Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Louisville & N. R.

238 F. 26, 1917 U.S. App. LEXIS 1241
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 2, 1917
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 238 F. 26 (Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Louisville & N. R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Louisville & N. R., 238 F. 26, 1917 U.S. App. LEXIS 1241 (5th Cir. 1917).

Opinion

WALKER, Circuit Judge.

The bill in this case was filed by the appellant, the Western Union Telegraph Company, against the appellee, the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, on the 15th day of April, 1915. Its averments showed that at the time the bill was filed, and for a number of years prior to that date) the plaintiff had telegraph lines on the rights of way of specified railroads in Georgia 'which were owned or controlled by the defendant, and used such rights of way and [29]*29buildings, offices, stations, and premises of the defendant in the conduct of its telegraph business, and that on or about August 5, 1912, the defendant notified the plaintiff that on and after August 17, 1912, the use and occupation of its railroad rights o'! way or any part thereof, and its stations, buildings, and offices by the plaintiff for a telegraph line would be without the permission and against the consent of the defendant, and notified the plaintiff to vacate the defendant’s railroad rights of way, buildings, offices, stations, and premises, and to commence to remove therefrom immediately after August 17, 1912, and not later than September 1, 1912, all of the plaintiff’s telegraph lines, and all poles, wires, cross-arms, batteries, instruments, appliances, and fixtures appurtenant and belonging thereto, and to complete the removal thereof prior to December 1, 1912, and that in the event of the plaintiff’s failure to comply with this demand the defendant would take possession, appropriate, and use said poles, cross-arms, wires, batteries, instruments, appliances, and other fixtures, or so much thereof as may on ánd after December 1, 1912, be or remain on defendant’s rights of way or premises, and would use, operate, maintain, or otherwise dispose of the same as defendant’s own property, and refuse to longer permit the plaintiff to remove or use the same in any manner or for any purpose.

The bill asserted that on and prior to August 5, 1912, the plaintiff was, and at the present time is, seised and possessed of irrevocable, perpetual, assignable easements or rights for the construction, maintenance, and operation of said telegraph lines upon, along, or over the mentioned railroad rights of way of the defendant, and to continue to use the defendant’s rights of way in the operation of its telegraph business, and prayed that the defendant be restrained and enjoined from interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the enjoyment by the plaintiff of the rights and easements so claimed by it, and prayed further that, if the court should determine that the plaintiff’s rights and easements in the defendant’s rights of way were not irrevocable and perpetual, and that the defendant is entitled to compensation therefor, a decree be rendered in this cause determining the amount of compensation the defendant is entitled to receive from the plaintiff therefor, or, in the event that it ,should be adjudged that such compensation should not, or cannot, be fixed and decreed in this cause, that the plaintiff be permitted to institute appropriate proceedings for the purpose of fixing and determining such compensation, and that, pending such proceedings, the defendant be restrained and enjoined from interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the enjoyment by the plaintiff of the use for its telegraph business of the defendant’s rights of way and premises. The bill also contained a prayer for such other or further relief as the nature of the case may require or that equity may afford. On motion of the defendant the bill was dismissed, and a restraining order which had been made was vacated. The appeal is from the decree to this effect.

The railroads of the defendant, which the^plaintiff claims are subject to the easements and rights in .its favor asserted by the bill are the lines in Georgia which the defendant, in the year 1902, purchased from [30]*30the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway Company, being lines extending from Marietta, Blue Ridge, and Cartersville northwardly in. the'direction of Knoxville, Tenn., and northeastwardly to the Tennessee state line, in the direction of Murphy, N. C., and also the line extending from Junta, in Bartow county, northwardly through the counties of Bartow, Gordon, and Murray to the northern boundary line of Georgia, on or along the right of way of which line the plaintiff constructed a telegraph line in 1905.

[1] The averments of the bill show that the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway Company, several years prior to the sale of its properties to the defendant, acquired the ownership of telegraph lines which had been constructed on its railroad rights of way extending from Marietta northwardly through Blue Ridge to the state line, and from Blue Ridge northwestwardly to the state line, and that in the year 1898 it sold and by deed, a copy of which is made an exhibit to the bill, duly conveyed to the plaintiff that telegraph property “together with full right and license to maintain, operate, repair, and renew the said lines upon and along the right of way of said Railway Company, to have and to hold the same unto said Western Union Telegraph Company, its successors and assigns, to and for its and their use and behoof forever.” The grantor in this deed was the owner of the telegraph property described in it, and also of the railroad rights of way upon which that property was then located and used. The deed as plainly embraced and conveyed, without reservation or limitation of time, the right to make the specified use of the grantor’s described railroad rights of way as it did the telegraph lines and properties enumerated. That deed sufficiently supports the plaintiff’s claim that it is the owner of such an easement as is asserted to exist in its favor with reference to the railroad rights of way described in it, unless that instrument has been deprived of the effect which its terms import as a result of one or both of two contracts, copies of which are made exhibits to the bill, which the plaintiff entered into, one between the plaintiff and the grantor in that deed, and the other between the plaintiff and the defendant in this case, which subsequently purchased from the grantor in that deed.

[2] The mentioned deed to the plaintiff was executed on the 9th day of February, 1898, and the contract between the plaintiff and the grantor in that deed purports to have been made on the 16th day of February, 1898; but that contract contains this recital:

“That whereas, the telegraph company has by conveyance of even date herewith purchased the telegraph lines along the railway company’s railroads from Knoxville, Tenn., to Marietta, Ga., and from Blue Ridge, Ga., to Murphy, N. C., said purchase having been made on condition that a working agreement be entered into between the parties hereto, covering said railroads and said telegraph lines, and any extensions or branches of said railroads, and any railroads hereafter owned, leased, or controlled by the railway company party hereto.” '

While the two instruments bear different dates of execution, yet as the recifal quoted shows that the parties to them treated them as contemporaneously executed, and that the one was made on the condition that the other would be made, it may be assumed that they should be [31]*31treated and construed as parts of one transaction. The contract provided that:

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Bluebook (online)
238 F. 26, 1917 U.S. App. LEXIS 1241, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/western-union-telegraph-co-v-louisville-n-r-ca5-1917.