Ryan v. Louisville & N. Terminal Co.

• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee
• Writing for the Court: Beard
• Citation: 50 S.W. 744
• Parties: RYAN v. LOUISVILLE & N. TERMINAL CO.
• Decision Date: 15 March 1899

50 S.W. 744 RYAN
v.
LOUISVILLE & N. TERMINAL CO. Supreme Court of Tennessee. March 15, 1899.

Error to circuit court, Davidson county; John W. Childress, Judge.

Proceeding by the Louisville & Nashville Terminal Company against James Ryan. From a judgment of condemnation, defendant brings error. Affirmed.

Jas. Ryan and James C. Bradford, for plaintiff in error. Dickerson & Waller and Moore & McNally, for defendant in error.

BEARD, J.

This is a proceeding instituted by the Louisville & Nashville Terminal Company, a corporation chartered and organized under chapter 11 of the Acts of the General Assembly of 1893, seeking an order of condemnation, under the laws of eminent domain, of certain real estate, the property of plaintiff in error, in the city of Nashville. The avowed purpose of this act was to authorize the creation of railroad terminal corporations, "to facilitate the public convenience and the safety of the transmission of railroad passengers and freight, and to prevent unnecessary expense, inconvenience and loss to the public." To this end it is provided that a corporation organized under the act had the power "to acquire * * * at such place or places as shall be found expedient, such real estate as may be necessary on which to construct, operate and maintain passenger stations, comprising passenger depots, office buildings, sheds and storage yards; and freight stations, comprising freight depots, warehouses, offices and freight yards, round houses, and machine shops; also main and side-tracks, switches, crossovers, turnouts and other terminal railroad facilities * * * suitable in size, location and manner of construction to perform promptly and efficiently the work of receiving, delivering and transferring all passengers and freight traffic of railroad companies with which it may enter into contracts for the use of its terminal facilities." The act conferred upon the corporation, when real estate required by it could not be obtained by purchase, the power to acquire it "by condemnation, in pursuance of the general law authorizing the condemnation of private property for works of internal improvement." After obtaining its charter, as the record discloses, the present company entered into an important contract with the municipal authorities of Nashville, by which there was conceded to it the right to "operate and extend existing railroad tracks, and to construct such additional tracks as it might see fit to, and construct and maintain a passenger station or

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stations, or depots for the handling of freight, and approaches to such passenger and freight stations and depots, over, under, along, and across * * * the streets, alleys, and roads of the city of Nashville," within prescribed limits, upon conditions which need not be mentioned, except that the contract was not to be operative unless the obligations assumed by the terminal company were first guarantied by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Company, which guaranties, the record shows, have been made. Acting under the authority of its charter and this contract, the corporation began operations, and in carrying out its enterprise found, by the averments of the petition, — which, not being denied, are taken to be true, — that the property of the plaintiff in error was absolutely necessary in order to enable it to accomplish the purpose of its organization, and that it was situate within the limits defined by its contract with the city. Failing in its effort to purchase this property from plaintiff in error, it asked the aid of the court in condemning the same, in manner and form as the statutes prescribed. Over the objections of plaintiff in error, made by exceptions to the reports of the jury of view, the cause progressed to a judgment of condemnation, from which an appeal in the nature of a writ of error has been taken to this court.

While the questions made in this court could not, as a matter of proper practice, be raised on exceptions to the report of the jury of view, yet we think they arise upon the face of the petition, so that upon this appeal they may be considered and determined by us. No error is assigned on the ground of irregularity of these proceedings. The objections lie deeper than this. They challenge on constitutional grounds the corporate existence of defendant in error; and, if it have a legal existence, then its right to exercise the right to condemn private property under the doctrine of eminent domain. While there are several assignments of error to the action of the court below, we think they are reducible to these two. We will deal with these objections in the inverse order of their statement.

1. Is the use contemplated by chapter 11 of the Acts of 1893 a public use? If so, then the defendant in error, so far as this question is concerned, is entitled on this record to the judgment of condemnation, pronounced in the circuit court. That the legislature regarded the use as a public use, and by necessary implication so declared it, is evident. This, however, is not conclusive. The necessity for and the expediency of the exercise of the right of eminent domain are questions political in their nature, and, when it has been once determined by the legislative branch of the government that they exist, this determination is conclusive. Cooley, Const. Lim. 538; Anderson v. Turbeville, 6 Cold. 161. And while the legislature must, in the first instance, pass on the use, and fix its character, and while its recognition of the use as a public necessity is entitled everywhere to the benefit of strong presumptions (Edgewood R. Co.'s Appeal, 79 Pa. St. 257; Varner v. Martin, 21 W. Va. 534), yet the duty is devolved on the courts in the last resort of determining whether the particular use is a public use, within the legal meaning of the term (Mills, Em. Dom. § 10; Lewis, Em. Dom. § 158; 3 Elliott, R. R. § 952). The constitution does not define a public use. It simply provides that no man's property shall be "taken or applied to public use * * * without just compensation being made therefor"; clearly implying that it shall not be taken for a private use under any conditions. So far as we have discovered, other state constitutions in this regard are similar to ours. The courts have equally avoided a definition, lest it prove an embarrassment in subsequent cases, and work mischief in practical application. Lewis, Em. Dom. § 159. They have not sought to fix a positive standard for the measurement of a public use, and in the nature of the subject possibly could not do so. Paxton & Hershey Irrigating Canal & Land Co. v. Farmers' & Merchants' Irrigation & Land Co. (Neb.) 64 N. W. 343. However, even with this lack, the subject is not at large. It has been so long, and in such a variety of cases, a matter of judicial inquiry, there is now little difficulty in assigning a particular case to its proper place, and confining the right of eminent domain within natural boundaries.

The term "public use" is a flexible one. It varies and expands with the growing needs of a more complex social order. Many improvements universally recognized as impressed with a public use were nonexistent a few years ago. The possibility of railroads was not dreamed of in a past not very remote, yet, when they came, the courts, recognizing the important part they were to perform in supplying a public want, did not hesitate to take control of them as quasi governmental agents, and extend to them the right of eminent domain, in order to equip them thoroughly to discharge the duties to the community which followed their grant of franchises. This is equally true as to other appliances which now form important parts of a rapidly widening system of social and commercial intercommunication. So it may be said at the present time that "anything which will satisfy a reasonable public demand for public facilities for travel or for transmission of intelligence or commodities" (Stewart v. Railway Co. [Minn.] 68 N. W. 208), and of which the general public, under reasonable regulations, will have a definite and fixed use, independent of the will of the party in whom title is vested, would be a public use. Mills, Em. Dom. § 11. A few cases, taken from the many, serving to illustrate this statement, will be referred to. Grain elevators, found so necessary in the...