Red Top Cab Co. v. McGlashing

• Decision Date: 10 May 1927
• Docket Number: 38099
• Citation: Red Top Cab Co. v. McGlashing, 204 Iowa 791, 213 N.W. 791 (Iowa 1927)
• Parties: RED TOP CAB COMPANY, Appellee, v. JAMES MCGLASHING et al., Appellants
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

213 N.W. 791

204 Iowa 791

RED TOP CAB COMPANY, Appellee, v. JAMES MCGLASHING et al., Appellants

No. 38099

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

May 10, 1927

REHEARING DENIED NOVEMBER 15, 1927.

Appeal from Linn District Court.--JOHN T. MOFFIT, Judge.

Defendants(engaged, as is plaintiff, in the cab business) and intervener, the city of Cedar Rapids, appeal from a decree restraining them from trespassing on or interfering with plaintiff's enjoyment of a cab stand on depot grounds to which plaintiff claims exclusive right, under lease from the railroad companies.--Modified and affirmed.

Modified and affirmed.

Charles Penningroth and George E. Farmer, for intervener, appellant.

Maurice P. Cahill and W. C. Boland, for other appellants.

Deacon Sargent & Spangler, for appellee.

MORLINGJ. EVANS, C. J., and DE GRAFF, ALBERT, and KINDIG, JJ., concur.

OPINION

MORLING, J.

The Chicago & Northwestern and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Companies have a union depot in Cedar Rapids, which, with the platforms, extends in a northerly and southerly direction on the west side of all tracks.At the north end of the depot building is a space about 40 feet long, used for mail trucks.The main platform is on the east side of the depot building, and extends north from the building about 200 feet to Third Avenue.The railroad companies are the owners of the property west of the platform, which (exclusive of the baggage stand later referred to) is 36 feet 6 inches in width, east and west.The strip immediately west of and adjacent to the platform, 11 feet 6 inches in width (at the greatest), extending from the mail stand north to Third Avenue, is leased by the railroad companies to the plaintiff for a cab stand.The defendants are owners of rival cab lines, and the effect of the lease is to compel them to park their cabs west of the 11 1/2 feet cab stand, leaving plaintiff's cabs between them and the platform.This interferes with the ability of the defendants to get employment from incoming passengers, and makes it inconvenient for such of their outgoing passengers as desire to take trains direct from the cabs.

An ordinance of 1896, under which parts of Fourth Avenue and of an east and west alley were vacated and conveyed to the railroad companies for depot purposes, provided:

"Section 5: Said railway companies shall forever maintain in a suitable condition for travel, a driveway not less than twenty-five (25) feet in width in the rear of their passenger station and extending from 3rd to 5th Avenues for the purpose of affording the public access to said station.Said railway companies shall, however, have the right to maintain a fence about said station grounds and said driveway with gates therein at 3rd, 4th and 5th avenues and at the alleys in Blocks 26 and 27, to the end that said railway companies may beautify the grounds in the rear of the station with flower beds and grass plots and may properly police the same and exclude intruders.Said gates shall be opened at all reasonable hours for the accommodation of the public, but the said railway companies may employ and station gatemen thereat and may exclude from said station grounds all persons except those arriving from or about to depart upon the trains of the railway companies or having other business to transact with said railway companies at said station, under such reasonable rules and regulations as said companies may adopt.Such gate rules to be approved by the city council of the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa."

The railroad companies paved the entire strip, 36 feet 6 inches in width, from Third Avenue south to the mail stand, and have repaved and continuously repaired it since the ordinance was passed.This paved strip, after deducting the part leased to plaintiff for cab stand, is 25 feet in width.The driveway extends from Third Avenue on the north to and along the west side of the depot building, and on to Fifth Avenue at the south.One of the main entrances to the depot is on the west side, opening on Fourth Avenue.The vacated alley was 20 feet wide.The south 20 feet of the cab stand would be in the alley, if the alley had not been vacated.The land immediately west of the 36 1/2 feet of brick paving is also owned by the companies, and was for a number of years fenced, and used by them as a flower garden.In 1912, this plot was leased by the railroad companies to the city of Cedar Rapids for a baggage stand, and has since been used for that purpose.

I.Defendants and intervener, while stating in argument that no question of title is involved, urge that the alley was vacated and conveyed for depot purposes only; that the city, therefore, retained an interest in that area; that the entire space between the platform and the baggage stand, and (south of the baggage stand) between the platform and the end of the alley, as left after it was vacated, has been used as a street, and for the convenience of the patrons of the railroad companies in general, has been regulated by the police, and kept clean by the street-sweeping department; that the contract evidenced by the ordinance was made to conserve such interests, and by user and acquiescence the curb has become the eastern boundary of the driveway.The title to the property is in the railroad companies.They have paved, repaired, and repaved it.The use has been by its patrons, and, so far as it has been by the public generally, was under and pursuant to the right given by the ordinance.The ownership of the railroad companies, the limitation of the right to travel, subject to the maintenance of fences and gates, and the right of the companies to exclude all persons not having business with the railroad companies, are expressly reserved by the ordinance.No condition has arisen to bring up any question of boundary, or of the rights of the city or public as adverse to the companies.It would be absurd to say that the companies were required to fence or otherwise mark off the extra width of the paved area, in order to preserve their unincumbered title to it.The lease does not infringe the 25-feet roadway.There is no merit in the contention that intervener or the public has any property rights in the cab stand.

II.The principal question is whether the railroad companies may grant exclusive rights to a cab stand on its own property when such grant will give an advantage, or, as defendants claim, tend to create in the lessee a monopoly of the business from incoming passengers and place other cabmen at an inconvenience in discharging outgoing passengers at the station.We may say that this inconvenience is not serious.All passengers to outgoing trains may be landed at the main entrance on the west side of the depot.While there is evidence tending to show that passengers frequently desire to take trains standing on the tracks south of Third Avenue, without going to the depot, and while the plaintiff might land its passengers at any place along the platform, whereas other cabmen would be required to discharge them either at Third Avenue or at points along the driveway, from which they would be compelled to pass between the plaintiff's cabs, or perhaps, if the cab stand is fully occupied, be unable to pass, such inconvenience is not of any considerable importance.

The land in question is the private property of the companies.It is for the reason and to the extent that the carrier has granted to the public an interest in its property and business that its right of absolute ownership and power to contract are restricted.For all purposes, except as inimical to its public duties, the property of a railroad company is its own, as fully and absolutely as is the property of private owners.Western Union Tel. Co. v. Pennsylvania R Co.,195 U.S. 540, 49 L.Ed. 312, 25 S.Ct. 133;Donovan v. Pennsylvania Co.,199 U.S. 279, 50 L.Ed. 192, 26 S.Ct. 91.SeeTyson v. Banton,273 U.S. 418(71 L.Ed. 718, 47 S.Ct. 426);Continental & Commercial Tr. & Sav. Bank v. Muscatine, B. & S. R. Co.,202 Iowa 579, 210 N.W. 787.The defendants have no legal right to the use of the property of the companies without their consent, for the solicitation or transaction of business thereon.The defendants' contention is not that they have a property interest in or right of entry on the railroad land, but that the companies have assumed to perform without discrimination a public service, and that the lease in controversy is discriminatory, and tends to a monopoly.A railroad company as a common carrier may not discriminate between patrons or grant one or one class advantages over others.The defendants, however, are not patrons of the railroad companies, and are not demanding the service for the performance of which the companies were created, and which they are required to render to all members of the public alike.The defendants have no standing to set up the rights of patrons.The carrier performs its duty to its patrons when it affords reasonable and proper means of access and exit to and from its...