City of St. Louis v. St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad

Supreme Court of Missouri

City of St. Louis v. St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad

129 S.W. 691, 228 Mo. 712, 1910 Mo. LEXIS 161

CourtSupreme Court of Missouri

DecidedJune 14, 1910

StatusPublished

Cited by10 cases

This text of 129 S.W. 691 (City of St. Louis v. St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

City of St. Louis v. St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad, 129 S.W. 691, 228 Mo. 712, 1910 Mo. LEXIS 161 (Mo. 1910).

Pincite

Opinion

LAMM, P. J.

Defendants appeal from- a judgment in favor of plaintiff city for $15,000, with interest at six per cent per annum from April 1, 1904, aggregating $17,507.50, for building a bridge on Kings Highway over their tracks.

In June, 1881, the Municipal Assembly of the city of St. Louis passed an ordinance, No. 11725, authorizing the defendant railway company to enter the city from the west on the condition, inter alia, that it accept the ordinance. Due acceptance was made, and presently it ran its tracks into the city by virtue of such ordinance and acceptance.

In 1896 defendant railroad company became owner of the property, business, rights of way and franchises of defendant railway company and, as such successor, is now the owner of its rights, privileges, franchises and properties, and is operating the railroad in question, claiming (cum onere) the rights vested1 in its predecessor under ordinance 11725.

There being no contention that both defendants are not liable if one is, to avoid confusion we will refer to both indiscriminately as the Frisco.

[718]*718Attending to ordinance 11725, for onr purposes its substance alone is material, viz-.

By section one permission and authority was-granted to the Frisco to extend, construct, maintain and operate its railroad from the western line of the city eastward by the most practical route across a great many streets, roads and avenues, including a north-and-south thoroughfare known as Kings Highway, to a street then known as Tayon avenue, but now known as 18th street. Said section marks out the route by points,‘courses, distances and designations immaterial here.

Section two grants authority to the Frisco to construct and operate one or more of its tracks on Gratiot street on conditions named.

Section three relates to the interruption of public travel in laying tracks across the many designated streets and that the track laying should be under the supervision of the Board of Public Improvements, etc.

Section four designates speed limits and provides police regulations for the public safety, such as soundr ing bells on moving locomotives, manning trains with experienced brakemen, the maintenance of gates, watchmen at crossings, etc.

Section five provides that the Frisco must file its written acceptance of the provisions of the ordinance and a bond in the sum of $100,000, conditioned on its faithful observance of the provisions of the ordinance, before it shall lay its tracks across any street.

Section six is a provision requiring a plan and profile of its proposed tracks showing elevations and grades, etc., to be filed before it shall construct any of its road within the city limits, and reserves to the city the right to change the grade in certain contingences.

This suit is instituted under section seven, reading;

“Sec. 7. The St. Louis and San Francisco Railway Company shall pay into the city treasury for [719]*719each bridge hereafter constructed across its railroad tracks, in the city of St. Louis, west of Tayon avenue, and including said avenue, the sum of fifteen thousand dollars; said payments to be made within thirty days after the construction of the bridges is commenced.”

Section eight relates to interference with water pipe and sewers in the construction of the railroad, and section nine is a provision requiring trains to be run between certain hours within the city limits and regulates passenger fare on such trains.

It seems the tracks of the Frisco at the locus in-quo run in the Mill creek valley; that at that point the-tracks of the Missouri Pacific parallel those of the Frisco; that the right of way of the latter is one hundred feet wide; that Kings Highway, crossing all said tracks, is also one hundred feet wide, running about parallel with the Mississippi river, and is the most western street connecting the north and south parts of the city; that there is no through street east of it for a great ways; that public travel thereon has much increased1 with the development of St. Louis in that region; that the Louisiana Exposition was about to be held; and that municipal and public attention in 1903 was sharply directed to the matter of public travel' over grade crossings, as an incident to that exposition.

In this condition of things, in December, 1903, the Municipal Assembly of St. Louis passed an ordinance, No. 21346, providing for a bridge in Mill creek valley on Kings Highway over the railroad tracks there, so that travel on Kings Highway would not be obliged to take the grade crossing, but could avoid the dangers of such crossing and the heavy grade down into the valley and' up out of it by using the bridge.

The ordinance in effect, follows:

Section one authorizes and directs the Board of Public Improvements to cause a bridge to be constructed on Kings Highway across the tracks of the Missouri Pacific and Frisco railroads in accordance-[720]*720with, plans and specifications now on file in the office of such board and in that of the street commissioner.

Section two provides that the bridge shall be built of wood, except that portion over the railroad tracks which was to be a combination of wood and steel. The bridge roadway was to be thirty-two feet wide, paved with five-inch blocks resting on three-inch planking. On either side of the roadway was a sidewalk seven feet wide of two-inch planking with a railing on the ■outside.

Section three provides that the city shall pay the costs, and appropriates the sum of $40,000 therefor. Other provisions direct that appropriation shall be made out of the Municipal Revenue Fund for streets, bridges and culverts; that the City Auditor transfer that amount, etc.

Under ordinance 21346 bids were received and the contract to build the bridge was awarded to the R. M. Quigley Construction Company. There is no call to set forth the details of the plans, drawings and specifications. Suffice it to say that the contract calls for roadway and sidewalk planks of cypress, for white and yellow pine lumber, for sound live-timber cedar paving blocks, for sound lumber free from windshakes and large or rotten knotholes, for eyebeams free from cracks and flaws, for cast iron railing and posts free from blowholes and other defects. The subsills were to have a full and even bearing on the ground. The interstices between blocks in the paved roadway of the bridge were to be filled with hot gravel screened, free from sand, well rammed and then asphalt paving cement of the best quality was to be poured hot into all the interstices until they were full and the surface of the blocks covered. The blocks were to be five inches long and from four to eight in diameter, sawed at right angles to the axis. Drawings were incorporated into the contract by references: First, a general elevation plan; second, details of the different spans; third, de[721]*721tails of steel work; fourth, details of railing. The bridge, including roadway and sidewalks, was forty-six feet in width. This left of the one hundred feet of Kings Highway a twenty-seven-foot strip for a side-street on grade at each side of the bridge, and these side streets were to be left unobstructed throughout the progress of the work. The work was to be under the supervision of the Street Commissioner, who was the referee in case of dispute.

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