Village of St. Louis Park v. Minneapolis, Northfield & Southern Railway Co.
| Decision Date | 22 June 1923 |
| Docket Number | 23,466 |
| Parties | VILLAGE OF ST. LOUIS PARK v. MINNEAPOLIS, NORTHFIELD & SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY AND OTHERS |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Hennepin county to restrain defendant company and its servants from using steam as a motive power on any trains or engines running through plaintiff village. From an order, Leary, J., granting a temporary injunction, defendants appealed. Affirmed.
Purchaser of electric road bound by terms of vendor's contract with plaintiff village.
1. Where, pursuant to statutory authority, a municipal corporation and an electric traction company have agreed upon the terms by which streets may be crossed by an electric railway, and the use of steam as a motive power is prohibited by such contract, a purchaser of the electric traction company's line takes it subject to such prohibition. It cannot accept the beneficial and renounce the detrimental conditions.
Right of eminent domain not impaired by terms of contract.
2. Such a contract does not limit the power of the purchasing company, if it has such power, to acquire by condemnation the right to use the street crossings for a steam railway.
Case distinguished.
3. City of International Falls v. Minnesota D. & W. Ry Co. 117 Minn. 14, 134 N.W. 302, distinguished.
Lancaster Simpson, Junell & Dorsey, for appellants.
O. M. Peabody and Fish, Carleton, Cherry & Carleton, for respondent.
The village of St. Louis Park brings this action for the purpose of enjoining the Minneapolis, Northfield & Southern Railway Company "from using steam as a motive power on any of its trains and engines running through the said village." There are three individual defendants who are employes of the railway company, but as they are joined only as its representatives they need not be considered apart from it. We are concerned only with the rights of the village of St. Louis Park and the Minneapolis, Northfield & Southern Railway Company, and will refer to them as plaintiff and defendant.
Defendant is the successor of the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester & Dubuque Electric Traction Company, better known by its equine name of "Dan Patch Line," and it will be so mentioned in this opinion.
The plaintiff is a suburb, and the territory comprised within its limits is situated southwesterly of and on the outskirts of Minneapolis. In 1914 plaintiff, by its village council, at the request of the Dan Patch line, passed an ordinance granting to the latter, "its successors, and assigns, permission to construct, maintain and operate lines of electric traction railroad" across numerous streets and alleys in plaintiff village, in said ordinance enumerated. That ordinance had to do only with the operation of an electric traction railroad. Section 10 is in part as follows:
"The use of steam by said electric traction company or its successors and assigns as motive power, is hereby prohibited."
The ordinance became effective "from and after its publication and the acceptance thereof by said electric traction company." The Dan Patch Line immediately and formally accepted "the terms and conditions" of the ordinance.
Defendant is a railroad corporation organized under the laws of South Dakota for the purpose, according to its answer, of acquiring and operating a railroad between the cities of Minneapolis and Northfield and of making extensions to other points in Minnesota and other states. So far as the record discloses, it has all the powers of eminent domain granted by the statutes of Minnesota to railroad corporations.
The Dan Patch Line became insolvent, went through a receivership, and at the resulting sale in July, 1918, the defendant purchased its "assets, franchises and privileges," including the right of way and track through plaintiff village.
Defendant alleges that immediately after purchasing the property it expressly rejected the ordinance in question, and so advised plaintiff village in writing, and "released, reconveyed and quitclaimed to the plaintiff village any rights or privileges which may have been acquired" by the Dan Patch Line under and pursuant to such alleged ordinance, and that ever since the purchase the defendant has operated the property under and by virtue of the general powers and authority granted to it by its charter and the laws of Minnesota. It clearly appears however that, while the defendant attempted to do what it claims to have done, the plaintiff has never waived any of its rights under the ordinance or consented to the defendant's attempted renunciation thereof.
The Dan Patch Line originally conducted only a passenger business. Its original equipment seems to have consisted for the most part of combination passenger and baggage cars driven by electricity generated by gasolene motors. It developed that the road could not exist on passenger business alone, and at or about the time of the receivership freight trains began to be operated over the line. The defendant is now running from 2 to 5 freight trains daily through the plaintiff village. Such trains average 20 cars each, and are hauled by ordinary steam locomotives. This practice has continued, to a constantiy increasing degree, since the purchase of the property by defendant.
Considering its ordinance as a franchise and contract binding upon defendant, plaintiff by this action seeks to restrain defendant from using steam as a motive power. A temporary injunction was granted by the trial court, the effect of which was stayed (following Larson v. Minnesota N.W. Electric Co. 131 Minn. 183, 154 N.W. 948), for a sufficient period to enable the defendant to institute condemnation proceedings.
Defendant insists that it took over the Dan Patch Line through plaintiff village, including the street crossings, free from the ordinance prohibition against the use of steam as a motive power. Also that, and in any event, such a restriction by contract is void as against public policy, being a limitation upon the state granted powers of eminent domain which defendant claims.
1. The ordinance of 1914 was valid. It bound in a contractual way both the village and the Dan Patch Line. The statute, G.S 1913, § 6236, expressly authorizes such an agreement, upon the "manner, terms and conditions in and upon which" a railway may cross streets. By this statute any lawful terms and conditions are permitted. Therefore the contract expressed by the ordinance was not only within the charter powers of the contracting parties, but was expressly authorized by statute. It cannot, as defendant claims, be repudiated by a party thereto or by any one standing in the place of either contracting party with respect to the subject matter of the contract. The defendant is the immediate successor in interest of the Dan Patch Line. As such it owns its right of way over the private property in plaintiff village. As such, also, it owns the right to cross, but only as an electric traction line, the streets specified in the ordinance. Such crossing rights are enjoyed by virtue of the ordinance, or they do not exist. Without the ordinance which it seeks to repudiate, defendant even as an electric traction line has no right to cross plaintiff's streets, for it has never acquired such...
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