36 Mo. App. 363 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1889
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a suit in equity to restrain the defendants from obstructing a farm crossing over the railroad of the principal defendant, and also from obstructing a private way leading from the farm crossing to a public highway. The circuit court, on a hearing of the issues, rendered a decree granting the relief prayed for and the defendants appeal to this court. The principal plaintiff is the executor of the estate of Robert P. Lakenan, deceased, and the other plaintiffs are devisees under his will. The defendants are the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company; C. M. Carter, who holds the legal title to a tract of land purchased of the plaintiff executor, for the railroad company ; and Clerain A. Hamilton, who is a tenant of the land under the railroad company. The facts on which the plaintiffs predicate their right to an injunction are established beyond
In 1854 the defendant railroad -company acquired by deed a"fee-simple title to a “right of way,” being a strip of land one hundred feet wide, running diagonally from southeast to northwest, through a quarter section of land which for convenience will be designated in this opinion as “the quarter section in controversy,” leaving about one hundred and seven acres of the tract on its north side and about fifty-three acres of it on its south side. In 1860, Robert P. Lakenan acquired by deed the fee-simple title to this quarter section of land, and also to several tracts of adjoining land. The land thus acquired was used and cultivated as a single farm, there being about seven hundred and seventy acres on the north side of the railroad and fifty-three acres on the south side of the railroad, the latter being the portion cut off by the railroad in passing through the quarter section in controversy. The railroad had established and always maintained a farm crossing about the middle of that section of its road which passed through the quarter section in controversy. The house of the late Robert F. Lakenan stood near the center of this quarter section at some distance north of the railroad, and a private way, leading from his house directly south, passed over this farm crossing, thence through the fifty-three acres, which lay south of the railroad, to a public road which had been established in 1866, and which ran east and west on the southern side of the quarter section in controversy. In 1883, Robert P. Lakenan died, leaving a will, under which the plaintiff, Russell M. Lakenan, became his executor, with power to sell the lands belonging to his estate. In 1886. the defendant railroad company, desiring to become the purchaser of
A map of the township is subjoined, showing the position of the tract of land composing the farm of Robert F. Lakenan, deceased, lying north of the railway with reference to the railroad, the farm crossing, the private way, and the public highway above spoken of:
The case seems to be a simple one. The defendants having acquired their title to, and interest in, the fifty-three acres south of the railroad through a deed from the principal plaintiff, which expressly reserves a right of way twenty feet wide from the farm crossing due south to the public highway, are estopped by the deed from shutting up the private way thus reserved. The .argument, that the reservation of this right of way is void for uncertainty, is too idle for discussion. It is as ■certain as words can make it. It could not be stated on paper with greater certainty, and no surveyor could have the least difficulty in staking it out. They have exhibited no color of right to plow it up, or obstruct it; but, so far as the evidence shows, have, in doing so, acted in the most wanton violation of the rights of the plaintiffs.
Then as to the railway crossing. The argument that a railway crossing can exist only for the benefit of' a farm proprietor, who owns the land on both sides, is equally fallacious ; for the plaintiffs do own the land on both sides sufficiently to support this rule, if it be a correct interpretation of section 809, Revised Statutes. They own the farm consisting of some seven hundred and seventy acres on the north, and they own the private way twenty feet wide from the railway crossing south to the public highway. It is quite immaterial to their
The judgment will be affirmed.