Pittsburgh & Western Railway Co. v. Garlick

11 Ohio Cir. Dec. 337
CourtOhio Circuit Courts
DecidedApril 15, 1900
StatusPublished

This text of 11 Ohio Cir. Dec. 337 (Pittsburgh & Western Railway Co. v. Garlick) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Circuit Courts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pittsburgh & Western Railway Co. v. Garlick, 11 Ohio Cir. Dec. 337 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1900).

Opinion

Kaubie, J-

The Pittsburgh & Western Railway Company, Thomas M. King,, receiver of the Pittsburgh & Western Railway Company, and the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company, against Henry M. Garlick, the Pittsburgh, Youngstown and Ashtabula Railroad Company,, and the Pennsylvania Company, is here upon appeal and has been tried, and submitted to the court.

The action was brought to quiet the title of the Pittsburgh & Western. Railway Company to a certain strip of land in this city at Spring Common, as it is called, that company alleging that Henry M. Garlick claims, to own, and threatens, or is about to take steps, to compel that company,, under the statute, to appropriate such land; and the company alleges-that his claim is a cloud upon its title, and asks to have its title quieted; as against him, and for an injunction to restrain him from any such proceeding. The defendant, The Pittsburgh, Youngstown and Ashtabula Railway Company, files a cross-petition for the same purpose in regard, to a portion of the lands, alleging substantially the same facts against Garlick as alleged by plaintiff. Garlick lays claim to this property by deed from the heirs of the Parmelees. The Pittsburgh & Western Railway Company claims to own this land by intermediate conveyance to-the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company by the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company, and the question arises-whether or not the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company-had any title to that land.

The New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company was in possession of the premises when it made and executed this deed to the-Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company, and it possibly had no title to the land when it gave the deed.

Counsel for Garlick seem to base their contention that no title was-conveyed by this deed, upon the presumption that all of the facts and rights of the parties are to be determined as of the time the deed was-[339]*339made. That if the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company had no title, then none could vest in the grantee. But this is a mistake, a contention we can not agree with, and is contrary to the covenants in the deed. If the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company acquired title thereafter, that title inured to the benefit of its grantee, the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company, if for no other reason, for the reason that the deed estops the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company, or any one claiming by or through it, from ever making any claim to the land. The deed of the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company to the Pittsburgh, Cleveland & Toledo Railroad Company quit-claims “ all title that it has or that it ought to have ” to the land in question, and it covenants in that deed •“ that neither it nor its successors or assigns, or any one claiming title by, through or from it shall ever assert any title ” to those lands; so that, if the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company, after the execution of this deed, obtained title to the lands, that title inured to the benefit of the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Campansq its grantees or assigns.

Prior to 1880, the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company was in the possession, as lessee in perpetuity; of the Cleveland and Mahoning Valley railway, and in 1880, the Cleveland and Mahoning Valley Railway Company was compelled to commence appropriation proceedings to appropriate certain lands, of which the land in question was a part, and of which it and its said lessee were in possession, for a branch track for the benefit of its lessee, The New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company, making that company and the Parmelees and other parties; and compensation was awarded to the Parmelees as the owners of the land- of which the strip in question was a part to its full value of over $13,000, which was paid by the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company ; and subsequently the Cleveland and Mahoning Valley Railway Company executed and conveyed to the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company all the right and title to the lands in question which it had acquired by and through such appropriation proceeding; and this title, thus acquired, inured to be the benefit of the former grantee of the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company, the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company, and to its grantee, the Pittsburgh and Western Railway Company. But at all events, the defendant, Garlick, is not in a position to raise this question. He is not claiming the land by any title derived from or through the New Hork, Pennsylvania & Ohio Railroad Company, or the Cleveland & Mahoning Valley Railway Company, but in opposition to them. The plaintiffs are in possession, and Garlick can recover the land, or compel its appropriation as owner, only on the strength of his own title. As grantee of the original owners, the Parmelees, he can do neither, unless, as he claims, the conveyance by the Cleveland & Mahoning Valley Railway Company to the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio Railroad Company, and by the latter company to the Pittsburg, Cleveland & Toledo Railroad Company of a part of the tract appropriated, worked an abandonment of that part of the land.

I pass now to the principal contention of the defendant Garlick, that the conveyance by the Cleveland and Mahoning Valley Railway Company to the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company, and bv that company to the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company, was in law an abandonment of the right acquired by the [340]*340Cleveland & Mahoning Valley Railway Company by the appropriation of the land; that thereby the land reverted to the original owners, the Parmelees. But little weight can be attached to this claim so far as the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company is concerned, because it was a party to the appropriation; and not only'did the Cleveland and Mahoning Valley Railway Company allege in that proceeding that the appropriation was for the benefit of its lessee, the New York, .Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company, but the latter company paid the compensation awarded to the owners of the land, the Parmelees.

Nor can we agree to the contention that the sale and conveyance by the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company to the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company of a part of the tract thus appropriated by the Cleveland and Mahoning Valley Railway Company, worked an abandonment of so much of the tract.

The question of abandonment is said to be a question of “ intention.” The Junction Railroad Co. v. Ruggles, 7 Ohio St., 1; Hatch v. Railroad Co., 18 Ohio St., 92. And in Junction Railroad Co. v. Ruggles, supra, it was held that where there is no limit as to time expressed in a grant to a railroad company for a right of way, the easement is perpetual, and a sale of part of the line to another railroad company is not an abandonment of the easement. In that case, the lands in question, or the easement, was not appropriated, but was obtained by grant. The owner, Ruggles, agreed to quitclaim to the original company, if it would construct and‘maintain its. road over and upon his lands, so much thereof as it might acquire by appropriation, for the uses and purposes of its railroad.

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Bluebook (online)
11 Ohio Cir. Dec. 337, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pittsburgh-western-railway-co-v-garlick-ohiocirct-1900.