Red Lake Falls Milling Co. v. City of Thief River Falls
| Decision Date | 22 October 1909 |
| Docket Number | 16,294 - (49) |
| Citation | 122 N.W. 872,109 Minn. 52 |
| Parties | RED LAKE FALLS MILLING COMPANY v. CITY OF THIEF RIVER FALLS and Others |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Red Lake county against the city of Thief River Falls, Henry Grundy, its mayor, and Erick O Erickson, its superintendent of police.
The complaint alleged plaintiff obtained from the Great Northern Railway Company a license to occupy as a site for a grain elevator specified premises on its right of way in defendant city, made a contract to have a certain elevator building moved to those premises, and the contractor did move the same to said site; that defendants caused the specified premises to be occupied with special police officers, caused warrants to be issued for all the men employed in moving the building and arrested and jailed them. That the amendatory ordinance under which defendants claimed to act was not entitled as required by the charter of the city (Laws 1895, c. 8) and that reference in the title of the amendatory act to an ordinance No. 69 was wholly arbitrary and without authority of law. That there was no ordinance in the city prohibiting the moving of said building on said site. That the amended city ordinance under which defendants claimed to act was void and prayed that defendants be restrained from interfering with plaintiff in moving its building. The answer set up as a defense that the premises specified were within the fire limits of defendant city and the acts of the plaintiff were in violation of certain ordinances of defendant city.
Plaintiffs were granted a temporary injunction. Certain facts were stipulated. It was also stipulated that the original ordinance was designated and numbered by the city clerk before its passage as Ordinance No. 69 and that the ordinance was duly passed with that number and that the amendatory ordinance was duly passed. At the close of plaintiff's case upon the trial, defendants moved to have the action dismissed upon the pleadings, for the reason that the complaint did not set forth a cause of action and that no issue had been raised by the pleadings. The motion was denied, Watts, J. Thereafter the court filed findings of fact and ordered judgment against defendants. From the decree entered pursuant to the order for judgment, defendants appealed. Reversed and new trial ordered.
City Ordinance -- Fire Limits.
A city ordinance established fire limits and declared it unlawful for any person "to erect or attempt to erect within the above-described fire limits any wooden building." Held the moving of an already constructed wooden building from a point outside to a location within such fire limits was within the prohibition of the ordinance.
G. Halvorson, for appellants.
E. M. Stanton and Martin O'Brien, for respondent.
The council of the city of Thief River Falls, by an ordinance approved March 12, 1907, establishing fire limits within the city, provided: "It shall be unlawful for any person to erect or attempt to erect within the above-described fire limits any wooden building. * * *" On July 16, 1907, the ordinance was amended by enlarging the protected territory. The amendment placed within the prohibited territory a portion of the railroad right of way adapted for the establishment of elevators and similar structures. At the time of the approval of the last ordinance the plaintiff had made preparations to move its fully constructed wooden building, a grain elevator, to a new location upon the right of way. Neither the original nor the proposed site of the elevator was within the fire limits as first established. The last ordinance, however, extended those limits so as to include the new or proposed site. The plaintiff, disregarding the ordinance, began to remove the elevator, and the municipality, through its police force,...
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