Kansas City & S. W. Ry. Co. v. Farnsworth
| Decision Date | 04 May 1888 |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
| Parties | THE KANSAS CITY & SOUTHWESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY v. ALEXANDER FARNSWORTH et al |
Error from Miami District Court.
ACTION to reform a contract for a right-of-way for a railroad. Trial at the October term, 1886, and judgment as prayed for by plaintiffs. The court further ordered that the defendant company accept the deed tendered to it by plaintiffs for a certain strip of land across the land of plaintiff Alexander Farnsworth; and that he recover from defendant as the consideration therefor, $ 220, and also the costs of this action. The Railway Company brings the case here. The material facts are stated in the opinion.
Judgment affirmed.
Beeson & Baker, for plaintiff in error.
W. R Wagstaff, and W. T. Johnson, for defendants in error.
OPINION
The defendants in error commenced this action in the Miami district court, to reform a contract for the right-of-way through the land of Alexander Farnsworth, and to declare the understanding and meaning of the parties thereto. The material facts are: that Alexander Farnsworth and his wife Margaret H. Farnsworth were the owners of ninety acres of land, situated in the northwest quarter of section twenty-four, township sixteen, range twenty-three, in said county. The husband owned in his own right thirty-five acres, and the wife fifty-five acres. These tracts are adjacent, and on the line between them, running north and south, there is a hedge and board fence. The defendants in error resided on the land, and through the entire length of both tracts the plaintiff in error railway company had surveyed and located its line. One Beatty, the right-of-way agent of the railway company, contracted with Alexander Farnsworth for the right-of-way through the thirty-five acres, and when he was writing the contract sought to be reformed in this action he inserted these words: "A strip of land fifty feet in width on each side of the center line of the railroad of said company, as the same is now or shall hereafter be located, over and across the following-described lands in Miami county, Kansas, to wit: the northwest quarter of section twenty-four, of township sixteen, range twenty-three." As the description reads, it embraces the land of Margaret Farnsworth as well as that of Alexander Farnsworth, these being all the tracts of land through which the survey was made, and the line located in that quarter-section. The right-of-way agent and Alexander Farnsworth had gone over the line, and had made a verbal agreement as to the amount to be paid to Farnsworth as compensation. When they came to reduce this agreement to writing the particular description of the Alexander Farnsworth tract was being read to the agent by Margaret Farnsworth, when the agent interrupted, and declared that the only description that he required was the quarter, section, township and range in which the land is situated. This general description was inserted in the contract, and was signed by Farnsworth and wife, without a thought that it contained a description of Mrs. Farnsworth's land, and without any intention or design on their part to contract for the right-of-way through the tract belonging to Mrs....
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