Nuttle v. Wichita Railroad & Light Co.

256 P. 128, 123 Kan. 517, 1927 Kan. LEXIS 284
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedMay 7, 1927
DocketNo. 27,363
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 256 P. 128 (Nuttle v. Wichita Railroad & Light Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nuttle v. Wichita Railroad & Light Co., 256 P. 128, 123 Kan. 517, 1927 Kan. LEXIS 284 (kan 1927).

Opinion

-The opinion of the court was delivered by

Dawson, J.:

The plaintiff sought to enjoin the defendant street-railway company from constructing a wye switch at a street intersection close to his residence in Wichita.

Until shortly before this action was begun, the defendant’s railway terminus in that locality was at Roosevelt street and Douglas avenue about four blocks west of plaintiff’s residence. At the terminus was an old and somewhat worn and noisy wye switch.

This action was begun when the defendant had set about the extension of its railway eastward along Douglas avenue to the intersection of South Belmont and Douglas, at the southwest corner of which plaintiff’s residence is located, and to relocate the old wye switch at the new terminus on South Belmont, some 25.6 feet from plaintiff’s front door.

Plaintiff alleged that—

“Said material is old, worn and noisy, and that the switches and frogs of said ‘Y’ or ‘turnout’ are operated by springs, and the operation of the same is accompanied by loud and vexatious noise and clanking.
“That the maintenance and operation of said ‘Y’ or ‘turnout’ in South Belmont avenue will be occasioned by great and vexatious noise caused by the grinding of the wheels of the street cars of the defendants upon the curves of said ‘turnout’ and caused by the operations of said switches and frogs and the stopping and starting of said street cars in said street, . . . .will be nuisances, . . . which greatly interfere with the use and enjoyment of plaintiff’s residence and home, . . . and injure the use of plaintiff’s said residence as a home, and will cause plaintiff and his family great annoyance and disturbance.”

Defendant pleaded its franchise to use the streets of Wichita for the construction and operation of its railway, subject to such reasonable regulations as the city government from timé to time might prescribe.

Upon the evidence adduced by the parties, the trial court made findings of fact, some of which read:

“Seventh. The switches, curves and track used in the wye or turnout in Circle Drive [at Roosevelt and Douglas] are several years old and have become somewhat noisy in their operation and unless they are repaired the noise [519]*519from the use of such appliances will increase as the appliances are used; but the switches, curves and track used in said wye or turnout in Circle Drive are not' unusually noisy when being operated.
“Eighth. The defendants, and each of them, intend to extend said streetcar line eastward upon said Douglas avenue to South Belmont avenue and remove said switches, turnouts and appliances from Circle Drive and place same in Belmont avenue, and intend to use the same switches, frogs, curves and turnouts as are now in use in Circle Drive, after the same have been put in good condition and repair, and that in the event of such use the switches, switch tracks, frogs, curves and turnouts will be placed in South Belmont avenue immediately in front of plaintiff’s property and immediately in front of the front door of plaintiff’s house, and said tracks and appliances will extend in South Belmont avenue along the entire front of plaintiff’s property.
“Ninth. By virtue of an ordinance of the city of Wichita, Kansas, the said defendant the Wichita Railway & Light Company is authorized, empowered and granted the right to construct, operate and maintain a system of street railways, either double or single track, over, under and along South' Belmont avenue, in Wichita, Kansas, and to erect and maintain their poles, overhead wires and lines, to lay roadbeds and rails, and, in short, to do all construction necessary for the construction, operation and maintenance of their .railway system upon said South Belmont avenue, including the construction and maintenance of a wye in said street.
“Sixteenth. The plaintiff, in his petition, does not seek to enjoin the construction or extension of the street-car line of the defendants or the operation of street cars in Douglas avenue on the north of plaintiff’s property, but plaintiff does seek to enjoin the placing, construction or maintenance of the wye or turnout hereinabove mentioned in South Belmont avenue, and particularly the use and operation in South Belmont avenue of the old frogs, switches, turnouts and curves now in use by defendants in Circle Drive.
“Seventeenth. The city engineer of Wichita, Kansas, has approved the plan for the construction of said wye in said South Belmont avenue.”

Judgment for defendant was entered, and plaintiff appeals. He presents the usual assignment of errors, but the burden of his complaint is directed toward the general result — the judgment for the street railway company. This is natural enough under the circumstances. Plaintiff has a $20,000 residence in front of which this switch is to be constructed. But the switch has to be located in front of some man’s property, and plaintiff has no greater claim to be freed from its noise than any other property owner. There are, indeed, some other street intersections thereabout where no fine residences are yet erected; but they will come along with the continued growth of the city, and if a noisy street railway switch is a nuisance, it would hardly be just to construct it in front of some [520]*520other worthy citizens’ homesite thereabout rather than in front of plaintiff’s merely because the other man has not yet got his house built. A wye switch is an incidental but essential requisite to the operation of a street railway, and the noise attendant on its operation is simply one of the inconveniences which inevitably attend the establishment of a residence in a city where street railways are lawfully permitted to construct and operate their transportation facilities.

In Railway Co. v. Armstrong, 71 Kan. 366, 374, 80 Pac. 946, where complaint was made of the smoke, gas and cinders emitted from railway locomotives near plaintiff’s residence, the court said:

“The inconveniences and discomfitures of which the plaintiff complains are such as all persons who live along a line of railroad must endure without other compensation than the conveniences enjoyed by living in proximity to such public thoroughfare.” (p. 374.)

In Balt. & Potomac R. R. Co. v. Fifth Bap. Church, 108 U. S. 317, 27 L. Ed. 739, 744, the supreme court affirmed a judgment awarding damages against a railroad company which had erected its engine house and machine shops so close to plaintiff’s church edifice as to interfere with the religious exercises, break up its Sunday school, and destroy the value of the building as a place of public worship. But in the course of the court’s opinion, Mr. Justice Field said:

“Undoubtedly, a railway over the public highways of the district, including the streets of the city of Washington, may be authorized by congress, and if when used with reasonable care it produced only that incidental inconvenience which unavoidably follows the additional occupation of the streets by its cars with the noises and disturbances necessarily attending their use, no one can complain that he is incommoded. Whatever consequential annoyance may necessarily follow from the running of cars on the road with reasonable care is damnum absque injuria.

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Related

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186 P.2d 556 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1947)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
256 P. 128, 123 Kan. 517, 1927 Kan. LEXIS 284, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nuttle-v-wichita-railroad-light-co-kan-1927.