Northwestern Warehouse Co. v. Oregon Railway & Navigation Co.

Citations

• 32 Wash. 218
• 73 P. 388
• 1903 Wash. LEXIS 403

Syllabus

<p>CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-PREVENTION OE MONOPOLIES AND PREFERENCES -SELF-EXECUTING PROVISIONS.</p> <p>Art. 12, § 15, of the state constitution forbidding discrimination in charges or facilities for transportation to be made by any railroad company, and Id., § 22, prohibiting contracts between companies limiting the production or regulating the transportation of any product or commodity, are not self-executing, but are limited in their operation to such interpretations as have been given them by legislative enactment.</p> <p>MANDAMUS-OMISSION OF LEGAL DUTY.</p> <p>The writ of mandamus will not issue in anticipation of a supposed omission of duty, but it must appear that there has been an actual default in the performance of a clear legal duty then due at the hands of the party against whom relief is sought.</p> <p>SAME- — ■ DENIAL OF TRACK CONNECTIONS BY CARRIER.</p> <p>Under Bal. Code, § 4322, which provides that it shall be unlawful for any railroad to discriminate in charges or facilities for transportation, that every company permitting any one to connect a track with its track for the accommodation of any warehouse or elevator, etc., shall accord the same right to every other person soliciting it, which may be enforced by mandamus at the suit of any person entitled to such right, the owner of a warehouse or elevator cannot compel a railroad company to extend a spur of its track away from its existing tracks and over land not belonging to the railroad, when it has never done a like service to other shippers in the same line of business, . but has. confined its service to according them facilities for shipment by granting to them leases upon its right of way for the construction of elevators abutting upon its tracks.</p> <p>SAME.</p> <p>In a proceeding to enforce by mandamus a demand upon a railroad company for an extension of its track to plaintiff’s warehouse, an alternative offer to accept from defendant a lease of a portion of its- right of way, in accordance with