati, and denies the power or authority of its council to grant the defendant the right to lay said tracks.

The evidence adduced on the hearing in this court shows that the tracks to be laid across Ludlow street are to connect certain yards of defendant with a connection track in Front street, [43]*43which has been laid in said street for more than forty years. While the ordinance purports to grant the right to lay five tracks across the street — three tracks and two leads — it is claimed that but four tracks are intended to be laid at this time. Á plat offered in evidence shows that not only will these four tracks be laid across the street, but there will also be placed in the street two switches whereby cars may be switched or shunted from any one of these four tracks onto any one of the other three. It also appears that just west of Ludlow street and to be connected with these four tracks across the street, is located a railroad yard of the defendant occupying a whole block, from Ludlow on the east, to Broadway on the west, and from Front street on the north to Giffin street on the south; that there are at present four tracks in said yards, and the purpose of extending these four tracks into Ludlow street and constructing switches therein is to utilize all of the space in said yard for storage tracks, instead of placing switches within the yard limits. If these four tracks and the two switches can not be laid in Ludlow street then in order to use said yard provision must be made within the limits of the yard property for switches and leads, thereby curtailing the capacity of defendant’s yard. Indeed, it is manifest that these tracks and switches proposed to be laid in Ludlow street are but a continuation of the four tracks in defendant’s yard, and if permitted to be laid the entire width of Ludlow street will become as much a part of defendant’s yard as that portion thereof west of Ludlow street in which its four tracks are laid; so that under whatever guise the grant to lay these tracks was made, they are really intended to be used for and as a part of defendant’s yard. The switching and shunting of cars into this yard and upon the four tracks now therein must necessarily take place more or less in Ludlow street and east of the street, and if this should be done to any considerable extent the use of the street at this point will be very materially impaired.

It was shown by the evidence that Ludlow street is one of the main arteries of travel leading to the river. In the past, when a ferry line plied between Cincinnati and Newport, the boats landed at the foot of Ludlow and there was a great deal more [44]*44traffic on this street than now, bnt now there is' considerable traffic in the street south of Front street, and likely to be much more in the future if the street can be kept open, clear and free from obstructions, because of the fact that the government of the United States proposes to maintain at all times a nine-foot stage of water along the entire river front of Cincinnati and the river at the foot of Ludlow street is a desirable and unusually advantageous place to tie up boats for loading and unloading and for repairs. It further appears that there is no access to the river by any street east of Ludlow for a distance of about two miles, and that an impairment of the use of this street would be a material hindrance to river traffic.

It is claimed by the city solicitor that the council had no power or authority to grant, by ordinance or otherwise, the right to defendant to lay these tracks, and that being the only claim of right which the defendant asserts, if this contention be sound, then the defendant company is a trespasser in this street when it undertakes to lay these tracks under no other claim of right than is given by this ordinance.

It is further claimed by the city’s council that even if the council had the authority or power to grant permission to lay these tracks, nevertheless the use proposed to be made of'the street by means of these tracks is such as to practically exclude therefrom the traveling public and renders such use unreasonable and therefore not permissible. If the council had the power to grant this permission to lay these tracks, it must be by virtue of some statute, for it is a well settled principle of law that municipal corporations (and of necessity their councils) have such powers and only such as are expressly granted or which are necessarily implied in order to enable them to carry into effect the express grants of power.

By the provisions of Sec. 3714 G. C., the council shall have the care, supervision and control of public highways, streets, etc., and shall cause them to be kept open, in repair and free from nuisance. But this grant of power to council does not carry with it the power to grant a right to a railroad company to occupy or incumber and use the streets of a municipality.

Louisville & N. Ry. v. Cincinnati, 76 Ohio St. 481 [81 N. [45]*45E. 983]. As was said by Summers, J., in deciding this case, on page 497:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
35 Ohio C.C. Dec. 41, 24 Ohio C.C. (n.s.) 305, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cincinnati-city-v-pittsburgh-c-c-st-l-ry-ohioctapp-1915.