Fort Worth & Rio Grande Railway Co. v. Jennings

8 L.R.A. 180, 13 S.W. 270, 76 Tex. 373, 1890 Tex. LEXIS 1271
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 4, 1890
DocketNo. 2852
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 8 L.R.A. 180 (Fort Worth & Rio Grande Railway Co. v. Jennings) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fort Worth & Rio Grande Railway Co. v. Jennings, 8 L.R.A. 180, 13 S.W. 270, 76 Tex. 373, 1890 Tex. LEXIS 1271 (Tex. 1890).

Opinion

COLLARD, Judge.

The conveyance of plaintiff to the Texas Pacific Railway Company of a right of way through her land in the city of Fort Worth, vested in the company a perpetual easement for the purposes of right of way for its road. Pierce on Eys., 130.

The fee was not conveyed, but remained in the vendor. This company having constructed its road on the right of way designated, and operating the same, transferred a part of its right of way between its track and adjacent lots to appellant, the Fort Worth & Eio Grande Eailway Company, and the latter company has taken steps to build its road on this strip without compensation to Mrs. Jennings, whose adjacent lots will be injured or damaged by depreciation in value if the road is built.

Can this be done? The direct question has not been decided in this State, but kindred questions have been decided and discussed by the Supreme Court, a brief review of which will greatly aid us in deciding the question before us.

In the case of Houston & Texas Central Eailway v. Odum, 53 Texas, 353, Justice Gould, delivering the opinion, says: “The use of a street by a railroad is not ordinarily inconsistent with its continued use for the common purposes of a street. The authorities are numerous and conclusive that such an addition to the uses of a street, the fee being in the public, if authorized by the Legislature, gives the lot owner no right to compensation, although his easement in the street be thereby partially, impaired and his lots rendered less valuable. The regulation or enlargement of the use of the street, the property of the State, by the Legislature, is not a taking of property within the meaning of the Constitution of 1869, although the lot owner may thereby suffer incidental inconvenience or injury.”

The Constitution of 1869 provided that “noperson’s property shall be taken or applied to public use without just compensation being made, unless by consent of such person.” Const. 1869, art. 1, sec. 14; 2 Pasch. Dig., p. 1101.

The owner’s rights in property are better guarded under the Constitution of 1876. It declares that “no person’s property shall be taken, damaged, or destroyed for or applied to public use without adequate compensation being made, unless by consent of such person.” Construing this language, it has been held that the term property as here used means “not only the tangible thing owned, but also every right which accompanies ownership and is its incident;” and that where the construction of a railroad inflicts an injury to such property (not common to all other property in the same community by reason of the general fact of the existence of the railway), then such property may be said to be dam[376]*376aged, for which there must be compensation to the owner. In Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway v. Fuller the court affirmed a judgment for damages in favor of the owner of lots and improvement on a street in which, by legislative authority, a railway company had built its road.

In another later case, decided at the Galveston Term, 1889, Justice Gaines, commenting upon the language of the Constitution, says: “Under the provisions of other constitutions which merely provided compensation to the owner for property taken for public use, it had been a question whether or not one whose property was immediately and directly damaged by a public improvement, though no part of it was appropriated, could recover for such damages. * * *

“The insertion of the words “damaged or destroyed”in the section of the Constitution quoted was doubtless intended to obviate this question, and to afford protection to the owner of property by allowing him compensation where, by the construction of a public work, his property was directly damaged or destroyed, although no part of it was actually appropriated.” Texas & Sabine Ry. Co. v. Meadows, 73 Texas, 34.

It will now be seen that it is the law of this State that there need be no taking or actual appropriation of property to entitle the owner to damages on account of the construction of a railroad or other public works adjacent thereto, but that it is sufficient if the property be thereby directly and specially damaged, depreciated in value, as a result not common to all such property in the same community: and it will also be seen that where land has once been dedicated to the public as a highway it can not, even upon authority of the Legislature, be appropriated to other public uses so as to impose additional burdens upon other adjacent property, without adequate compensation to the owner. Wood’s Ry. Law, 721, et seq.; Pierce on Rys., 232.

The rights acquired by condemnation of land for public purposes are similar to those ordinarily acquired by contract, unless otherwise stipulated in its deed. Mills on Em. Dom., secs. 110, 111; Pierce on Rys., 132. The use of a street for a horse car railway is not deemed a different use from that intended in its original dedication as a street. T. & P. Ry. Co. v. Rosedale Street Ry. Co., 64 Texas, 80.

The appellant contends in this case that the transfer of a part of its right of way by the Texas Pacific Railway Company to the appellant did not contemplate a use different from that intended in the deed conveying to it the right.of way, and that consequently there could be no additional burden upon plaintiff’s land by the building and running of defendant’s road thereon. We can not agree to this proposition.

The deed of the right of way was to the Texas Pacific Railway Company, granting it the right to use the same perpetually in operating its road. There is no doubt that a legal sale of the franchise and road would carry everything appurtenant thereto—the right of way, as well as to op[377]*377erate the road, and to take tolls for freight and passengers; but it may be doubted that it can sever a part of the easement, an incident of the franchise, from the franchise, and convey the same to another company itself. It has been held by the Supreme Court of the United States that “the right of way could not be sold on execution or otherwise to a purchaser who did not own the franchise." Railway v. Doe, 114 U. S., 341.

The same doctrine is maintained in Ohio. Platt v. Railway, 22 American and English Bailway Cases, 130. But where one company sold its entire right of way to another, authorized to build and maintain a road between the same points, it was held that the owner of the fee was not injured or affected by the transfer, and that he could not call in question the capacity of the one company to sell nor the other to purchase. Crolley v. Railway, 14 Am. and Eng. Ry. Cases, 49.

A railway company pledged its road and appurtenances to the State; the road was sold to satisfy the pledge, and Lane purchased one section of the road. Without deciding whether his purchase included any of the corporate franchises in conjunction with other purchases, it was held that a :sale by him to the Junction Company passed title to the right of way, provided it constructed the road as required by the first corporation. Railway v. Ruggles, 7 Ohio St., 1.

Where depot grounds were deeded to a railway company, and under sanction of the Legislature the property became vested in another company, it was held that the conditions of the original sale to the use of the first company was not violated. 2 Dutcher (E. J. B.), 13. A railway company made an assignment of its road and effects, which was adjudged valid by the courts.

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Bluebook (online)
8 L.R.A. 180, 13 S.W. 270, 76 Tex. 373, 1890 Tex. LEXIS 1271, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fort-worth-rio-grande-railway-co-v-jennings-tex-1890.