Kirk v. Kansas City, Shreveport & Gulf Railway Co.

Citations

• 51 La. Ann. 667
• 25 So. 457
• 1899 La. LEXIS 449

Syllabus

<p>Syllabus.</p> <p>(1) An act by which land owners granted a right of way over their land to a corporation for the construction of a railroad, wherein the consideration stated was one dollar, and the advantages, benefits and conveniences resulting from the building of the road and the enhancement in value of their adjacent property, evidences, not a donation pure and simple, but a commutative contract.</p> <p>(2) While such a contract does not relieve the corporation from the affirmative continuing obligations devolving upon it from the building of the road, nor from responsibility for damages to the land owner subsequently actually accruing from its faulty construction, yet claims which would have been within and gone to make up the .original damages or compensation that wouid have been assessed against and paid by the company as the condition precedent to the right of way in an expropriation proceeding — matter which must have been known, foreseen and anticipated — must be held to-have been considered and included by the parties as being within the consideration agreed upon when they balanced advantages and disadvantages.</p> <p>(3; It is the duty of a railroad company where its road crosses a water course, or would interfere with its flow of water or interfere with the drainage of adjacent lands, to construct the road so as not to impair its usefulness or do-injury to the owners of the lands along the route — this duty is a continuing one, and where the road is not properly constructed each overflow incurs-new cause of action for damages.</p> <p>(4) A railroad company cannot on the ground of its being a quasi public corporation build its road so as to serve its own interest and be permitted to do so to the injury of those who are as much entitled to the full benefit of their own property as the company is of its. If the exigencies of the situation should be such as to require absolutely and necessarily the building of the road in a manner which carries with it I