Lyman v. Boston & Worcester Railroad

58 Mass. 288

• Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
• Decided: October 15, 1849
• Status: Published

Opinion

Dewey, J.

*

The statute of 1840, c. 85, imposes upon railroad corporations a general liability for damages occasioned by fire communicated from their locomotive engines. It is contended, however, that the provisions of this statute do not apply to a case like the present, where the title of the plaintiff is derived from one who has himself, by his deed, granted the land embraced within the location of the railroad, and by the very terms of the grant has conveyed it for the purpose of being thus used for a railroad. The argument is, that the grantor having thus granted a certain definite parcel of land, for the purpose of a railroad, out of a much larger parcel retained by him, the grant is subject to all the consequences necessarily attendant upon such a use of the same, and particularly such as would result from the running of engines, and the exposure of property in his adjacent land to such injury and loss as would naturally result therefrom; and that the railroad corporation, while in the exercise of their appropriate business, are only responsible for ordinary care and diligence in the manner of using their road.

It is not contended, that the statute was not intended to embrace the case of those whose land has been taken under the provisions of the charter of the railroad; but the argument assumes a distinction between those who convey the right to appropriate a portion of their land to the proprietors of a railroad, by deed, and those who do no other act than suffer their land to be taken by such proprietors, under their authority to enter upon and take land for the purposes of then road, paying therefor such damages as the county commissioners or a jury shall award.

We can perceive no sound distinction between the cases supposed. Each of these modes of acquiring the necessary real estate for the purpose of a railroad is authorized, both by the general laws and by the acts creating railroad corporations. In each, the land owner is supposed to receive full satisfaction for all the injuries necessarily resulting from the use of the same for a railroad. But with the use of locomotive engines, greater hazard to contiguous buildings and property owned by the adjacent land owners may arise, than was originally contemplated, or ought to be left to the ordinary common law remedies.

We consider this provision of the statute of 1840, c. 85, as one of those general remedial acts passed for the more effectual protection of property, against the hazards to which it has become subject by the introduction of the locomotive engine. The right to use the parcel of land appropriated to a railroad does not deprive the legislature of the power to enact such regulations, and impose such liabilities for injuries suffered from the mode of using the road, as the occasion and circumstances may reasonably justify.

These provisions in the act referred to are of general import, and equally embrace the cases of those who have by deed granted to a railroad corporation the right to enter upon and use their land, or have given a title to the land itself included within the location, and those other persons whose land has been taken and held merely by the force of the location of the railroad under the charter authority. These principles, we think, are sufficient to decide the present case, and warrant us in ordering judgment for the plaintiff.

Fletcher., J., did not sit in this cause.