Toledo Bending Co. v. Manufacturers' Railway Co.

2 Ohio N.P. 317
CourtLucas County Court of Common Pleas
DecidedMay 25, 1895
StatusPublished

This text of 2 Ohio N.P. 317 (Toledo Bending Co. v. Manufacturers' Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Lucas County Court of Common Pleas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Toledo Bending Co. v. Manufacturers' Railway Co., 2 Ohio N.P. 317 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1895).

Opinion

PRATT, J.

The petition of The Toledo Bending Company v. The Manufacturers’ Railway Company was filed in this court on the 15th day of April, 1895, [318]*318and sets forth the ownership by the plaintiff of certain real estate in the city of Toledo, fronting on Water street 165 feet, and also having a frontage on Olive street on one side and Elm street on the other, each crossing Water street, and on which they had constructed and in operation the wood working manufactory fronting upon and constructed with reference to the Water street frontage. It charges that the defendant company, claiming under a certain ordinance of this city a right to construct, maintain and operate a steam railroad along said Water street, commencing a the center line of Olive street, and passing in front of plaintiffs’ premises and extending along Water street to Locus street, is proceeding to build said railroad; and that the construction and operation of the road would interfere with the private rights and easements of the plaintiff in the street and greatly damage its property and building; that the railroad company has not obtained consent of the plaintiffs for the construction of the road, nor acquired any rights by any proceedings in court. This is substantially the first cause of action.

And by a second cause of action it is alleged that the defendant company has not complied with the terms of the ordinance, by filing its acceptance of the grant, and the bond required by the ordinance.

And by a third cause of action it alleges that said ordinance was not duly and legally passed by the common council.

To this the defendant filed its answer, in which it sets up in full the ordinance under which it claims, and alleges that it was duly passed, and denies that the construction or operation of the road would cause any injury to the plaintiff’s rights.

For answer to the second cause of action, it alleges that it did file— as required by the ordinance — its acceptance and bond; and for answer to the third cause of action, sets up in detail the proceedings of the council in the passage of the ordinance.

The case has been tried upon the merits and upon the issues thus made, and is now to be decided by the court.

It is important, before considering the evidence in the case, to consider certain law questions under which this evidence is to be considered.

I. The Private Right of an Abutting Lot Owner in the Public Street' in Front of His Premises.

It is not necessary to quote from or review at length the constitutional provisions in this state. Section 19 of the Bill of Rights, an.d section 5, article XIII require that when private property is taken for right of way or other public use, full compensation shall first be made to the owner in money, irrespective of any benefits resulting from the improvement, and the amount shall be ascertained by a jury of twelve men.

The first question presented here is, what rights if any, has the plaintiff, as the owner of the lots or lands abutting upon the streets here in question, which come within the designation of private property, and are thereby protected by these constitutional provisions?

It is not necessary in considering this question to go back of the decisions made under our present constitution. The Supreme Court, in the case of Crawford v. Delaware, 7 Ohio St., after the oft-quoted statement as to the respective rights of the public and the lot owners, found on page 469, says: “This easement appendent to the lots, unlike any right of one lot owner in the lot of another, is as much property as the lot itself. ” And, at the bottom of page 470 and the top of page 471, after referring to the effect of cutting down the street by change of grade, so as to prevent access to the street, and, referring to the damage thus occasioned, says: “It is as positive and substantial an injury to private property,and as direct [319]*319an invasion of private right incident to a lot as if the erections upon the lot were taken for public use. It comes not within the letter but manifestly within the spirit of the provisions of the constitution which requires compensation for property taken for public use.”

In the Cumminsville case, in 14 Ohio St., Judge Ranney, after stating in his clear and masterly manner, the distinctions between public and private rights in the streets, says (page 549): “But ivhere these new structures, and new modes of travel, devolve additional burdens upon the land, and materially impair the incidental rights of the owner in the highway, they require more than the public has, or can grant, and the deficiency can only be supplied by appropriating the private right,upon the terms of the constitution.”

Hatch v. R. R. Co., 18 Ohio St., pp. 122 and 123, as also many other cases decided before and since, recognizes the same principle, and the case of R. R. Co., v. Williams, 35 Ohio St. 168-172, is directly in point. That case has been criticized by counsel in the arguments here, but is based upon the Cumminsville case, and, in the course of the opinion, referring to the interest of the property owner in the highway, on page 172, the court says: “This was her property within the meaning of the constitution, subject only to the easement of the public therein. * * * The railroad company, by occupying the highway, constructing its track and operating its trains thereon by steam motive power, completely diverted the highway from the uses and purposes for which it was established.” Adding that this imposes new burdens on the land which could only be acquired by consent or appropriation. And this doctrine has been affirmed in too many decisions of our Supreme Court to warrant citation even of the titles of the cases, the last of these decisions which I have found being that of Daly v. The State, decided in May last, and reported in volume 82 of the Bulletin, page 90 et seq., and in which the language extracted from the opinion of Judge Gilmore in the above case was cited as stating the correct rules of the law in this state. The case the nearest like the one now under consideration in its facts is that of the Ry. Co. v. Lawrence, 38 Ohio St. 41, and this case seems to me to have been decided upon the principles laid down in the cases which I have already referred to. The position taken by counsel for the railway company in that case is stated at the commencement of their argument, as is shown in the report of the case on page 42, as follow's: “The first and principal question presented, is this: Under our constitution and laws, where the city council of a city has granted to a steam railroad company the right of way for its track through a public street of such city regularly dedicated to public use by the original proprietor, has the abutting lot owner such property rights in the street as to entitle him, necessarily and as a matter of law, to condemnation proceedings, or is his remedy one for damages for any consequential injury he may sustain? We maintain that the abutting lot owner has no right to condemnation proceedings under such circumstances.”

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Bluebook (online)
2 Ohio N.P. 317, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/toledo-bending-co-v-manufacturers-railway-co-ohctcompllucas-1895.