Malleable Coal Co. v. Potter

108 S.E. 900, 89 W. Va. 214, 18 A.L.R. 717, 1921 W. Va. LEXIS 167
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 11, 1921
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 108 S.E. 900 (Malleable Coal Co. v. Potter) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Malleable Coal Co. v. Potter, 108 S.E. 900, 89 W. Va. 214, 18 A.L.R. 717, 1921 W. Va. LEXIS 167 (W. Va. 1921).

Opinion

Poffenbarger, Judge:

Appellant, tlie Malleable Coal Company, complains of an order of the Circnit Court of Lincoln County, entered in vacation, dissolving an injunction inhibiting the appellee Roman Pickens, from interfering with the operation of what is called the tipple track of the Cobbs Creek Railway, and especially from tearing up that track, and commanding the ap-pellees, James Potter and Charles Morgan, alleged owners and operators of said railway, without discrimination against said Malleable Coal Company, to haul its coal over said tipple track, for dumping into railway cars on a sidetrack of the Coal River branch of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.

The theory of the bill and of the injunction order awarded thereon is that the Cobbs Creek Railway is a common carrier, and, as such, wrongfully ceased and refused, on or about September 18, 1920, further to haul coal of the plaintiff from its mine situated somewhere on the main line of the railway, in the Cobbs Creek Valley, over said tipple track, at the instance, and by reason of the protest of the defendant, Roman Pickens, on whose land said tipple track is located; and that, soon after September 27, 1920, the Public Service Commission of this state having ordered said railway company to resume the hauling of the plaintiff’s coal, Pickens and his employees wrongfully tore up portions of that track and thus prevented obedience to the order.

The temporary injunction inhibited Pickens from further molestation of the track and required the railway company to restore the portion of it that had been torn up and resume and continue the hauling of the coal.

If the facts disclosed by the pleadings and the depositions taken and filed justified dissolution of the injunction, it will be unnecessary to enter upon any inquiry as to the propriety of the remedy invoked by the plaintiff. Sufficiency of the bill was not tested by any demurrer thereto. In a paper filed by him, the defendant, Pickens, demurred to the bill [216]*216and answered it, but that paper was not filed as a demurrer. On the hearing' of the motion, it was filed as an answer, together with the answer ,of Charles Morgan filed in the same way, and treated as an affidavit. A demurrer incorporated in the body of an answer, but not mentioned or referred to in the caption thereof, nor in any decree or order in the cause, is disregarded and treated as a fugitive paper, because it does not appear to have been brought to the attention of the court. Pheasant v. Hanna, 63 W. Va. 613. It is not perceived that mention of the demurrer in the caption can make any difference. The paper was never filed as a demurrer and the caption is not material. Nothing in the order suggests consideration of the bill as to its sufficiency.

The Cobbs Creek Railway is a narrow-gauge road built primarily for the hauling of logs and lumber, about the year 1906, by the Mohler Lumber Co., in conjunction with one W.' W. Smoot, the former furnishing the materials and the latter doing the construction work, with the understanding that he should have forty-five per cent, of the profits arising from the operation of the road, and the Lumber Company fifty-five per cent. Near the mouth of Cobbs Creek, it connected with what was then the Coal River Railroad, now the Coal River Branch of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. At that point, it was necessary to pass over the land of Pickens, for some distance, and the Mohler Lumber Company procured a lease of about two acres of the Pickens land, within which the main line and a side-track called the loading track and some other terminal facilities were located. The track now in controversy, the tipple track, was not built at that time, nor until the year 1917. Nor is the Mohler Lumber Company lease very important now since it expired in the year 1913. Lumber and timber transportation over the road, by the Mohler Lumber Company, seems to have terminated about the year 1909, -and, early in that year, the operators of the road began to transport oil well supplies over it up into the Cobbs Creek region of country. Thereupon a controversy is said to have arisen between Pickens and the lumber company, as to right in the latter to transport anything other than timber and timbering supplies' over the land. Smoot says he became [217]*217the sole owner of it in July 1918, and operated it until September 1, 1919, on wbieb date it passed into tbe bands of James Potter and Company, under a contract of purchase, made about July 1, 1919. Smoot may have owned the road individually at an earlier date.

He operated .it under the arrangement between himself and the Mohler Lumber Company, or as his own, and constructed what is known as the tipple track in 1917, when he was paying Pickens rent at the rate of $75.00 per month. It seems to be about 500 feet long and turns off from the main line near the point at which that line emerges from the Cobbs Creek valley, and crossing level land between that line and the hill, runs up along the hillside to a point at which the tipple used by the Malleable Coal Co. stands apparently on the right of way of the C. & 0. Railway, in part, and on the land of Pickens, in part. The ownership of the tipple seems to be conceded to the Malleable Coal Co., but by whom it was erected is not clearly disclosed.- This track was never used for any purpose other than the transportation of the Malleable Coal Company’s coal from its mine somewhere up Cobbs Creek to this tipple. Both Smoot and Pickens testify that it was constructed under a verbal permit given by the latter and without charge for the use and occupation of the land. Smoot says he hauled coal for the Malleable Coal Co. until December 1918, at which time that company closed its mine, but that Pickens had interrupted his use of it on two occasions, before he ceased to use it by reason of the closing of the mine. Pickens says he gave Smoot permission to use the land for that track until he should need it himself. Under the impression that he would have no further use for the track, Smoot took up the rails from it in March 1919. Between that date and July 1, 1919, he entered into negotiations with James Potter and Company, for sale of the railway to them for use in connection with their oil and gas operations in the Cobbs Creek country in which they had a lease of 12,900 acres of oil territory. The sale seems to have been made as of July 1, 1919, but, late in June of that year a flood damaged the railway, and Smoot had to repair it be[218]*218fore the purchasers would consummate their contract. In doing so, he used the rails taken from the tipple track.

On July 1, 1919, the date of the purchase of the railway, and after the rails had been taken from the tipple track and while the mine of the Malleable Coal Company was closed, James Potter and Company leased from Pickens, for a period of five years, at a rental of $100.00 per month, what is described as about a quarter of an acre of land, as being the same tract of land which was occupied by the terminal of the Cobbs Creek Railway, as having one office building, one hoisting house, one small freight house and one sand house on it, and as being then under lease by the month to the Cobbs Creek Railway Company. Under this lease the lessee has the privilege of renewal for an additional five years and also the privilege of termination, upon three months notice and the payment of all rentals, at any time within the term.

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Bluebook (online)
108 S.E. 900, 89 W. Va. 214, 18 A.L.R. 717, 1921 W. Va. LEXIS 167, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/malleable-coal-co-v-potter-wva-1921.