Whitsett v. Union Depot & R.

10 Colo. 243
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedOctober 15, 1887
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 10 Colo. 243 (Whitsett v. Union Depot & R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whitsett v. Union Depot & R., 10 Colo. 243 (Colo. 1887).

Opinion

Beck, C. J.

Richard E. Whitsett, since deceased, brought an action in the district court of Arapahoe county to enjoin the defendant in error, the Union Depot & Eailroad Company, from completing the structure then commenced, and since completed, which extends across Seventeenth street, in the city of Denver, near its westerly terminus, and known as the “Union Depot;” and to compel said defendant, and the Denver, South Park & Pacific Eailroad Company, to remove the obstructions [244]*244which they had erected and placed in said street, and the other streets and alleys mentioned in the complaint. Damages, general and special, were prayed for injuries alleged to have been sustained by the plaintiff, and for such as might be sustained before final judgment in the action. The complaint avers that plaintiff is the owner of certain lots described therein, which abut on the streets obstructed, on which are buildings for residence and business purposes; that his lots on Seventeenth street are situated beyond said obstructions from the business center of said city, so that, by reason of the obstructions therein, he, his tenants and other citizens, cannot pass continuously along said street to and from the business center of the city, as they otherwise could and were accustomed to do, but are compelled to go around the obstructions, and are thus made to travel a greater distance in passing to and from said business center. The complaint sets out in detail the history of the location of the Denver city town site, in the year 1859, upon the unsurveyed public domain; the survey, subdivision and platting thereof into lots and blocks, intersected by streets and alleys; the recognition and approval of said subdivision and plat by the residents of said town site, and by the authorities of the city of Denver; the incorporation of said city thereafter, under the name of the “ City of Denver,” .by an act of the territorial legislature passed in 1861; the entry by the probate judge of Arapahoe county at the United States land office, in 1865, of said town site, under and in pursuance of the town-site acts of congress; the conveyance by said probate judge to the parties entitled thereto of the several lots and blocks occupied by them respectively, and the further conveyance in fee to the city of Denver, by said probate judge, of all the streets, alleys and public grounds located and set forth in said survey and plat. Plaintiff aVers that, ever since the survey and subdivision of the town site, he has been a resident of Denver; but does not say that he was an occupant of [245]*245either of the lots alleged to be injured by the construction of the union depot, or that he acquired his title thereto from the probate judge, or from any of his successors, in office. He asserts the legal proposition that the probate judge, after his entry of the town site, and that the city of Denver, since the conveyance to it of the streets, alleys and public grounds referred to, held, and that said city now holds, all the several streets and alleys surveyed and set down in the said plat (which included those now obstructed), in trust, that the same should be ever kept and used solely as public highways; and, upon the abolition or vacating of any of said streets and alleys by lawful authority, to release and convey over to the lawful owners of the abutting lots all that part of the streets and alleys so vacated, from the boundary of such lots to the center of said streets and alleys respectively.

Prior to the happening of the grievances complained of the city council of the city of Denver had, by an ordinance passed on or about the 5th day of January, A. D. 1880, vacated a portion of the streets and alleys mentioned in the complaint, for the purpose of enabling said defendant, the Union Depot & Eailroad Company, to build a union raih-oad depot at that point in the city, and to erect and make such other structures and improvements as were necessarily appurtenant to a union railroad depot. By this ordinance parts of Seventeenth and Wewatta streets were declared vacated, as were also the alleys in the four blocks abutting thereon, upon which the building and its appurtenances were to be constructed. After describing the parts of the streets and alleys vacated, its language is that they “ be, and the same are hereby, vacated and abolished, and the same appropriated to the Union Depot & Eailroad Company and its successors, for its and their sole use, occupancy and benefit, so long as it or its successors shall use the same for the purposes of maintaining a union depot, with necessary tracks, sidings and switches, leading to and from and about the [246]*246same, for the use of railroads, to be held, used and occupied henceforth by said company, its successors and assigns, for the uses and purposes aforesaid: provided, that if the said company, its successors and assigns, shall cease to use and occupy the said parts of said streets and alleys for the purposes aforesaid, then this grant to it and them shall cease and determine; but that the destruction of the proposed depot by fire shall not operate to determine this grant to it, its successors or assigns, unless it or they or either of them shall fail, neglect or refuse to build the same in a reasonable time after such destruction.” While the plaintiff’s lots abut on the streets vacated, none of them abut on the portions thereof vacated. The streets surrounding the several blocks in which his lots are situated remained open and unobstructed.

The ground stated in the complaint as the basis of the claim for special damages is that the plaintiff, on a certain day, was passing along Seventeenth street in a carriage, about his lawful business, and at the point in question was obliged to turn out of said street, and go around the obstructions placed therein, by a longer way than the lawful highway, and to pass over the railway tracks unlawfully placed in said street. The prayer of the complaint is that said ordinance be declared null and void; that the defendants mentioned be restrained from erecting further obstructions in or from occupying said streets and alleys; that they be required to abate and remove all obstructions which they have or shall have erected in Seventeenth street, or in any of said other streets and alleys, before final judgment; for $500 damages, and for other relief.

The defendants demurred to the complaint, on the ground that the matters and things therein stated were not sufficient in law to be answered unto. The court sustained the demurrer, and, plaintiff abiding thereby, the court gave judgment dismissing the action. Plaint[247]*247iff then brought the cause to this court for review by writ of error. After the suing out of the writ of error the death of the plaintiff in error was suggested, and Emma 0. Whitsett, executrix of the estate of the deceased, was duly substituted as plaintiff in error.

The errors assigned are that the court erred in sustaining the demurrer and in dismissing the complaint. The case presented differs in no material particular from the numerous cases wherein the authority of municipal corporations to vacate and abolish streets and alleys has been called in question. The rule established by these adjudications is that, in the absence of any constitutional restriction, the power of the legislature to vacate streets and highways, or to invest municipal corporations with this power, cannot be doubted. 2 Dill. Mun. Corp. § 666; McGee’s Appeal, 8 Atl. Rep.. 237, and authorities cited; People v. Supervisors, 20 Mich. 95; Gray v. Land Co. 26 Iowa, 387; Hoboken v. Hoboken, 36 N. J. Law, 540; Brook v.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
10 Colo. 243, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whitsett-v-union-depot-r-colo-1887.