State v. Superior Court, Snohomish County

• Citation: 123 P. 529,68 Wash. 397
• Parties: STATE ex rel. NORTHERN PAC. RY. CO. v. SUPERIOR COURT, SNOHOMISH COUNTY et al.
• Decision Date: 08 May 1912
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Washington

123 P. 529

68 Wash. 397

STATE ex rel. NORTHERN PAC. RY. CO. v. SUPERIOR COURT, SNOHOMISH COUNTY et al.

Supreme Court of Washington

May 8, 1912

Department 2. Certiorari by the State, on the relation of the Northern Pacific Railway Company, against the Superior Court for Snohomish County and another to review a judgment, denying relator's petition to condemn land. Reversed and remanded.

Geo. T Reid, J. W. Quick, and L. B. Da Ponte, all of Tacoma, for plaintiff.

John Sandidge, of Tacoma, and Robert McMurchie, of Everett, for respondent.

FULLERTON, J.

By this proceeding the relator, the Northern Pacific Railway Company sought to condemn and appropriate to its use for the erection of a passenger station, freight terminals, and the necessary yards, transfer and switching tracks certain described land in the city of Everett owned by the respondent Anna Marie Linden. In its petition to condemn the relator set forth that it then owned and operated a terminal station in the city of Everett, but that the same was not advantageouly located for the efficient transaction of its business as a common carrier, and therefore it was necessary for the relator, in order to better accommodate the public and afford more efficient and satisfactory service in connection with its business as a common carrier, to construct and maintain a passenger station and freight terminals with the necessary yards, transfer and switching tracks at a point other than its present location, and to that end had relocated and determined to construct such facilities on the lots before mentioned. At the hearing the respondent Linden appeared and contested the relator's right to an order of condemnation. The court at the conclusion of the hearing denied the petition, holding that the relator had not complied with the preliminary requirements of the statute relating to condemnation proceedings, and had not shown facts sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the public interests required the prosecution of the enterprise. The holding that the railway company had not complied with the statutes relating to condemnation proceedings is based upon the insufficiency of the resolution of the board of directors of the company directing the change to be made. The resolution offered in evidence merely authorized the construction of a passenger station and freight terminals with the necessary yards, transfer and switching tracks, and other necessary facilities on the blocks sought to be condemned, and directed the acquisition of the blocks by purchase or condemnation as it may be deemed proper. The resolution did not authorize any connecting tracks between the land sought to be condemned and the present main line of the road, and it is this fact that is thought to render the resolution insufficient. It is claimed that a formal resolution by the directors of a railway company designating the route of a proposed track 'by indicating the places from and to which the track is to be constructed' is by statute a necessary prerequisite to making a change such as is contemplated here.

The statutes pointed out as sustaining the claim are sections 8662 and 8668 of Remington & Ballinger's Code. But we cannot think either of those sections applicable. The first plainly relates to the construction of branch lines; that is to say, lines running from some point on its road to another point more or less distant...