The Des Moines Street-Railway Company v. The Des Moines Broad-Gauge Street-Railroad Company
| Citation | 38 N.W. 496,74 Iowa 585 |
| Parties | THE DES MOINES STREET-RAILWAY COMPANY v. THE DES MOINES BROAD-GAUGE STREET-RAILROAD COMPANY et al |
| Decision Date | 04 June 1888 |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Decided May, 1888
Original proceeding in this court for contempt in violating an injunction.
Parsons & Perry and Kauffman & Guernsey, for plaintiff.
Cummins & Wright and J. H. Detrick, for defendants.
At a prior term of this court, in certain causes therein pending in which the plaintiff, the defendant railway company and the city of Des Moines were parties, a decree was entered enjoining and restraining the city of Des Moines, the mayor and marshal thereof, and their successors in office, from "interfering in any way with the construction, extension or operation, by animal power, of the plaintiff's line of street railway upon any of the streets of the city of Des Moines: provided, this decree shall not be held to operate as a restraint upon the city of Des Moines of a proper police and equitable control over the streets of said city, and the power to make reasonable regulations as to the manner of construction of said lines, the places in the streets where the same shall be located, and the character and extent of service that shall be furnished thereon." Subsequent to entering such decree, and on the twenty-fifth day of May, 1888, when the plaintiff was engaged in laying down its railway track along and upon Grand avenue, a street in said city, the defendant William L. Carpenter, mayor, and Alfred Jarvis, marshal thereof, interrupted and arrested, or caused to be arrested men in the employ of plaintiff, and engaged, under its direction, in laying down said track; and the plaintiff claims that in so doing the said Carpenter and Jarvis are in contempt of the authority and decree of this court, and the object of this proceeding is to punish them therefor. In response to a rule to show cause why they were not in contempt, the said Carpenter and Jarvis admitted that they had caused the arrest of the employes of the plaintiff, and had interrupted and prevented it from laying down its track upon said avenue, and justified the same under and by virtue of certain resolutions of the city of Des Moines. It appears from the record that the gauge of the plaintiff's road is three and one-half feet, and that such gauge was adopted, as the plaintiffs claim, under and by virtue of an ordinance of the city, passed in 1866, granting the plaintiff the exclusive right to lay its tracks in the streets of the city, and operate the same with animal power. The ordinance failed to prescribe the gauge of the road, but it is a conceded fact that the plaintiff adopted the gauge, laid its tracks, maintained and operated the same, for the last fifteen years, without objection upon the part of the city, until the passage of the resolutions relied upon by said defendants in justification of their...
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