Postal Telegraph & Cable Co. v. Gulf & S.I.R. Co.
| Citation | 70 So. 833,110 Miss. 770 |
| Decision Date | 28 February 1916 |
| Docket Number | 17217 |
| Parties | POSTAL TELEGRAPH & CABLE CO. v. GULF & S. I. R. R. CO |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi |
APPEAL from the chancery court of Forest county. HON. J. MORGAN STEVENS, Chancellor.
Bill by the Postal Telegraph & Cable Company and the Mississippi Home Telephone Company, cross-complainants, against the Gulf & Ship Island Railroad Company. From a decree for defendant cross-complainants appeal.
The Mississippi Home Telephone Company acquired by condemnation a right of way for its line of poles and wires from the city of Jackson to the city of Hattiesburg over the right of way of the appellee, Gulf & Ship Island Railroad Company for the purpose of carrying on its telephone business. The telephone company entered and erected its line of poles and strung thereon its wires from Jackson to Hattiesburg. Afterwards, in 1912, the telephone company leased to the Postal Telegraph Company the right to place one of its wires on the already-erected poles of the telephone company from Jackson to Hattiesburg, for the purpose of carrying on its telegraph business. The telegraph company, under the lease, proceeded to string its wire from Jackson to Hattiesburg, a small portion of which was strung over the protest of the railroad company. The railroad company then filed its bill in the chancery court of Forrest county asking for an injunction forbidding the further stringing of the wire by the telegraph company. After the issuance of this injunction, which was obeyed, and without notice to the telegraph company, the railroad company sent its employees in the nighttime and cut the wire of the telegraph company in so many places and in such a manner that it was practically destroyed and rendered valueless. After the wire had been destroyed the railroad company filed a supplemental bill, asking that the telegraph company be restrained from using the wire. The telegraph company and the telephone company filed their answer presenting the question as to the right of the telegraph company to string its wire on the poles of the telephone company. The answers of each defendant were made cross-bills and asked for damages for the destruction of, and injury to, the property of the telegraph company and the telephone company. The lower court held that the telegraph company had placed its wire on the right of way without right, and that it was a trespasser, and that its wire was an additional servitude upon the right of way of the railroad company, and also decree that the destruction of the telegraph company's wire and the damage to the telephone company's property was rightful, and denied cross-complainants any damages for said destruction and injury to the property; from which decree this appeal here is taken.
Decree reversed in part and cause remanded.
Flowers, Brown, Chambers & Cooper, for appellant.
B. E. Eaton, for appellee.
The record in this case presents two questions for our consideration, viz.: First, whether or not the telegraph company was a trespasser; and, second, whether or not the railroad company is liable to the telegraph and telephone companies in damages, regardless of whether the telegraph company was a trespasser or not. It is conceded by counsel for the appellants that the right acquired by the telephone company from the railroad company was a mere easement on the right of way of the railroad company. The question arises as to what were the powers and rights of the telephone company under the easement obtained from the railroad company. We think that the intent and purpose of the easement to the telephone company was to carry on its telephone business, and that it had no right to lease to another and different corporation the right to construct and establish its telegraph line upon this easement with which to...
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