Minneapolis, St. P. & S. S. M. Ry. Co. v. Douglas Cnty.

• Citation: 150 N.W. 422,159 Wis. 408
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
• Decision Date: 12 January 1915
• Parties: MINNEAPOLIS, ST. P. & S. S. M. RY. CO. v. DOUGLAS COUNTY ET AL.

159 Wis. 408

150 N.W. 422

MINNEAPOLIS, ST. P. & S. S. M. RY. CO.

v.DOUGLAS COUNTY ET AL.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Jan. 12, 1915.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Douglas County; Frank A. Ross, Judge.

Action by the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railway Company against Douglas County and F. J. Kenyon, County Treasurer, to set aside taxes upon plaintiff's ore and merchandise docks. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

Action in equity to set aside taxes levied by the city of Superior in 1912 upon the ore and merchandise docks and the lands on which they are located, owned and operated by the appellant in that city.

The facts, in brief, are these: The appellant company owns and operates between 3,000 and 4,000 miles of railroad, extending from Superior to the grain fields of Minnesota and the Dakotas, as well as the iron ranges of Minnesota and the mining regions of northeastern Wisconsin and Michigan. In August, 1910, it obtained from the Wisconsin Railroad Commission a certificate of convenience and necessity, authorizing it to build its ore railroad, commencing at its then main track and extending northerly through the city of Superior to the harbor line on the southerly side of St. Louis Bay. It built this ore railroad, including the elevated structure known as the approach to the dock, and the dock itself extending into the St. Louis Bay or river to the government dock line, and this dock is the dock mentioned in the complaint, and situated upon the lands there described. The dock is 1,800 feet in length, about 80 feet in height, and has 300 pockets which hold approximately 300 tons each. The railroad tracks are laid on top and the full length of the dock, and it has always been owned and operated by the appellant exclusively for its own use in temporary storing and delivering of ore by it to boats, which in turn carried the ore to eastern markets. At the time the appellant built this dock, there were no other facilities at Superior which it could use for the purpose of storing, handling, or loading into lake carriers the ore which it transported. When the appellant built its railroad into Superior, there were two merchandise docks there, one operated by the Great Northern Railway Company, which was insufficient in capacity to handle the business of that company, and the other operated by the Omaha Railway Company, located on Allouez Bay, several miles from any point on the appellant's road. Private capital has never furnished any docks or other terminal facilities at Superior for the transfer from rail to lake or lake to rail of either ore or merchandise. The appellant constructed a merchandise dock at Superior at the north end of Connor's Point, near the Interstate bridge, it being 1,000 feet long, 80 feet wide, with a water slip on one side, and four railroad tracks, for the service of the dock, immediately adjoining the other side, and it continued to own and operate this merchandise dock and tracks laid thereto for the purpose of temporary storage of freight hauled by it over its railroad, and loaded from the dock to vessels on the water side, and in receiving from the vessels freight coming in by water and destined to points upon the appellant's railroad. No other use is made of the appellant's ore and merchandise docks except to receive ore and freight coming into Superior over appellant's lines and temporarily store and deliver the same to lake carriers, and to receive from lake carriers merchandise and freight destined for transportation over the appellant's railway lines, and temporarily store and load the same on cars for such transportation. The ore dock is elevated about 80 feet above the water and is furnished with large pockets, the ore being dumped into the pockets, where it remains until a lake carrier is ready to receive it, when it is loaded into the carrier by gravity.

By chapter 540 of the Laws of 1911, subsection 3 of section 1212, Stats. Wis. 1911 (now subdivision 7 of section 51.02, c. 51, Stats. Wis. 1913), being the ad valorem railway taxation act, was amended so as to read as follows:

“(3) The term ‘property of the railroad company,’ as used in this act, shall include all franchises, right of way, roadbed, tracks, stations, terminals, rolling stock, equipment and all other real and personal property of such...