Weeks v. Missouri Pac. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 11 February 1974
• Docket Number: No. 57161,No. 1,57161,1
• Parties: John F. WEEKS et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Defendant-Respondent, and Lewis E. Ollison et al., Intervenors-Respondents
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 33

505 S.W.2d 33

John F. WEEKS et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Defendant-Respondent, and Lewis E. Ollison et al., Intervenors-Respondents.

No. 57161.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

Feb. 11, 1974.

Bernard A. Reinert, St. Louis, for plaintiffs-appellants, John F. Weeks, and others; Kenney, Leritz & Reinert, St. Louis, of counsel.

Hendren & Andrae by Kelly Pool, Jefferson City, for defendant-respondent Missouri Pacific Railroad Co.

Kay & Quigley, Robert J. Quigley, Eldon, for intervenors-respondents, Lewis E. Ollison, Bonnie Sue Ollison, Elmo J. Schulte and Cletice F. Schulte, his wife, and Ralph Reed.

BARDGETT, Presiding Judge.

This case directly involves title to certain real estate in the City of Eldon, Miller County, Missouri, and the appeal was filed prior to January 1, 1972. This court has jurisdiction. Mo.Const., Art. V, Sec. 31, V.A.M.S. Plaintiffs below are the appellants. Defendant Missouri Pacific Railroad and intervenors, Ollisons, Schultes, and Reed, below are respondents. The parties will be referred to as they appeared in the circuit court.

The real estate involved is land formerly used by the railroad as trackage right of way, stock pens, spur track, a depot, and other uses directly connected with the operation of a railroad through Eldon, Mo.

The streets of Eldon run north-south and east-west. The railroad runs diagonally through Eldon northeast-southwest, but for simplicity will be considered as running east-west.

The trackage right of way is generally 100 feet wide. Beginning at Mill street on the east and extending to Broadway on the west, the railroad property is 200 feet wide, the additional 100 feet lying on the north side of and contiguous with the general 100 foot wide trackage right of way. The 200 foot wide strip within this sixblock section will be referred to as the northern 100 foot strip and the southern 100 foot strip.

Plaintiffs, as the descendants of George F. Weeks and Elmira Weeks, his wife, claim title to the northern 100 foot strip on the grounds that plaintiffs' ancestor Weeks conveyed a fee estate to defendant's predecessor railroad with a provision for the reversion of the property to grantor Weeks in the event the railroad did not construct and continue to maintain a railroad depot in Eldon.

Plaintiffs claim title to the northern one-half of the southern 100 foot strip on the grounds that they are abutting landowners to an abandoned railroad right of way. Plaintiffs own no land abutting on the 200 foot wide strip from Mill street to Broadway.

Defendant Missouri Pacific Railroad Co. is the successor to the Jefferson City Lebanon & Southwestern Railroad Company (J.C.L. & S.W.). Defendant does not claim to have owned the fee in the northern 100 foot strip, but, in this case, denies title in plaintiffs.

Intervenors Ollisons and Reed, respectively, own parcels of land abutting a portion of the north side of the northern 100 foot strip. Intervenors Schultes own a parcel of land abutting on a portion of the south side of the southern 100 foot strip.

Intervenors deny title in plaintiffs and as abutting owners to an abandoned railroad right of way claim ownership of that portion of the 200 foot strip upon which their property abuts to a point one-half (100 feet) of the way across the 200 foot strip.

The trial court found generally for defendant and against plaintiffs, thus denying title to plaintiffs. The trial court also sustained intervenors' claim of ownership to one-half of the 200 foot strip upon which intervenors' land abuts.

Plaintiffs alone have appealed and on this appeal assert two points which are:

'I. The trial court erred in refusing to award to the Weeks the reversionary interest expressly reserved to them in the Quit Claim Deed of April 15, 1882.

'II. The application of the statutory scheme embodied in Sec. 26, Art. 1, Mo. Const.1945 (Sec. 21, Art. 2, Mo.Const., 1875 and V.A.M.S. 388.210(2) (765(2) R.S.Mo.1879) to defeat the Weeks' reversionary interest in the Quit Claim Deed in suit violates the Federal and State Constitutional provisions prohibiting the State from making laws which impair the obligations of contract, Art. I, Sec. 10 U.S. Const.; Art. I, Sec. 13. Mo.Const.1945, deprives the Weeks of substantive due process of law and equal protection of the law, in violation of Amends. V and XIV, U.S.Const. and Art. 1, Sec. 2 of Mo.Const. 1945, and takes private property from the Weeks and gives it to the defendant Railroad without compensation in violation of Art. 1, Sec. 28, Mo.Const., 1945.'

The quitclaim deed upon which plaintiffs base their reversionary claim to the northern 100 foot strip was executed by George R. Weeks and Elmira F. Weeks, his wife, and Silas Brickey and Ollevia Brickey, his wife, grantors, to the J.C.L. & S.W. on April 15, 1882, and filed for record on May 11, 1882.

This quitclaim deed describes the northern strip by metes and bounds and consists of a parcel of property 100 feet wide (N-S) and 2210 feet long (E-W). The deed declares that the property is transferred to the railroad 'in consideration of the erection and maintenance of a Depot in the Town of Eldon,' and also contains the following recitation, 'Said land is conveyed for the use of said Railway for Railroad purposes, and in case said grantee or its assigns fail or neglect to erect and maintain a Depot in the present Town of Eldon then this grant shall be forfeited and the above property revert to above grantors.'

The railroad did erect and maintain a depot or depots in Eldon until December 1966 when it was razed and not replaced. The railroad has removed its tracks and is no longer engaged in the business of operating a railroad in Eldon. In short, defendant has abandoned the use of the 200 foot strip for railroad purposes.

Plaintiffs contend that Silas Brickey and his wife had no interest in the property when the quitclaim deed was executed and that whatever interest George R. Weeks and his wife lacked at that time was subsequently acquired so that plaintiffs are the sole beneficiaries of the reversionary interest to the property. Intervenors contend that George R. Weeks and his wife had no interest in the described property at the time the deed was executed or subsequently divested themselves of whatever therefore they had in the property and therefore plaintiffs have no reversionary rights to the property.

The abstract of title to the property in question contains numerous deeds executed during the 1880's, as well as deeds filed to correct errors in former deeds; a circuit court judgment correcting errors in deeds; and an affidavit filed for the purpose of correcting errors.

The resolution of the points on this appeal calls for a decision with respect to the legal effect, if any, of the alleged reversionary clause in the quitclaim deed and this decision can be made without attempting to untangle the conflicting deeds, correcting deeds, and affidavits appearing in the abstract of title.

If the quitclaim deed conveyed only an easement for railroad purposes, then the title to the easement vested in the abutting landowners upon abandonment by the railroad and the reversionary clause does not operate to revest title in the grantors.

All parties agree that by other conveyances the railroad acquired only a right of way easement in the southern 100 foot strip.

If the quitclaim deed for the northern 100 foot strip was a voluntary grant for railroad purposes, then the interest acquired by the railroad was an easement only. The fee remained in the grantors, subject to the easement, and in grantors' successors in title to the land abutting the easement and, upon the abandonment of the easement, the original owners, or their grantees, thereafter held the same freed from the burden of the easement. Bray v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co., 310 S.W.2d 822 (Mo.1958).

In Brown v. Weare, 348 Mo. 135, 152 S.W.2d 649 (Mo.1941), the deed recited consideration of one dollar and stated that the property was conveyed for station grounds and expressly limited the use of the property to railroad purposes. A depot was erected and maintained for about 50 years and then abandoned. This court held that the grant was a voluntary one and conveyed only an easement to the railroad, saying at 654, 'Accordingly, we hold that the deed from Weare to the railroad company was but a voluntary grant and comes within the purview of the statute. The statute makes no distinction according to the exact railroad purpose for which the land is to be used but in effect requires only that the land be used for railroad purposes. Nor do we see any good reason for making any distinction because the property is used for station purposes rather than for a right of way. In the case at bar the station grounds were merely a wider place on the right of way. Instead of a strip 100 feet wide like the right of way the railroad company received a strip 350 feet wide for a distance along the right of way of some thousand feet. The tracks ran through the length of this plot. It is our conclusion that only an easement may be and was acquired by voluntary grant for station grounds, the same as for a right of way.'

In Quinn v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co., 439 S.W.2d 533 (Mo. banc 1969), the deed to the railroad recited that the land was to be used as a railway; that the railroad was to erect and maintain a depot on said land, and that whenever the property ceased to be used for the purposes set forth for a six-month period, 'then this deed shall be void and the land herein granted shall revert to and become the property of the said L. F. Quinn.' The court held this to be a voluntary grant conveying an easement only, stating at 535:

'This conclusion is here controlling. The deed...