Case ID: ohio_8/html/0034-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "*Judge Lane", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*Isaac Walker v. The Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad Company.
    .AH incorporated companies for constructing roads or canals are subject to ' legal control in a proper case; yet chancery will not interpose such control in a controverted case of expediency of location within the proper points; nor will chancery, in such case, interpose upon the application of a person not otherwise affected or injured than by the actual location passing through his land.
    This cause was adjourned from the ’county of Seneca. It was a bill in chancery, and the bill stated that the defendants were a company incorporated to construct a railroad from Dayton to Springfield, thence to Urbana, thence to Bellefontaine, thence to or near Upper Sandusky, thence to or near Tiffin, thence to or near Lower Sandusky, thence to Sandusky, in Huron county. That the company had proceeded to lay out the road from Dayton to a point near Tifian ; but that from thence they had projected the line of the road directly across to its ultimate termination, without any regard to that provision of the act of incorporation, which requires it to be run near Lower Sandusky, which place is left at the distance of fifteen miles from the line. It is averred that no obstacle exists to a continuance of the road by Lower Sandusky, and that the line selected is to subserve the interests of a few individuals and to deprive the inhabitants of Lower Sandusky of all benefit of the road. That the complainant is the owner of lands situate on the present selected route, which is not more than one mile from the line that would pass by Lower San-dusky.
    The bill further charges improper practices by the defendants, in procuring an assessment, by a jury, of the damages which complainant’s land had sustained in consequence of the road, and prays an injunction against its construction. An injunction was granted in conformity with this prayer, and the case came up for hearing, on the defendant’s demurrer to the bill, before the court of common pleas of Seneca county. The bill was dismissed and an appeal taken to this court.
    Silliman and Oofeinbery, for complainant.
    Rawson, Boalt, Beecher, Smith and Chaplin, for defendants.
    The argument of counsel turned chiefly on the facts of the case comprehending the localities and character of the ground. Mr. Silliman cited Jerome v. Ross, 7 Johns. Ch. 315 ; Agar v. Regents Canal Company, Cooper’s Equity, 77; Shad v. Henderson, 2 Dow. 519; Bank of Chillicothe v. Town of Chillicothe, 7 Ohio, 2 pt. 35.
   *Judge Lane

delivered the opinion of the court:

The statute having provided a mode for estimating damages, in cases of this description, and thus given a legal remedy both for original action and for revision of it, before the courts of law, chancery has no jurisdiction upon that question.

The present claim for relief is not to' be sustained upon the mere ground that the corporation have transcended or abused their corporate powers. Such abuses are ordinarily to be corrected by proceedings in quo warranto, prosecuted by the government, in which the interposition of individuals is not countenanced.. 2 Johns. Ch. 371.

The great recent increase of private corporations has led courts of chancery into an enlarging jurisdiction over them, and it is now well settled that injunctions will be granted to prevent the abuse of their powers to the injury of others. These corporate powers are multifarious and of great extent. It has been justly said : “Nothing would be more pernicious than to hold that such large and extensive powers are not subject to any control. The corporation are not to be prevented from doing anything necessary to the prosecution of their undertaking; but are not to prosecute it so as to do unnecessary injury to others.” Coats v. Clarence Railroad Company, 1 Russell & Mylne, 181; S. C., 4 Eng. Cond. Ch. 379; 2 Story Eq. 206.

The cases which justify the interference of a court of chancery should be those of clear, incontestable, well-defined right. When acts requiring judgment, science, and professional skill are confided to the discretion of the officers of a corporation, the exercise of that discretion will not bo lightly disturbed.

In this case the complainant has sustained no injury except from the transit of the road through his land, an easement to •which all land in the state is subject; but which he claims to impose upon his neighbors’ land, because it lies- in the direct line from Tiffin to Lower Sandusky. The selection of a route for the the road necessarily involves, to some extent, a discretionary power. Where this power has been exercised, as in this case, within the appointed termini of the road, and within the general scope of the authority conferred on the corporation, this court will not assume to settle what degree of propinquity the line of location should bear to Lower Sandusky, especially at the instance of a stranger to that question.

Bill dismissed.