Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Johnson's Adm'x

• Decision Date: 13 March 1925
• Citation: 207 Ky. 813,270 S.W. 58
• Parties: LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO. v. JOHNSON'S ADM'X.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

270 S.W. 58

207 Ky. 813

LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO. v. JOHNSON'S ADM'X.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

March 13, 1925

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lee County.

Action by Thomas C. Johnson against the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company. Pending the action, plaintiff died, and the case was revived in the name of his administratrix, who obtained judgment, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions to grant new trial.

Rose &amp Stamper, of Beattyville, Hunt, Northcutt & Bush, of Lexington, and Woodward & Warfield, of Louisville, for appellant.

C. F Spencer, of Winchester, and C. X. Johnson, of Beattyville for appellee.

DIETZMAN J.

In 1912, Thomas C. Johnson, who owned a boundary of land along the Kentucky river in Lee county, for a valuable consideration, deeded to the appellant, for the purpose of straightening its track, a right of way through that boundary. As a part of the consideration for this conveyance, but in an instrument separate from the deed, appellant contracted with Johnson "to construct and maintain a combined freight and passenger station and a side track on the lands described in said deed," at a point between certain termini to be selected by Johnson, "the said depot to be constructed on or before completion by said railroad company of its contemplated railroad over and through said lands." The depot was completed in March, 1915, but whether or not this was on or before the completion by the railroad company of the railroad through Johnson's land cannot accurately be determined from this record. According to appellant's proof, it was. According to appellee's proof, it appears, although very vaguely, that it was not. The station as constructed was maintained, although appellee complains bitterly of the manner in which it was maintained, until March, 1919. In this month the United States Railroad Administration, which had had charge of appellant's railroad since 1917, tore down this depot and took away the side track, and there has been no depot or side track at this point or at any point on Johnson's land since then. The railroads were returned to their owners in 1920, and about a month thereafter Johnson brought this suit against the appellant for breach of its contract to construct and maintain the depot and side track. Pending this suit, Johnson died, and the case was revived in the name of the appellee as his administratrix. On the trial appellee secured a verdict of $20,000, and from that judgment appellant appeals.

At the outset of this case, we are confronted by the construction to be placed on the contract of the parties. It is true that appellant obligated itself to construct and maintain a depot and side track, but the contract is absolutely silent concerning the period of time this obligation is to continue. The trial court submitted this case to the jury on the theory that this obligation was a permanent obligation, despite the fact that there was nothing said in the contract about it being a permanent obligation.

Contracts of this character have been before the courts on numerous occasions for interpretation. There is one line of cases which holds that so long as the railroad occupies the right of way which it secured as a part of the consideration for its contract to construct and maintain a depot or side track, it must so maintain the same. See Gray v. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co., 189 Ill. 400, 59 N.E. 950. Another line of cases holds that a literal compliance with such a covenant or condition subsequent is all that is required, and that the railroad may cease at any time it wishes to maintain the track or depot.

A third line of cases, intermediate between the two theories above mentioned, holds that the railroad must continue to maintain the depot or side track until the public interests require their abandonment. This view seems to us to be the correct one. It cannot be true that an agreement on the part of a railroad to maintain a depot at any particular point, at least without more, is an agreement to keep it there forever. It must be that such an agreement is made subject to the public needs, to the general exigencies of business, to the change, modification, and growth of transportation routes, as these may affect the requirements of a railroad company's business. Railroads are the servants of the people. Their duty is to render adequate service, without discrimination to the public as a whole, and at the lowest rates possible consistent with a fair return on their property. Any undue burden on the railroad must necessarily interfere with this common-law obligation, and hence, when parties enter into a contract of this character, especially where they omit from their contract the obligation of perpetuity, they must be held to have contemplated the fact that the railroad may, when the future needs of the public or the public interests require it, abandon said depot or side track. Lucas v. New York, N.H. & H. R. Co., 130 F. 436, 64 C. C. A. 638; Texas & P. R. Co. v. Marshall, 136 U.S. 393, 10 S.Ct. 846, 34 L.Ed. 385; Jones v. Newport News & M. Valley Co., 65 F. 736, 13 C. C. A. 95; Texas & P. R. Co. v. Scott, 77 F. 726, 23 C. C. A. 424, 37 L. R. A. 94; Little Rock & Ft. S. R. Co. v. Birnie, 59 Ark. 66, 26 S.W. 528; Jeffersonville, M. & I. R. Co. v. Barbour, 89 Ind. 375; Maryland & P. R. Co. v. Silver, ...