S. Stewart v. Great Northern Railway Company
| Decision Date | 17 July 1896 |
| Docket Number | 9902--(178) |
| Citation | 68 N.W. 208,65 Minn. 515 |
| Parties | S. STEWART v. GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Petition in the district court for Stevens county for the purpose of acquiring the right, privilege, and easement of erecting and operating a public grain elevator on a site on the right of way of respondent railway company. The petition came on for hearing and assessment of damages before C. L Brown, J., and a jury. The jury assessed the rental and compensation for the lands sought to be taken at one dollar per year, and in gross for the full term of 20 years at $ 20 and the findings and order of the court were in favor of petitioner, and from a judgment entered in pursuance thereof respondent appealed. Affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
M. D. Grover and Cyrus Wellington, for appellant.
Clapp & Macartney, for respondent.
*T, C. J., CANTY, J., concurring.
*T, C. J. [2]
The petitioner (the respondent herein), for the purpose of acquiring the right, privilege, and easement of erecting and operating a public grain elevator for the public, for hire, upon a site on the right of way of the appellant railway company, presented to it an application therefor on June 7, 1894. The application was denied, and thereupon the petitioner, on June 29, 1894, presented to the district court his petition for condemnation of such right and easement, under the provisions of Laws 1893, c. 64 (G. S. 1894, §§ 7724-7729). Such proceedings were had upon such petition that on November 30, 1895, judgment was entered in the district court to the effect that the petitioner was entitled to the privilege and easement sought. The railway company appealed from the judgment.
1. The first and controlling question presented by the record for our consideration is the constitutionality of Laws 1893, c. 64, which is entitled "An act providing for the erection of public grain warehouses and grain elevators on or near the right of way of railways, and providing for condemnation proceedings in connection therewith."
The material provisions of the statute may be summarized as follows:
Section 1 provides that any person or corporation desirous of erecting and operating, at or contiguous to any railway station or siding, a warehouse or elevator for the purchase, sale, shipment, or storage of grain for the public, for hire, may make application for a site therefor, containing a description of that part of the right of way of the railway desired for such purpose, to the party owning, leasing, or operating the railway, for the right, privilege, and easement of erecting and maintaining such warehouse or elevator upon the right of way at such station or siding within the outside switches of the yard of such railway station or siding, upon paying a reasonable compensation for such privilege.
Section 2 requires the applicant to state in his application the amount which he deems such reasonable compensation, and make a tender thereof; and, in case such application is denied by the party to whom it is presented, such compensation shall be assessed by proceedings in the district court.
Sections 3 and 4 prescribe the procedure to be followed in the district court as to the filing of the petition, notice to the railway company, trial, verdict of the jury, and judgment.
Section 5 provides that all elevators or warehouses erected and maintained under the provisions of this act shall be deemed public elevators and public warehouses, shall be subject to legislative control, shall be kept open for business for the public, for reasonable business hours, from September 15 in each calendar year to January 15 in each succeeding calendar year, and that any person, firm, or corporation failing to comply with the provisions of the act shall forfeit the rights, privileges, and easements acquired.
Section 6: Parties availing themselves of the act shall within 60 days after the amount to be paid for the easement is finally determined, by agreement or by proceedings in court, commence the erection of the warehouse or elevator stated in the application, and complete the same within 90 days, or the right shall be deemed to have been abandoned.
The appellant claims that the use for which the land may be taken by virtue of this statute is not a public use. If such is the case, it is unconstitutional, for lands can only be acquired by the exercise of the power of eminent domain for a public use or purpose. What is a public use is a judicial, not a legislative, question; but, if the use is public, the propriety of authorizing the exercise of the power of eminent domain in a particular case is exclusively a legislative question. The term "public use" is flexible, and cannot be limited to the public use known at the time of the forming of the constitution. Any use of anything which will satisfy a reasonable public demand for public facilities for travel or for transmission of intelligence or commodities would be a public use. Mills, Em. Dom. § 21.
The methods of transportation and trade customs relating to the handling, selling, and transporting of the products of this and other grain-growing states render grain elevators a practical necessity in the transfer of grain from the producer to the railway cars by which it is carried to the consumer. They are connecting links in the chain of transportation between the farmers' wagons and the railway cars. Their use in facilitating the handling, storage, and transportation of the products of the state is a public use, and subject to legislative regulation and control. Rippe v. Becker, 56 Minn. 100, 57 N.W. 331; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113, 24 L.Ed. 77; Budd v. New York, 143 U.S. 517, 12 S.Ct. 468, 36 L.Ed. 247; Brass v. North Dakota, 153 U.S. 391, 14 S.Ct. 857, 38 L.Ed. 757. The use to which grain elevators for facilitating the transportation of the products of the state are devoted being a public use, the legislature may authorize the exercise of the power of eminent domain in aid of such use. Gurney v. Minneapolis Union E. Co., 63 Minn. 70, 65 N.W. 136.
We do not understand that the appellant seriously controverts this proposition. Its claim is that the statute authorizes the party seeking the condemnation of land for an elevator site to use it, at his option, either for the purchase, or for the sale, or for the shipment of grain, or for the purpose of storing grain for the public for hire; that he may use the elevator exclusively for the purchase and sale of grain on his own account, at his option; that he may or may not use it for the storage of grain for the public for hire. If this is the proper construction of the statute, if it is optional with the party whether he will use his elevator exclusively for his own private grain business or for the public purpose of facilitating the marketing and transporting of the products of the state, the statute cannot be sustained. It would be unconstitutional, for the reason that it authorizes a party to exercise the power of eminent domain for a public or private use, at his option. Where one construction of a statute will make it void for conflict with the constitution, and another would render it valid, the latter, if not a forced and unreasonable one, will be adopted, although the former, at first view, is otherwise the more natural interpretation of the language used.
The contention of the appellant requires us to construe the words of this statute, "for the purchase, sale, shipment or storage of grain for the public for hire," so as to limit the qualifying words, "for the public for hire," to the storage of grain. Upon a first casual reading of the statute, we were inclined to the view that this was the natural interpretation of the language used. But upon reading these words in connection with the title of the act, which declares that the purpose of the statute is to provide for public grain warehouses and elevators, and for condemnation proceedings in connection therewith, and also in connection with section 5 of the act, declaring all warehouses and elevators erected and maintained under the provisions of the act to be public, and subject to legislative control, we are of the opinion that the statute does not purport to authorize the condemnation of an elevator site for the purpose of carrying on an exclusively private business of buying and selling grain at the option of the party attempting to exercise the power of eminent domain to acquire such site; and, further, that it was not the intention of the legislature by this act to authorize a party to acquire a site for an elevator, to enable him, at his option, to use it as a public elevator or exclusively as an instrumentality in his own private grain business; and that it has not done so.
When the statute is construed with reference to its title, and the abuses that it was intended to correct, and effect is given to all of the provisions of the statute, it is quite clear that the only construction which can be fairly and reasonably given to it is one in harmony with the constitution, viz that the party is only authorized to acquire the right and easement for the purpose of operating a public warehouse or elevator for hire, for the public, for the purchase, sale, shipment, or storage of grain; that is, the party is authorized to acquire the easement for operating an elevator, not to enable himself to purchase, sell, and ship grain to the exclusion of the public, but to enable him to operate a public elevator for hire, to enable the public to use the elevator as an instrumentality for the purchase, sale, shipment, or storage of grain. The words of the statute, "for the public for hire," qualify not alone the words "storage of grain," but the words "purchase, sale and shipment" as well. The...
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