State ex rel. Milwaukee Terminal Railway Co. v. Superior Court

Citations

• 54 Wash. 365
• 103 P. 469
• 1909 Wash. LEXIS 1002

Syllabus

<p>Eminent Domain — Railroads—Power to Condemn — Public Service — Extent—Good Faith. A railway terminal company organized primarily to connect business enterprises of a city with, terminals of a railroad company in another city, by means of tracks and car ferries, and to carry freight in car load lots between such points, is a railroad company entitled to condemn land, where it has shown its good faith by expending $100,000, and has under contract equipment that will cost $400,000 additional for barges, car floats, and terminals, although it owns no rolling stock.</p> <p>Same — Public Use — Prior Use by Railroad — Land Leased to Patron. Strips of land owned by a railroad company, fifteen feet Wide, adjacent to a street in which the railroad company has its railroad tracks, are not devoted to a public use so as to exempt them from condemnation for a public use by another railroad company, where it appears that they had never been used for railroad 'tracks but were in possession of a mill company under leases for nominal rent or rent free, and were used by the mill for loading platforms, although such use was a convenience to the mill as a patron of the owning railroad company; the test being the use to which the property is applied as a matter of right, and not the ownership.</p> <p>Same — Necessity—Reasonableness. In such a case, the question of the reasonable necessity requisite to authorize condemnation does not depend on the fact that other property might be appropriated for the purposes of the relator, nor on the fact that it would increase the cost to the mill company of loading cars and result in ■a loss of business to the defendant railway company, especially where the defendant has other property that can be used for loading platforms, as these are questions largely of expediency; it appearing that the route of relator’s spur track is the most feasible one and reasonably necessary.</p> <p>Appeal — Rehearing. A rehearing will not be granted to enable the peti