Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1852-08-13
Sunbury & Erie:R. R. Injunction Case.

t Van. f. P,ckcr G, di Us. The !SuaJary {
: Erie Ratl,oad Company.
| BLACK, G. 1.-The bill in this caus
f sets forth that the plaintiff. are Stock
holders in the Susquehanna Railroad Com
pany, which was incorporated by an ac
Of the Legislature, passed l4,h of April
1851, and authorized to construct roaC
, from Sunbury to Harrisburg or Bridge
port, with provision that unless the worl
should be commenced three years from tie
date OF the act, the charter should bt
void; F.; that in pursuance Of this act of in
: corporation large subscriptions have beer
made to the capital stock of the Company
letters patent have bcen issued by the
Governor, officers have been elected, Il
corps Of engineers employed, and an ex
ploratory survey made. The bill COM
plains that the Sunbury & Erie Railroad
under color of its charter and of a supple
ment passed in 1852, claimed to have the
authority to make and construct Rail.
road over the same route, and that the
last mentioned Company has actually be-
gun the construction of such road and
entered upon the ground surveyed by the
company to which the plaintiffs belong,
aud is at this time prosecuting its work.
These acts and doings are avowsd to be
contrary to equity and good conscience,
and without any authority whatever in
the charter under which the Suubury &
Erie Railroad Company pretends to be
acting. The relief prayed for is an ill.,
Junction. The bill having been fled, a
preliminary injunction is moved for to
prevent the defendants from proceeding
further until the cause is decided.
The motion is insisted on the grounds,
1st That the plaintiffs being corporators
have no right to sue, either at law or in
equity, except by their corporate name.
ID. That the survey of the Sunbury 4
Erie Railroad Company was made before
the issuing of letters patent by the Go
vernon to the Susquehanna Railroad Com
2any; and, 3D. That the 9th section of
the supplement to the defendants charter,
passed on the 9th Of March, 1852, gives
to the Sunbury & Erie Company the right
to extend its road from Sunbury, by the
valley of the Susquehanna, to such point
on the Pennsylvania Railroad as they may
deem expedient, and therefore the acts
and doings complained of are not usurpa-
tions, but fully authorized by law.
The plaintiffs have right to amend
their bill by changing the name. For
that purpose motion has been made, and
is now pending. If, therefore, it be true
that final injunction can not be decreed
on the bill as it now stands, the objection
would not avail to prevent the prelimina-
ry injunction.
There does not appear to have been any
tardiness in the organization of the Sus-
quehanna Company. There is nothing in
the lapse of time which interviewed be-
tween the act of Incorporation and the is
suing of letters patent to forfeit corporate
rights granted to the Company, or to di-
vest the Stockholders of tie privileges
which the charter was intended to confer.
The acts done and threatened to be done
bv the defendants, are, therefore, as much
against the law as if they had all been
committed. after the letters patent were
issued. Unless these acts can be justi
fed in some other way, this will be no
excuse.
The strain of the case is on the con-
struction of that section in the supplement-
to the defendants act of incorporation
which is relied on as giving them the
privilege to make a railroad along the
same route which the Susquehanna Com
pany has adopted, and the counsel on both
sides have done we'll to throw almost the
whole weight of their argument on that
point. We have considered it with the
care which is due to question involving
interests, public and private, of so much
magnitude.
In 1887, the Legislature Incorporated
the Sunbury & Erie Railroad Company,
with authority to make railroad from
Sunbury to Erie, but without any autho-
rity to extend their work further south or
east than Sunbury. BY this, their origi-
nal charter, they had no more right to
make a road from Sunbury to Harrisburg,
than if they had never been Incorporated
at all. Such was the state of things in
1851, when the charter was given to the
Su$quehanra Company. The act which
brought the latter Company into being
gave them the privilege of constructing
their railroad along the Susquehanna
river between Harrisburg and SunJury,
by route to which nobody else had any
right or prc,ence of claim. On the faith
of this unequivocal grant of authority to
construct their work on track then en-
tircly open to their enterprise, they raised
the capital necessary for the purpose, and
prepared to commence it. 1t is at this
stage of their progress that the Sudbury
& Erie Company set up their claim as
grantees from the State of the same pri-
vilege, and assert that they too have a
legal right to make road between the
same termini, along the same valley, and
by the same intermediate points. Did
the Legislature intend that these two
companies should each have equal autho-
rity to construct the same identical work ?
Did they desire or expect that two rail-
roads should be made between Harrisburg
and Sunbury, and conducted by two diff
ferent companies ? 1t seems to us ex-
! troralv ;nnrohahle that this could have