56 N.J. Eq. 569 | New York Court of Chancery | 1898
The complainant is a traction company operating street railways, organized under the Traction act of March 14th, 1893, and under this act entered upon and is operating the street railroad of the Orange and Newark Horse Car Railroad Company, as one of its lines. This street railroad is a double-track road running through Main street in the city of Orange, and, at the time of the entry on it by complainant, was operated by horses, but is now equipped and operated by the electric overhead trolley system.
The rights of the complainant to the occupation of the portion of Main street now in question for the purposes of its railroad, were first conferred on the Newark Passenger Company, a predecessor in title of the complainant, by a resolution of the common council of the city of Orange, passed August 25th,. 1890, which authorized this company to construct, maintain, and operate their street railway for the transportation of passengers from the point on Main street where their line then ended, westerly to the city boundary line. A previous resolution of the common council of August 8th, 1890, gave the Newark
The defendant is also a. traction company organized under the Traction act of 1893, incorporated November 8th, 1897, and on or about this date entered upon the street railroad of the South Orange and Maplewood Street Railway Company. This latter company was organized as a street railway company in 1894, and by its original articles its road was to be constructed entirely within the limits of the village of South Orange, and-was to run over private property, except where it crossed two. public avenues. The road was subsequently extended, beyond the village of South Orange and into the,township of West. Orange and into the city of Orange, up to the south side of Main street, where complainant’s railway is now operated. This extension is alleged by complainant to have been m.ade without authority of law. The extension of the road of the South Orange and Maplewood Street Railway is also built upon pri-. vate lands, except where it crosses the public highways, and for this crossing of the highways by the road as extended, the municipal authorities of the township have given authority. The extension of the road by the street railway company as far as the south side of Main street in Orange (according to the bill) was completed and-the road in operation as long ago as the 7th of June, 1897, and on this date the street railway company applied to the city of Orange for permission to cross Main street, and the city council passed an ordinance on August 9th, 1897, granting this authority. On August 30th, 1897, a certiorari was granted by Mr. Justice Depue on the application of complainant, removing the ordinance to the supreme court, and by consent of the street railway company, which was a party defendant to the proceedings, the ordinance was afterwards set aside. One of the reasons assigned in the certiorari proceedings for setting aside the ordinance was that the street railway company had no authority to construct or operate a street railway beyond the limits of South Orange. After this ordinance had been set aside, the defendant, the South Orange and Maplewood Traction Company, was organized under the Traction act of
The complainant has given no consent to the construction of the crossing by defendant, nor has any offer' of compensation
Such preliminary injunction cannot be granted upon the first ground. The only ground upon which the complainant’s right to equitable relief, based upon the illegal construction and operation of the defendant’s railroad outside of the limits of South Orange, and up to the south side of Main street in the city of Orange, can be based, is the interference with the authorized business of the company, by competition carried on without authority of law. Such unauthorized competition with the business operated under a legal franchise, is a recognized ground of equitable as well as legal relief. Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad Co. v. Delaware and Raritan Canal Co., 3 C. E. Gr. 546; Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. National Railway Co., 8 C. E. Gr. 441; Jersey City Cas. Co. v. Dwight, 2 Stew. Eq. 242.
The only other legal injury which complainant can sustain by reason of an illegal extension of the defendant’s road beyond the limits of South Orange and up to Main street, is an injury common to the public or to all other owners of property, and such common injury affords no basis for equitable interference on behalf of the individual or property-owner to enjoin the illegal exercise of a public franchise. In such cases, jurisdiction for the purpose of deciding upon such illegal use is to be exercised only upon proper proceedings at law or in equity by or on behalf of the state. But in order to obtain equitable relief upon the special ground of illegal interference with its business, the bill must be expressly based upon this right to-
Second. The principal ground upon which the right to a preliminary injunction is based, is that the construction of defendant’s railroad across complainant’s tracks, and its operation by the trolley system, will necessarily invade complainant’s property rights, as owner of the track and trolley system, and interfere with its franchise of operating its road. The construction of the crossing as proposed will undoubtedly interfere to some extent with the operation of complainant’s road during the construction. And if constructed in the manner disclosed by the affidavits, and by the plans produced at the hearing, it will also permanently change the present actual condition of complainant’s property at the crossing in the following particulars: In lieu of its continuous unbroken rail, a rail of special construction, a cross in shape, called a frog, is laid .down,-the arms of
Another method of crossing is practicable, and is sometimes used, by which the wires of both companies are cut for a space of about nine inches at the crossing of each set of tracks (in this instance making four crossings), and a concave circular plate of this diameter or other device is inserted which holds all the wires, and over which the two currents are also passed by loops of wire joining the disconnected ends, and thus supplying a continuous current. But in this method the trolley wheel of each car “jumps” the nine-inch space covered by the plate without a current, and inasmuch as four of these would occur at the crossing, the method above referred to, of supplying a
The defendant, in its answer, admits its liability to construct the crossing at its own expense, and offers to supply the current for the cross wire to be used by complainant if its wire is cut-in the affidavits, the president of the defendant states that the' defendant is prepared to bear all the cost attendant upon or incident to said crossing, either in its construction or subsequent maintenance.
It is manifest, therefore, that the construction of the crossing, as proposed, will to some extent change the nature and character of the complainant’s ownership of its tracks and wires laid and erected by it in a public street, and will create hereafter at the; place of crossing, joint rights or interests of some character in> the use of the tracks and wire system at this place. The question is whether this can be done against complainant’s consent, without compensation. So far as relates to the mere interruption of the operation of complainant’s road during the period of, construction, there can be no basis for compensation, for complainant’s right to the use of the street must be subject to the-right of the public to cross its tracks located therein, and to the-right of the public authorities to provide for crossing the tracks-by any carriages or vehicles which have the right to use the-street for travel, and to interrupt complainant’s operation in such reasonable manner as may be necessary to provide for the construction of the crossing, when the right to cross exists. National Docks, &c., Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 9 Dick. Ch. Rep. 142; affirmed March Term, 1896.
As to the permanent changes in complainant’s tracks and’ wires, the precise question now involved has not been expressly. adjudicated in our courts, nor has the right of the complainant, for such taking or use of its property as is purely and necessarily incidental to the crossing of its tracks by street cars,, moved either by horse or electric power, in the safest and most, approved method, been expressly recognized; and, on the other hand, the decisions of our courts thus far have recognized the-; right of street railway companies to cross the tracks of steam,
In Morris and Essex Railroad Co. v. Newark Passenger Railroad Co., 6 Dick. Ch. Rep. 379 (1892), Chancellor McGill refused to enjoin a trolley company from crossing a steam railroad laid where the latter crossed a public highway, and from erecting its poles and wires over the complainant’s road. The decision was affirmed by the court of errors and appeals for the reasons given by the chancellor. 7 Dick. Ch. Rep. 340 (1894). In West Jersey Railroad Co. v. Camden, &c., Railway Co., 7 Dick. Ch. Rep. 31 (1893), Chancellor McGill likewise refused to enjoin a trolley company from crossing the tracks of a steam railroad company laid in a public street. In both of these cases the decisions, so far as they were made on the merits of the case, involved the denial of any right to compensation to the railroad company, unless it be considered that being applications for preliminary injunctions, the denials of such injunctions were correct because the right to compensation was doubtful, and therefore could not be protected by preliminary injunction. From the report of the Morris and Essex Railroad Case on appeal, in 17 N. J. L. J. 242, it would seem that this was the ground relied on ; but in the official report (7 Dick. Ch. Rep. 340) all the reasons given in the court below are approved. This principle of refusing preliminary injunction if the complainant’s right be doubtful, if now applied, would require, I think, the denial of the preliminary injunction in the present case. The recent decision of the supreme court in a late case, Paterson Railroad Co. v. Newark, 32 Vr. 80 (November, 1897), is relied on by complainant’s counsel as settling the legal right to compensation in this case, but I do not so read the decision. In that case a public street was laid out over a railroad operated at this point on the company’s own land, for which land, and damages for the use of it as a street, the railroad company was, under the law relating to the opening of streets, entitled to compensation. The question was whether the expenses of a flagman and of gates at the new crossing were proper elements of damages for the opening of the street, and
The Coach Company Case, 6 Stew. Eq 267 (1880), is also relied on as establishing the nature of the complainant’s ownership of its tracks and wires, and inferentially the right to compensation for any interference whatever therewith. But that case related to the habitual wrongful use of the railway company’s tracks for the purpose of passage along the same, and did not touch upon or settle the question of necessary interference for the purpose of legitimate public travel across the track. Nor was the Coach Company Case considered in the later decisions above referred to as settling the rights at crossings. In these decisions (Morris and Essex Railroad Company and West Jersey Railroad Company Cases) the respective right of the electric street car and steam railroad companies at crossings in the public streets were fully treated on the merits of the question, and principles were laid down which, as it seems to me, when read in connection with our previous decisions, govern the question of the right of complainant to compensation for crossing its tracks laid in a public street. And, in view of the fact that the right to compensation, if it exists in this case, is a constitutional right to compensation previous to talcing, which can be fully protected and enforced only by the prevention of the taking of complainant’s property, I am inclined to think that where the complainant is in actual possession and constant use of the property proposed to be taken or interfered with by the defendant, under claim of statutory authority, and all the facts relating to the existence of the right of the defendant to thus take or interfere with the property in complainant’s actual possession and use,
In the present case, all the facts relating to the manner of.
I reach the conclusion, therefore, on the merits of the question, that the complainant is not entitled to compensation for damages to its property by the proper construction of this crossing, and as the crossing, when properly erected, will not interfere with the exercise of its franchises, the application for preliminary injunction on this ground of right to compensation is refused.
This conclusion agrees with the- principles settled by the decisions of the courts of other states, in cases involving the rights of crossing in public streets, so far as I have been referred to them. These are cases of street car tracks crossing steam railroads, and deny this right to compensation. Brooklyn Central, &c., Co. v. Brooklyn City Railroad Co., 33 Barb. 420 (1861); Chicago, &c., Railway Co. v. West Chicago Shore Railway Co., 156 Ill. 255 (1895); Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Co. v. Wilmington City Railway Co., 38 Atl. Rep. 1067 (Delaware, 1897); Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Greensburgh, &c., Street Railway Co., 176 Pa. St. 559; New York, &c., Railroad Co. v. Bridgeport Traction Co., 65 Conn. 410.
It was suggested, in the brief of complainant’s counsel, that a court of equity has jurisdiction to control the construction of this crossing if the parties cannot agree. Such jurisdiction can, undoubtedly, be exercised, and where the right to construct a crossing exists, a court of equity will, if necessary, and on application of either party, interfere to control the construction. This was the course taken in this court where the right to construct a crossing arose after condemnation proceedings, and the jurisdiction for the purpose of finally deciding upon the character of the crossing was affirmed by the court of errors and appeals. National Docks, &c., Railway Co. v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co.,