Lake Erie & Western Railroad v. Ziebarth

33 N.E. 256, 6 Ind. App. 228, 1893 Ind. App. LEXIS 131
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 15, 1893
DocketNo. 669
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 33 N.E. 256 (Lake Erie & Western Railroad v. Ziebarth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lake Erie & Western Railroad v. Ziebarth, 33 N.E. 256, 6 Ind. App. 228, 1893 Ind. App. LEXIS 131 (Ind. Ct. App. 1893).

Opinion

Davis, J.

The complaint filed by appellee in this ease against appellant is in two paragraphs. The first paragraph is in the ordinary form of trespass on real estate, and alleges appellant’s wrongful breaking into and entering upon certain of appellee’s lands; the wrongful taking down and removing of a fence standing thereon; the plowing up of the surface of the earth, making embankment and ditches, etc., and the wrongful appropriation of said lands, and the disturbing of appellee in the use and occupation thereof, and preventing her from using and enjoying the same, etc. The third paragraph of the complaint (the second having been withdrawn) also founts in tres[230]*230pass. The same acts are alleged as in the first, and, in addition thereto, avers in substancio: Tbat appellant then and there took possession of said real estate, described as follows : beginning on the section line three hundred and thirty and one-half feet east of the northwest corner of section eleven (11) in township twenty-one (21) north, in range one (1) east; thence east on said section line to the northeast corner of the west half of the northwest quarter of said section eleven (11); thence south fifty (50) feet; thence west parallel with said section line to a point due south of the place of beginning; thence north fifty (50) feet to the place of beginning, and permanently appropriated all of the same to its own use and purpose, and has entirely destroyed its value for any other purpose, and wholly deprived .appellee of the use and occupancy of the same; that appellant had not in any manner condemned, nor in any legal manner appropriated the land, nor paid or tendered any sum of money to ajspellee for the land and its use; that appellee is the owner of other real estate adjoining the lands so taken, and that by said taking and appropriation appellee’s farm has been greatly lessened in value, etc.

The first paragraph of the answer was a general denial. Briefly stated, the averments of the second ])aragraph of. the amended answer show the following facts :

That on and prior to the 25th clay of July, 1870, the Lafayette, Mnncie & Bloomington Railroad Company, which was a corporation duly organized under the laws of this State, and'invested with all the rights and powers ordinarily granted by law to corporations organized in this State for the purpose of building and operating railroads, was projecting a line of railroad from Muncie, Indiana, to the State line between the States of Indiana and Illinois, which projected line of railroad extended into and through Clinton County, Indiana; that on said day it procured from one Jacob Ileise, a deed, or grant, of right [231]*231of way over certain of his lands, which reads as follows :

“This indenture made this 25th day of July, 1870, between Jacob Heise, of the first part, and the Lafayette, Muncie & Bloomington Railroad Company, a corporation duly organized and incorporated under the laws of the State of Indiana, of the second part., witnesseth:
“That the party of the first part, in consideration of the sum of one dollar in hand, paid by the party of the second part, hereby conveys and warrants to said party of the second part, its successors and assigns, the right of way for the construction and operation of said company’s railroad, being a strip of land one hundred feet in width upon such route and line as the said company has located, or may locate and construct, the said road through and over the following described land in Clinton County, in said State, to wit:
“ The west half of the north-west, quarter of section eleven (11), in township twenty-one (21) north, range one (1) east.
“ This conveyance shall include all materials necessary to construct and maintain said railroad, which may he found in the strip of land aforesaid.
“The estate granted hereby is upon condition that the strip of land aforesaid shall he used for said railroad purposes only, and when the same shall, after the road is constructed, cease to be used for such purposes, then the same shall revert to the party of the first part, his heirs and assigns.”

Then follows the formal conclusion, signature, and acknowledgment.

It is further averred in the answer that instead of building its line of road over the Heise land, the Lafayette, Muncie & Bloomington Railroad Company procured another right of way over land lying immediately north of the Heise land, over which it located and constructed its line of railroad; that long after such construction the [232]*232appellant, through certain proceedings which are set out, in February, 1887, became the successor and owner of all the rights of the Lafayette, Muncie & Bloomington Railroad Company, including said right of way mentioned in said deed, and that since said date appellant had been engaged in the ordinary operation of its railroad, improving its roadbed and its facilities for the transaction of its business with the public, at the stations and towns along its line of road; that in the summer and fall of the year 1889, its increasing business having made additional switching facilities necessary at its station or town of Boylston, which town had been built up partly on the Iieise land and partly on adjoining land, appellant entered and constructed such switch upon the land described in the complaint, it being a part of the land described in the Iieise grant; that appellee, being a daughter and one of the heirs of the said Jacob Iieise, had inherited from him an interest in the land described in the Iieise grant, and on December 14,1881, had purchased the remaining interest therein from the widow and other heirs of Jacob Iieise.

The first paragraph of reply to the second paragraph of answer was a general denial. The second paragraph of reply, in substance, admits that appellee acquired the land partly by descent and partly by purchase, as alleged in the answer; that the said Jacob Iieise, who was her ancestor, while he was the owner of said real estate, at the time in the answer stated, executed the deed of-right of way set out in the answer. It then avers, in substance, that more than nineteen years before the bringing of this action, and the doing of the wrongs and acts in the complaint alleged, appellant’s predecessor, being the grantee in said grant, wholly abandoned said grant and neglected and refused to build and erect its said railroad over and upon the right of way granted, but that appellant’s predecessor in title, before the building of said railroad, and after the execution of the said grant by Iieise, procured the right of way from one [233]*233Lewis V. Boyle, across lands lying to the north of appellee’s said lands, upon which it built and erected its railroad, and did not build its said road upon appellee’s land, nr upon any of the lands so granted by Jacob Heise.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
33 N.E. 256, 6 Ind. App. 228, 1893 Ind. App. LEXIS 131, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lake-erie-western-railroad-v-ziebarth-indctapp-1893.