Cunningham v. Boston & W. St. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 May 1905
• Citation: 74 N.E. 355,188 Mass. 250
• Parties: CUNNINGHAM et al. v. BOSTON & W. ST. RY. CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

188 Mass. 250

74 N.E. 355

CUNNINGHAM et al. v. BOSTON & W. ST. RY. CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 20, 1905

COUNSEL

Victor J. Loring and C. S. Quinn, for plaintiffs.

Guy W Cox, for defendant.

OPINION

LORING J.

With two exceptions, all the questions raised in this case have been disposed of by a stipulation entered into between the parties since the argument. The two questions not so disposed of relate to the validity of two restrictions contained in the location of the defendant corporation's railway in the town of Wellesley over Worcester street, otherwise known as the 'Boston & Worcester Turnpike,' in said town to wit, so much of the fifth as requires the defendant to light said street to the extent there prescribed, and the fifteenth, which regulates fares in Wellesley, and between the junction of the defendant's tracks with those of the Boston Elevated Railway in Brookline, to any point in Wellesley, and from any point in Wellesley to the junction of the defendant's tracks with those of the Natick & Cochituate Street Railway tracks in Natick.

On the question of fares, the case of Keefe v. Lexington & Boston Street Railway, 185 Mass. 183, 70 N.E. 37, is decisive. The location there in question was governed by the same provisions of law as those which govern the location here in question. The only difference is that the acts in force when the location in Keefe v. Lexington & Boston Street Railway was granted had been reenacted in the Revised Laws when the location here in question was granted. We find nothing in the argument attacking the decision made in that case which requires discussion.

This brings us to the question of lights. Apart from the fact that by the last clause of St. 1893, p. 743, c. 13, restrictions in locations made before that act are put on the same footing as restrictions under the act (Dunbar v. Old Colony Street Railway, 74 N.E. 352), the restriction as to lights in the case at bar is of the same character as that as to watering in Newcomb v. Norfolk Western Street Railway, 61 N.E. 42, just cited, and that as to repairs in Dunbar v. Old Colony Street Railway, 74 N.E. 352. Electric cars in a reserved space ordinarily are run at such a rate of speed that it might well be thought that a grant of the right to run them makes it necessary to have 100 lights of 25 candle power each, in the distance of five miles. It is not necessary to...