Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. v. Eddins

2 Tex. L. R. 696
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 15, 1884
StatusPublished

This text of 2 Tex. L. R. 696 (Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. v. Eddins) 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
Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. v. Eddins, 2 Tex. L. R. 696 (Tex. 1884).

Opinion

Opinion by

West, J.

The bills of exceptions reserved on the trial of this cause are all incorporated in the statement of facts.

[697]*697The statute and the' rules prescribed by this court, alike require all bills of exceptions to be settled and filed during the term. (Rev. Stat. Arts 1363 & 1364. Rule 53, District Court.)

By order of the court in this case, the time for preparing the statement of facts, was extended until ten days after the final adjournment of the court.

Under this authority the statement of facts was prepared after the court adjourned and within the ten days allowed. But the bills of exception inserted in the statement of facts being thus signed out of term time cannot, under the law, be considered. See Locket et al. v. Schuerberg, decided at this present term, where all the eases on the point are collected.

Most of the questions, however, that were intended to be saved by these bills, are raised by the sixth, instruction asked by appellant, and refused by the court. By that instruction the court was asked in substance to direct the jury m making their estimate of the damages, if any, sustained by appellee from the construction and operation of appellant’s road, along West street, and across Academy street, to reject entirely from their consideration all the testimony of the witnesses going to show injury or damage resulting to appellee from sparks of fire from the engines of appellant, smoke, cinders, unusual noises arising from the ringing of bells, the sounding of steam whistles, and other annoyances of a like character. There are no doubt a number of cases decided by courts of high authority, which have held that the elements of damage above enumerated are too remote, too indirect, and inconsequential and general in their character and therefore ought not to be taken into consideration by the jury in making up their final estimate of the damage caused by the continued presence and operation of a steam railway along a street or highway.

The weight of authority, however, seems to sustain the ruling of the court below in permitting the evidence under consideration to go to the jury.

In a work treating very fully and at great length of the Law of Damages published as late as the year 1883, many of the cases on this question are grouped and the rule is deduced from them that the increased exposure to fire by constructing and operating steam railways through streets, near buildings and through fields, is pertinent evidence, and that these matters may be allowed to be proved [698]*698to show damage by the depreciation in value of the property so exposed. 3rd Vol. Sutherland on Damages, pp. 436 & 437.

In support of his views on this point the author cites cases from the States of Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maine, Illinois, Minnesota, and also from Pennsylvania the recent case of the Wilmington & D. R. R. Co. v. Stauffer, 60 Pa. St., 374. Many other authorities also besides these can be found to the same effect. The same writer also lays down the rule that in estimating damages in cases of this character, all the positive inconveniences resulting from the sounding of whistles, the rattling of trains, the jarring of the ground or from the smoke of the locomotive should be estimated, excluding, however, in all cases all common or indirect damage, that is such damage as affects the owner equally in common and no more with all the members of the community. 3 Sutherland on Dam,, p. 437.

Nor do we think, taking' the facts of this case into consideration, that the district court can be fairly said to have committed any serious error, if any at all, in refusing to give the second instruction asked by the appellant.

That instruction was to the effect that the city council of Brenham liad the power to grant the right of way along the street in question and that the appellee could not recover damages in this case of the appellant unless the street had been exclusively appropriated by the appellant, or its road bad been constructed in an unskillful or negligent manner. There is no doubt, as Judge Gould remarks in the case, of the H. & T. C. R. R. Co. v. Odum, 53 Texas, 353, that there are a number of authorities to the effect that ordinarily such an addition to the use of a street as the laying in it of a road bed and track for a railway to be operated by steam, if authorized by the proper authorities, gives the adjacent lot owner of itself alone no right to compensation, although his easement in the street be thereby partially impaired, and his lots in consequence rendered somewhat less valuable.

The decisions in this connection referred to by Judge Gould, were made in States having in their constitutions provisions as to the taking of private property for public use similar to those contained in the constitution of the United States and our own constitutions of 1845 and 1869. See also in this connection the case of the Metropolitan Compress Co. v. Alley, 60 Tex., p. —(Tyler Term, 1883.) [699]*699Even under those constitutions the books show that all the oases, without exception, lay down the rule that where the street is entirely destroyed by the presence and operation of the railroad that the adjoining owner has his action for damages against the railroad corporation, although it be there by lawful authority..

Also, under these constitutions many cases can be found, to the effect that in order to give the adjoining owner a right of action against the offending corporation, the street need not be entirely destroyed. It need not be closed altogether or wholly abolished. If it is so used and appropriated by the railroad company that its use for a street is very greatly impaired, though it be not closed or destroyed, and that by reason of the manner of constructing or operating the railroad at that point the abutting owner suffers special injury and is very greatly inconvenienced by its presence in gaining access to his property, and the like, be will have his right of action for the special damages so sustained by him, even though the road be there by lawful authority. See in Sedgwick on Construction of Statutory Constitutional law; (2nd ed.) Pomeroy’s notes, p. 458, note a, where a number of cases to this effect are collected.

On the same point in the case of H. & T. C. R. R. Co. v. Odum, above cited, the court says : “If the use of the street by the railroad would necessarily defeat the purpose of its dedication, and in fact amount to its destruction as a street, we are not prepared to say, let the fee be where it may, that the owners of abutting lets might; not claim the constitutional protection. That adjoining lot owners have rights in dedicated public squares beyond legislative control was held by this court in the case of Lamar county vs. Clements, 49 Texas, 348.” Se also Met. Compress Co. vs. Alley cited supra.

On the same subject see Pumpely vs. Green Bay, &c., &c., 13 Wallis, 166, alluding to the rule referred to above that a private individual generally has no right to compensation though his property be somewhat injured and depreciated in value by the occupation by a steam railway of the street in front of his property.

Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
2 Tex. L. R. 696, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gulf-colorado-santa-fe-ry-v-eddins-tex-1884.