Indian River Steamboat Co. v. East Coast Transp. Co.

• Decision Date: 21 December 1891
• Citation: 10 So. 480,28 Fla. 387
• Parties: INDIAN RIVER STEAM-BOAT CO. v. EAST COAST TRANSP. CO.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

10 So. 480

28 Fla. 387

INDIAN RIVER STEAM-BOAT CO. v. EAST COAST TRANSP. CO.

Florida Supreme Court

December 21, 1891

Appeal from circuit court, Brevard county; D. BROOME, Judge.

Bill by the Indian River Steam-Boat Company against the East Coast Transportation Company to restrain it from using certain docks. From a decree dissolving the injunction and dismissing the bill the steam-boat company appeals. Modified.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

1. Pending a motion to dissolve an injunction on bill and answer, exceptions are filed to portions of the answer not in response to the bill. The filing of such exceptions is of itself no objection to the dissolution of the injunction where the portion of the answer not excepted to contains a sufficient denial of the equities of the bill.

2. A motion to dissolve an injunction on bill and answer involves the sufficiency of the equities of the bill to justify the writ in the first instance.

3. A court of chancery will not grant an injunction to restrain a trespass merely because it is a trespass; yet it will interfere by injunction where the injury is irreparable, or where full and adequate relief cannot be granted at law, or where it is necessary to prevent a multiplicity of suits, and especially where the trespasser is alleged to be insolvent and nothing can be realized on judgments that may be obtained against him at law. In such cases it will not do to simply allege that the complainant has no adequate remedy at law and that his damages will be irreparable. The court will not act upon his opinion or his fears in such matters, but he must state facts in his bill to enable the court to determine whether or not his alleged injury will be irreparable.

4. On motion to dissolve an injunction on bill and answer, where sufficient equities are stated in the bill, the court will look to such facts of the answer only as are responsive to the bill; and a respondent will not be permitted to rely upon new matter in avoidance, in his answer, not in response to the allegations upon which the equities of the bill are founded.

5. Under the practice of the court of chancery, since the adoption of the act of the legislature, (chapter 1098, Laws of Florida,) where the answer denies all the circumstances upon which the equities of the bill are founded, or where the bill and accompanying evidence are fully met by the answer and its accompanying evidence, the chancellor will ordinarily dissolve an injunction; but this is not an inflexible rule, and the granting or dissolving of injunctions is lodged in the sound discretion of the court, to be governed by the nature and circumstances of each case.

6. A railroad corporation, under the laws of Florida, has the right to erect and maintain docks, wharves, and piers, as incident to its business, and to hold or dispose of them as may be deemed proper; but such corporation, engaged in the business of common carrier, has no right to lease the terminal point of its railroad track and terminal facility on a navigable stream to a steam-boat company, and thereby defeat the ingress and egress to and from said railroad track on the part of other competing lines of steam-boat companies.

7. The Indian River Steam-Boat Company leased from the Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railway Company 390 feet of the east end of its dock on the Indian river, at Titusville, on which dock was located the railroad track and terminal facility of said railroad company; and said railroad company covenanted and agreed in said lease to maintain the railroad track on said dock and bulk-head, and the trestle supporting said track, and to furnish proper and adequate facilities for transfer of local freight to and from said bulk-head. Held, on this state of facts, the said steam-boat company was not entitled to an injunction to restrain another steam boat company from landing at said railroad dock for the purpose of delivering and receiving freight to and from said railroad company.

8. The bill asked for an injunction to restrain respondents from using the dock at Titusville, and the premises appurtenant thereto, as their head-quarters and offices, and from using and occupying numerous other docks of complainant at other points on Indian river, and also that complainant be decreed the undisturbed possession of the same. A preliminary injunction was granted as to the dock at Titusville only. Respondents, upon the filing of the bill, answered, tendering an issue as to the docks other than at Titusville, and denied that they landed at the Titusville dock otherwise than for the purpose of delivering and receiving freight to and from said railroad company. Held that, while the decree of the court dissolving the temporary injunction on bill and answer was proper, it was error to dismiss the bill, as it cannot be said that no other relief was sought, except to restrain re spondents from landing their boats at the Titusville dock.

COUNSEL

Hamlin & Stewart, for appellant.

Robbins & Graham, for appellees.

OPINION

The other facts fully appear in the following statement by MABRY J.:

The Indian River Steam-Boat Company, appellant here, by attorneys, presented to the judge of the fifth judicial circuit, at chambers, on the 24th day of November, A. D. 1890, a bill for an injunction against R. P. Paddison, George M. Robbins, and Walter S. Graham, associated and doing business as the East Coast Transportation Company, at Titusville, Brevard county, Fla. The case made in this bill is this. That the Indian River Steam-Boat Company is a corporation organized under the laws of Florida, with its usual place of business at Titusville, Brevard county, Fla., and its business is, and has been since the 7th day of April, A. D. 1886, the transportation of freight, passengers, and mail matter upon Indian river; that in conducting said business it owns and uses seven steam-boats, and during the winter season runs a daily line of steamers between Titusville and all points south and between Titusville and Melbourne on said river, and during the other portions of the year a daily line between Titusville and Melbourne, and a tri-weekly line between Titusville and all points south on said river; that the nature and extent of its business render the erection and maintenance of docks and piers at Titusville and elsewhere on said river necessary, and the right to do so is one of its charter privileges; that on the 9th day of February, A. D. 1889, it leased from the Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railway Company so much of a certain dock and pier at Titusville as then and now lies on the easterly side of a line drawn 20 feet west of the most westerly building now and then constructed on said pier, to the easterly line of the bulkhead, with all the rights and privileges thereunto appertaining, the same being about 396 feet of the east end of the said dock, and that said dock and pier extend only to such depth of water in said river as affords a safe landing to such boats as said company possesses, and one suitable to its business, and that said dock and pier do not interfere with the use or construction of other docks which are or may be constructed and maintained on adjacent property along the extensive waterfront at Titusville; that said leased dock and buildings thereon have been constantly occupied and used by said Indian River Steam-Boat Company for the purpose aforesaid, and for its offices, head-quarters, and place of transacting most of its general business, since the 1st day of March, A. D. 1889, and that said company has agreed to pay an annual rental for said dock and pier of $500, payable quarterly, for the term of 3 years, and longer, unless a contrary agreement should be reached in the manner provided by the terms of said lease, and to keep said leased property in good repair, and perform certain other conditions enumerated therein, at great expense; that said rental has been paid, and all the other conditions fully performed, and said lease is in full force; that large and expensive additions have been made to said dock and pier by said Indian River Steam-Boat Company, at a cost of $3,000, and still said dock and pier, and the accommodations thereon, are inadequate fully to accommodate the increasing business of said company.

A copy of the lease, bearing date February 9, 1889, is attached to the bill as an exhibit.

It is further alleged in said bill that the sole object of said appellant company in entering into said lease was that it might control premises adequate to the transaction of its business, and since the 1st day of March, A. D. 1889, it has so occupied and controlled said leased property, and no other person or company has occupied the same, except by the consent of the said Indian River Steam-Boat Company, and that said company has never held itself out as a general wharfinger, or permitted the public use of said leased property.

Further that during the summer or fall of 1890 said Paddison, Robbins, and Graham purchased or procured a steam-boat, and are advertising to make regular trips upon said Indian river with one or more steam-boats for the carriage of passengers and freight, and are seeking to make their head-quarters and landing point at said leased dock or pier, and that they have been repeatedly informed by appellant company that said dock and pier were its private property, and that it could not and would not conduct the business of a wharfinger, or permit their boat to land thereat, but notwithstanding such notification they have persisted and still persist in landing, and do land, their said boat at said dock, through force of threats made by them that if they were deterred from landing, or hindered in any way in the transaction of their business at said dock, they...