Day v. Tacoma Railway & Power Co.

Citations

• 80 Wash. 161
• 141 P. 347
• 1914 Wash. LEXIS 1288

Syllabus

<p>Carriers — Public Duties — Abandonment — Authority for— Power of County Commissioners. Rem. & Bal. Code, § 9080, empowering county commissioners to grant franchises for railway systems upon public roads outside the limits of incorporated cities and towns and to prescribe the terms and conditions on which they may be enjoyed, does not expressly or by implication confer power upon the commissioners to consent to an abandonment of any public duty imposed upon or assumed by common carriers.</p> <p>Carriers—Public Duties—Abandonment of Line. A common carrier having exercised the privileges conferred under a permissive franchise, neither it nor its successor in interest, can, against the will of the state, abandon the enterprise if it works a prejudice to the public interest.</p> <p>Same—Action to Enjoin Abandonment of Line—Parties Entitled—Private Interests—Complaint — Sufficiency. Individuals, living along the line of a street railway, cannot maintain an action to prevent the company from abandoning the route merely because they, “and many other residents similarly situated,” are dependent on the line for railway service, in the absence of any allegation as to the number of persons affected who are too remote to use a new parallel route, or the manner in which the public convenience will be affected.</p> <p>Same — Abandonment oe Line — Public Interest — Competitive Service. Injunction does not lie to prevent' a street railway company from abandoning that part of its road lying between two stations served by a competing road lying closely parallel, merely because the abandonment necessarily results in depriving all persons to whom both roads are accessible of competitive service; since the whole theory of the public service law (3 Rem. & Bal. Code, § 8626-1 et seq.), is opposed to the idea that the public will be better served with two closely parallel lines of road where one road will amply suffice.</p> <p>Railroads—Ownership oe Stock in Competing Line—Who May Questi