148 Ga. 442 | Ga. | 1918
The Eailroad Commission of Georgia has “authority to prescribe rules with reference to spur-tracks and side-tracks, with reference to their use and construction, removal or change, with full power to compel service to be furnished to manufacturing plants, warehouses, and similar places of business along the line of railroads, where practicable, and in the judgment of the commission the business is sufficient to justify, and -on such terms and conditions as the commission may prescribe.” Civil Code (1910), § 3664. Under this statute the commission is authorized to require railroad companies to build spur-tracks and side-tracks, within constitutional limitations. Mo. Pac. Ry. Co. v. Neb., 217 U. S. 196 (30 Sup. Ct. 461, 54 L. ed. 727, 18 Ann. Cas. 989). Taking the entire section together, we think the legislative intent in conferring “authority to prescribe rules” with reference to such tracks includes authority to determine when and under what terms and conditions the same are to be constructed, and this view is consistent with the language immediately following, viz., “with reference to their use and construction, .removal or change.” The commission would be without power to take private property for private purposes, because this is opposed to the “elemental conception of individual ownership, and forbidden by the organic law of the State and the United States.” Harrold v. Americus, 143 Ga. 686, 688 (83 S. E. 534). Consequently the section must be construed with reference to this constitutional' inhibition; and thus construed, the section empowers the commission to require a railroad company to construct spur-tracks or side-tracks: (1) when such,construction is practicable, and the business to be derived by the railroad company shows the order to be reasonable; and
In Union Lime Co. v. Railroad Commission, 144 Wis. 523 (129 N. W. 605), it was said: “Such track,-when built, becomes a portion of the trackage of the railroad. The fact that its initial cost is borne by the party primarily to be served, with provisions for subsequent equitable division of such cost, does not make it a private track nor change the nature of its use. Over it the products of the industry find their way into the markets of the world, and every consumer is directly interested in the lessened cost of such products resulting from the building and operation thereof. That these'products are supplied by a single owner, or by a limited
The court, with the exception of the writer, have thus reached the conclusion that the petition itself shows the proposed track to be a public one and for the benefit of the public. I can not assent to the view that, as a matter of law, a spur or side-track is for the benefit of the public by reason alone of its location upon the railroad right of way. Compare Mo. Pac. Ry. v. Nebraska, supra.
Judgment reversed.