Mound City Warehouse Co. v. Illinois Cent. R. Co.
| Decision Date | 12 August 1964 |
| Docket Number | Gen. No. 64-19 |
| Citation | 200 N.E.2d 919,51 Ill.App.2d 103 |
| Parties | MOUND CITY WAREHOUSE COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Joe Crain, Mound City, for appellant.
John G. Holland, Cairo, Joseph H. Wright, Robert Mitten and Robert S. Kirby, Chicago, for appellee.
This case was transferred from the Supreme Court to the Appellate Court.
The plaintiff, Mound City Warehouse Company, sued to enjoin the defendant, Illinois Central Railroad Company, from using the defendant's right of way, alleged to be land grant right of way, at Mounds, Illinois, by and through certain lessees of the defendant, to engage in business allegedly in competition with the plaintiff in warehousing and grain buying, and from discriminating against the plaintiff. The suit sought further to declare the defendant's leases of its right of way in Mounds and vicinity null and void, and sought damages of $100,000.00. The defendant moved to dismiss the complaint, and the Circuit Court, upon hearing, sustained the motion, dismissed the complaint, and entered a final judgment against the plaintiff and for the defendant. This appeal follows.
The defendant's motion to dismiss is as follows: (1) the Complaint fails to state a cause of action on which relief can be granted; (2) the Complaint charges that the defendant does not have corporate power to lease its lands for the purpose of a grain buying station, a grain storage warehouse, or a commercial storage warehouse, which is without foundation as this question has already been decided by the Court decisions of this State, which affirmatively hold that the defendant has the power to utilize its lands for said purposes, and the Complaint in this regard fails to state a cause of action; and (3) the Complaint charges that the leasing of the lands of the defendant has resulted in discrimination against the plaintiff and resultant damages,--but there is no common law action in this State for alleged discrimination, the plaintiff is not relying on any Statute because no Statute is pleaded, the plaintiff's sole remedy is an action before either the Illinois Commerce Commission or the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the Complaint in this regard fails to state a cause of action.
The complaint alleges, in substance, that the plaintiff is an Illinois corporation, licensed and bonded as a public warehouse, engaged in the business of storage in transit warehousing at Mound City, Pulaski County, Illinois, and engaged in the business of buying and storing soybeans and other grain at its warehouse in Mound City; its railroad business at Mound City is handled by the defendant Railroad and the revenue obtained by the defendant averaged $100,000.00 annually at its Mound City station, practically all of which was derived from business with the plaintiff; the defendant Railroad is an Illinois corporation chartered by an act of the Legislature on February 10, 1851 as a railroad corporation by which charter it was given about seven hundred miles of right of way, 200 feet wide, and about 2,495,000 acres of land to build and operate a railroad; Section 15 of the act of incorporation contains the following: 'The right of way over and through lands owned by the State is hereby ceded and granted to said corporation for the only and sole purpose of surveying, locating, constructing, completing, altering, maintaining and operating said road and branches, as is in this act provided;' by its charter that right-of-way was exempted from real estate taxes; the right-of-way extended through Pulaski County, and through what is now Mounds; the defendant afterwards acquired a branch railroad from Mounds to Mound City and by lease acquired the right to service all points in Mound City, including the warehouses of the plaintiff; the defendant has long desired to close its agency at Mound City and has attempted to do so but could not; the defendant knew it could not legally operate a grain buying station, or grain storage warehouse, or commercial warehouse on its right-of-way in Mounds, and could not legally lease it for others to operate; the defendant knew the plaintiff was engaged in its business and that the leasing of its right-of-way in Mounds for a grain buying station would illegally discriminate against the plaintiff; the defendant knew that the leasing of its right-of-way for the storage of grain and for storage in transit warehousing in Mounds would illegally discriminate against the plaintiff; and the defendant knowingly and wilfully and illegally entered into a series of leases of its right of way in Mounds to establish a grain buying station, a grain warehouse, and two commercial, or storage in transit warehouses, and thereafter operated its railroad to injustly discriminate against the plaintiff, as a result of which leasing and discrimination the plaintiff has been damaged in excess of $100,000.00, and will continue to be damaged as long as the practice shall continue.
A large part of the briefs of the plaintiff and defendant are devoted to a discussion of the questions of the corporate power of the defendant Railroad to enter into leases of its property for warehousing purposes, and the sufficiency of the title of the railroad to enter into such transactions.
As heretofore noted, the defendant's motion to dismiss raises the question as to the sufficiency of the complaint,--whether or not the plaintiff has failed to state a cause of action upon which relief can be granted. The Trial Court did not file a memorandum...
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