Mississippi Cent. R. v. Hattiesburg Traction Co.

Citations

• 109 Miss. 101
• 67 So. 897

Syllabus

<p>Eminent Domain. Railroad, tracks in streets. Property rights.</p> <p>While it is true that a railroad’s right of way, when owned by it, is its private property, and cannot under section 17, Constitution 1890, “be taken or damaged for public use, except on due compensation being first made.” Yet it is equally true that a railroad company does not own the streets of a municipality along or across which its tracks are laid, neither can it acquire, under section 3322, of the Code, any exclusive right to the use of the streets of the municipality. The only right it can acquire in the streets of a municipality is the right to locate its tracks along or across them, subject to the right of the public to continue the free use thereof, for traveling, and to the right of the municipal authorities to grant similar easements therein, and a street railway company; receiving a permit from a city to lay its tracks in the streets may extend its tracks in a street across a railroad company’s tracks without first instituting eminent domain proceedings or paying damages.</p>