N. & W. Ry. Co. v. Gale
Decision Date | 20 June 1928 |
Docket Number | 20897 |
Citation | 119 Ohio St. 110,162 N.E. 385 |
Parties | Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. Et Al. v. Gale Et Al. |
Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Real property - Building restrictions - Inapplicable to state, its agencies or corporations vested with power of eminent domain - Other lot owners cannot recover damages from railroad or holding company acquiring lots.
This is an action seeking to reverse the Court of Appeals of Franklin county. The facts incident to the controversy necessary to raise the legal question presented may be stated as follows:
Norfolk & Western Railway Company, acting through the Virginia Holding Corporation, a subsidiary of said railway company purchased certain property in Eastgate addition to the city of Columbus, which addition is restricted to residence purposes. This property was purchased by agreement between the property owners and the Holding Corporation and no resort to appropriation proceedings was necessary. This property the railway company proposes to use for railway purposes.
The defendants in error, the owners of other lots in Eastgate addition, after the purchase by the railway company of its property, then brought suit in the common pleas court of Franklin county against the Norfolk &, Western Railway Company and the Virginia Holding Corporation, asking that each of these defendants be enjoined from using the property purchased until appropriation proceedings were brought and prosecuted whereby the rights under the restrictive covenants contained in the deeds of Gale, Snyder, Gardner and Banks defendants in error and plaintiffs below, were acquired by such railway company, it being averred in the petition that the Virginia Holding Corporation purchased this property "solely and only for the use and benefits of the said defendant, the Norfolk & Western Railway Company and solely and only for the purpose of enabling the said defendant, the Norfolk & Western Railway Company, to carry out the change of location of its railroad in the manner hereinafter get forth."
The proposed change, it appears by the petition below, is by inclining the line toward the east from Greenway avenue until it crosses Maryland avenue, about 600 feet east of the point which it now crosses, and then extending it in a northwesterly direction until it joins the present location in the railroad yards of the defendant railway company; and it. is charged that the land is to be used for the purposes of a railroad yard, railroad switching tracks, offices, and other purposes incident to a railroad yard, and it is claimed that the plaintiffs' lands will be depreciated by the construction of said railroad lines in said Eastgate addition, and a city ordinance is invoked, on the ground that the lots are to be used for railroad yards.
The petition concludes with a prayer that the defendants, the Railway Company and the Virginia Holding Company, may be permanently enjoined from doing any act in the way of the use and occupation of any of the lots or parcels of land in said Eastgate addition unless defendan...
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