Deutsch v. Columbia Chemical Co.

8 Ohio N.P. 428
CourtSummit County Court of Common Pleas
DecidedJuly 1, 1901
StatusPublished

This text of 8 Ohio N.P. 428 (Deutsch v. Columbia Chemical Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Summit County Court of Common Pleas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Deutsch v. Columbia Chemical Co., 8 Ohio N.P. 428 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1901).

Opinion

Kohler, J.

This is an application for an injunction. The case was heard upon the petition and the testimony, and there is not much controversy as to the facts in the case.

The allegations of the plaintiff’s petition are, in the main, admitted by the answer of the defendant. The material facts, as appears from these pleadings, and the testimony are substantially the following:

The defendant, The Columbia Chemical Company, is a corporation organized and incorporated under the laws of this state for manufacturing purposes. This company acquiring a tract of about three hundred acreá of land lying principally south-of the Wooster road, and adjacent to the town of Barberton in this county. The primary object of acquiring this land on the part of this company was to establish a manufacturing plant for the manufacture of “Soda Ash”, involving the sinking of wells for the purpose of pumping salt water and for the erection of necessary and suitable buildings for the conversion of this brine into “Soda Ash”, and its various products. These wells have been dug, pumping machinery, etc., placed, and very extensive buildings erected for the purpose of carrying on the various processes of manufacturing “Soda Ash.” A large number of workmen, perhaps four five or six hundred, are employed in these various departments. Office buildings have been erected, and dwelling houses for the use and occupancy of the superintendent and other officers of the company, and upon the rear portion of this tract of land, and quite a distance south of Wooster Road, about seventy-five houses have been erected by this company for the accomodation and occupancy of its employes and workmen. All this has been done by this company within the last two or three years.

The main point of entrance, or of ingress and egress to and from this tract of land and from the shops, works and houses, is at a point on Wooster road where that highway is intersected or crossed by what is called Melvin avenue, indicated by a plat of [429]*429the locus in quo, hereto appended and marked “Exhibit A”,which shows generally, but not with entire accuracy, the situation of the premises. This Melvin avenue extends the ordinary width of a road from Wooster road southerly to a wire fence, which incloses the defendant’s land, and about .150 feet distant from Wooster road. A substantial close board fence inclosed the lands of this company. At this point where Melvin avenue ends there was a wire fence. Perhaps a year ago this wire fence was cut or opened and rolled back to the sides so as to leave an opening for a'roadway • southerly through the grounds of the company and back to what is called the “Settlement,” where these seventy-five houses were erected. This driveway has not been used in precisely the same place since it w.as first opened, but at first ran off in a easterly direction from a straight line neat-one of the wells now in operation. But this was abandoned and the driveway now extends in a semi-circular form along a row of houses and goes back through another fence or gateway to this collection of houses in that “settlement”. This driveway is quite extensively used, presents a hard beaten track, with a cinder sidewalk on the westerly side and in front of a row of five houses used by some of the heads of the departments.

The company caused a sign board to be placed near this driveway, and perhaps a couple of hundred yards from the end of Melvin avenue, warning the public that the grounds were private and that trespassers would be prosecuted. And at a distance still further south, where there is now a fence across - the road, another sign board was placed near this driveway of the same purport. .

This collection of seventy-five houses, constituting the “settlement”, was accessble from this driveway by three parallel streets, apparently running parallel with Wooster road. These streets were three in number. And upon these streets these houses were erected, and about uniform ’ in size.

These facts are set forth, in substance, in the plaintiff's petition, and it is alleged that this driveway to this “settlement” from Melvin avenue had been openly, notoriously used - by the public, and not simply by the company and its employes; that milk dealers, provision dealers, and agents of all kinds, carrying on business necessarily with the occupants of these houses, and with other persons about the premises were in the habit of freely, without objection or obstruction, using this driveway for ingress and egress at all times. And the plaintiff alleges that he is engaged in the business of selling, at retail, wines, beers and other liquors, and that he had built up an extensive and valuable trade with the people in this “settlement”,and that he had been doing this business, soliciting orders for goods, delivering the same, with the full knowledge of the defendant company and its officers, without obstruction or objection, for sometime before the particular grievance of which he complains. That these dwelling houses in the settlement were occupied — some of them at least, as boarding houses, where others than the defendant’s employes were boarded and lodged; and bis complaint is that at a certain date in the petition named, he was prevented from entering the defendant’s premises or of carrying on his business, or selling these goods. In short, that while entering into these grounds along this driveway in the prosecution of his business and delivering these goods he was not warned to leave, but forcibly compelled to go out and off from the defendant’s premises, and warned not to enter thereon again.

This the plaintiff claims was a violation of his rights, and that the defendant should be perpetually enjoined from interfering in any way with his carrying on his business in the sale, at retail, of these goods, and in the use is compelled to use in order to reach his of this driveway or road which he alleges he customers, his claim being, that under the circumstances stated, and the evidence in the case, that this driveway had acquired the character of a public road or way upon which he and all other citizens had a right to travel without objection or obstruction by the defendant company.

As staled, these facts herein recited, are, in the main, 'admitted by the answer; but the defendant company claims that under the law and the evidence that this is private property and not subject to any easement on the part of the public; that the driveway so-called south of Melvin avenue was not a public road in any sense, but that its use was intended for the company and its employes, and whatever use was made by others was a mere license, or permission and not in any sense a legal right acquired by the public as a public thorough-’ fare. And it further sets up that these dwelling houses called “The Chemical Company’s Settlement” were erected by the company solely for the use of its employes [430]*430and as appurtenant to the business of manufacturing, in which the company was engaged. That these houses were leased to such employes to continue only during the time the workmen were so engaged and to terminate whenever the mployment ceased; that a certain rental was charged, which was deducted from the earnings of the occupants. And it is further alleged, that the plaintiff was delivering large quantities of intoxicating liquors to said employes in said “settlement”, from the use of which many of said employes were habitually becoming intoxicated unfit to perform their work as employes and a the same time endangering their co-employes in the performance of their duties, and endangering the property of the defendant in the operation of its works.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Jackson Ex Dem. Bradstreet v. Huntington
30 U.S. 402 (Supreme Court, 1831)
City of St. Paul v. Colter
12 Minn. 41 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1866)
Haeger v. Leuthold
191 N.W. 257 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1922)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
8 Ohio N.P. 428, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/deutsch-v-columbia-chemical-co-ohctcomplsummit-1901.