Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/89840/donovan-vs-pennsylvania-co
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 13:03:20+00:00

Document:
Although its functions are public, a railroad company holds the legal title to the property employed in the discharge of its duties, and while it must under all circumstances do everything reasonably necessary for the accommodation of passengers and shippers, it may use its property to the best advantage of the public and itself, and for that end may make reasonable rules and regulations for the use of its property consistent with the purposes for which it is created and not inconsistent with legally established regulations. When not unnecessary, unreasonable, or arbitrary, a railroad may make arrangements with, including the granting of special privileges to, a single concern to supply passengers arriving at its terminals with hacks and cabs, and it is not bound, at least in the absence of valid state legislation requiring it to do so, to accord similar privileges to other persons, even though they be licensed hackmen. Such an exclusive arrangement is not a monopoly in the odious sense of the word, nor does it involve an improper use by a railroad company of its property .
Public sidewalks and streets are for use by all on equal terms for proper purposes subject to valid regulations prescribed by the constituted authorities.
avoid a multiplicity of suits and conserve the public interest; and so held that the Pennsylvania Company could maintain a suit against hackmen combined together in disregard of its regulation enjoining them from congregating upon the sidewalk adjacent to its terminal at Chicago so as to interfere with the ingress and egress of passengers.
The rights of a railroad company as abutting owner of the sidewalks adjacent to the property on which its station stands and those of its passengers are not paramount to the rights of the general public to legitimately use the sidewalk, and licensed hackmen, unless forbidden by local regulations, may, within reasonable limits, use a public sidewalk in properly prosecuting their calling so long as such use does not obstruct others in legitimately using it upon equal terms.
This suit involves some questions as to the relative rights of the parties in the use of a railroad passenger station and depot grounds, and in the use of the public sidewalk and street adjacent to such station and grounds.
By a lease executed in 1871, the Pennsylvania Company, a corporation of Pennsylvania, engaged in transporting passengers and freight by railroad, acquired the possession and control of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway and all its rolling stock and property, the latter railway extending from Pittsburgh to a passenger station at or near the corner of Canal and Adams Streets in Chicago.
In 1880, the lessee company erected on the leased premises a new passenger house, now known as the Union Passenger Station, which ever since has been and is now occupied and used by it and its tenants, the Chicago & Alton Railway Company, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Company, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, and the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company. The companies just named occupy and use that station under a perpetual lease by which the Pennsylvania Company, as between it an its tenants, has charge of the station, with authority to control and manage all trains therein as well as all watchmen and employees in the business there transacted.
This passenger station is the only terminus in Chicago of each of those lines of railway, and through that station alone can the several companies using it conduct an exchange of passengers and baggage and the transportation and handling of the United States mail and express parcels.
The extent of the business done at that station is indicated by the statement that the Chicago & Alton Railway Company controls and operates in the transaction of what is commonly called interstate business over 1,000 miles of railway; the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Company, over 7,000 miles; the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, over 6,000 miles; the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company, over 1,400 miles, and the Pennsylvania Company, over 1,000 miles.
At this station, the average number of passengers arriving and departing is over 30,000 each day; the average number of parcels of baggage daily received and delivered is over 2,200, and the average number of tons of United States mail daily received and delivered is over 250. Passenger trains to the number of 250 arrive and depart each day. This statement does not include the large number of express parcels daily handled at the station.
All tickets of interstate passengers arriving and departing from this station, known as through tickets, have attached to each a check or coupon for conveyance through Chicago to the station of the connecting line of railroad designated on such tickets, and not running into or out of the passenger depot of the Pennsylvania Company. The latter company and the other companies named have contracts for the use of a line of omnibuses or conveyances for the performance of the services called for by such coupons or checks, and those omnibuses or conveyances form the only regular connecting lines of transportation between the Pennsylvania Company's station and the stations of other railways in Chicago.
Besides the Pennsylvania Company's station, there are five other railway stations in Chicago.
The main entrance to and exits from the Pennsylvania Company's station for passengers, for employees, and for the public using the station, is on Canal Street, about 100 feet north of Adams Street. Substantially all passengers, whether arriving or departing, pass through that entrance, which is at the head of a flight of stairs leading down to and up from the station platform upon which trains arrive and depart.
The present suit was instituted by the Pennsylvania Company against the defendant Donovan and others, citizens of Illinois, for the purpose of protecting that company in the enjoyment of certain alleged rights and privileges in respect of its passenger station and depot grounds in Chicago. The plaintiff alleged that those rights had been violated by the defendants, and, unless enjoined from so doing, they would continue to violate them, to its great damage.
had been allowed to place an agent inside the company's station to notify passengers that suitable cabs and carriages could be obtained from such agent; that, by means of such arrangement, the company made full provision for the wants of incoming passengers desiring cabs or carriages for transportation from its station to any part of Chicago. The arrangement or agreement with Eighme was terminated by the company on the thirty-first day of January, A.D. 1902, and a similar arrangement was made with the Parmelee Transfer Company, which thereafter succeeded Eighme in the same business, and now carried it on in the same manner.
and now daily prevented it from securing to passengers a free and uninterrupted passage from and to its station and to arriving and departing trains, and that, by such acts of the defendants, great and substantial damages were inflicted upon plaintiff's property, different in kind and degree from that suffered by the general public, incapable of computation, and which could not be compensated at law.
It was further averred in the bill that the defendants asserted the right -- and acted upon that claim and assertion -- to enter the station of the plaintiff at all times, in such numbers as suited their purposes, to remain there and occupy such portions of the station as they saw fit in soliciting the custom of incoming passengers, regardless of the consent or the regulations of the plaintiff, or the use to which its property is lawfully devoted, and to the prejudice of its duties and business as a common carrier, and by their actions largely deprived the plaintiff of the control of its property, to its irreparable loss and damage.
upon the sidewalk adjoining said station at any main or other entrance to said station, and that your orator may have such other and further relief in the premises as the nature of its case may require, and to your honors shall seem meet."
The defendants filed an answer putting in issue the material allegations of the bill and insisting upon their legal right to have their vehicles in the public street in front of the company's station, and to go upon the plaintiff's depot grounds or into its station, as well as to stand upon the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to the station, for the purpose of soliciting the business of incoming or outgoing passengers.
"from entering the passenger station of complainant at the corner of Adams and Canal Streets, in the City of Chicago, to solicit custom of the incoming passengers for cabs, carriages, express wagons, or hotels, and do absolutely desist and refrain from congregating upon the sidewalk in front of, adjacent to, or about such entrances to said passenger station, and from soliciting the custom of passengers for cabs, carriages, express wagons, or hotels until the further order of the court in the premises."
"from congregating upon the sidewalk in front of, adjacent to, or about the entrances of appellee's [company's] passenger station . . . and from there soliciting the custom of passengers, so as to interfere with the ingress and egress of passengers and employees."
120 F. 215. Subsequently, a final decree was passed in the circuit court in conformity with the above order of the circuit court of appeals.
That decree, upon appeal by the defendants, was affirmed in the latter court, and the case is now before this Court upon writ of certiorari, sued out by the defendants.
As this case is before us on writ of certiorari, we can dispose of all questions arising on the record.
Upon the pleadings, two principal inquiries arise: first, whether the Pennsylvania Company, having made an arrangement with the Parmelee Transfer Company to furnish at its passenger station, from time to time, all vehicles necessary for the accommodation of passengers arriving there on its trains or on the trains of other railroad companies, may legally exclude from its depot grounds or passenger station all hackmen or expressmen coming to either for the purpose only of soliciting for themselves the custom or patronage of passengers. Second, whether, in virtue of its ownership of the passenger station and depot grounds in question, the railroad company is entitled, in prosecuting its business, to any greater privileges in respect of the use of the sidewalk and street in front of the main entrance to such station than belonged to the defendants in the prosecution of their business.
"The question is no longer an open one as to whether a railroad is a public highway, established primarily for the convenience of the people, and to subserve public ends, and therefore subject to governmental control and regulation. It is because it is a public highway, and subject to such control, that the corporation by which it is constructed, and by which it is to be maintained, may be permitted, under legislative sanction, to appropriate private property for the purposes of a right of way, upon making just compensation to the owner in the mode prescribed by law."
To the same effect are United States v. Freight Association, 166 U. S. 290 , 166 U. S. 332 ; Smyth v. Ames, 169 U. S. 466 , 169 U. S. 544 ; Lake Shore &c.; Ry. Co. v. Ohio, 173 U. S. 285 , 173 U. S. 301 . Necessarily, the same principles apply in reference to the use of the company's stationhouse and depot grounds, for they are held in the same right as are its road, its locomotives, and other property or appliances employed in the transportation of passengers and freight, and must be devoted primarily to public use to the extent necessary for the public objects intended to be accomplished by the construction and maintenance of the railroad as a highway.
"A railroad's right of way has therefore the substantiality of the fee, and it is private property even to the public in all else but an interest and benefit in its uses. It cannot be invaded without guilt of trespass. It cannot be appropriated in whole or part except upon the payment of compensation. In other words, it is entitled to the protection of the Constitution, and in the precise manner in which protection is given."
"that a railroad company is a purchaser, in consideration of public accommodation and convenience, of the exclusive possession of the ground paid for to the proprietors of it."
"for all purposes not connected with the operation of its road, the right of the company to the exclusive use and enjoyment of the corporate property is as perfect and absolute as is that of an owner of real property not burdened with public or private easements or servitudes."
was not one that in any legal aspect concerned the defendants as licensed hackmen and cabmen. It was not for them to vindicate the rights of passengers. They only sought to use the property of the railroad company to make profit in the prosecution of their particular business. A hackman in nowise connected with the railroad company cannot, of right and against the objections of the company, go upon its grounds or into its station or cars for the purpose simply of soliciting the custom of passengers; but, of course, a passenger, upon arriving at the station, in whatever vehicle, is entitled to have such facilities for his entering the company's depot as may be necessary.
could accept the aid or stipulate for the services of others. But, after providing fully for the wants of passengers and shippers, it did not undertake, expressly or by implication, to so use its property as to benefit those who had no business or connection with it. It is true that, by its arrangement with the railroad company, the Parmelee Company was given an opportunity to control, to a great extent, the business of carrying passengers from the Union Passengers' Depot to other railway stations and to hotels or private houses in Chicago. But in a real, substantial, legal sense, that arrangement cannot be regarded as a monopoly in the odious sense of that word, nor does it involve an improper use by the railroad company of its property. That arrangement is to be deemed, not unreasonably, a means devised for the convenience of passengers and of the railroad company, and as involving such use by the company of its property as is consistent with the proper performance of its public duties and its ownership of the property in question. If the company, by such use of its property, also derived pecuniary profit for itself, that was a matter of no concern to the defendants, and gave them no ground of complaint.
"at all junctions with other railroads at all depots where said railroad companies stop their trains regularly to receive and discharge passengers in cities and villages, for at least one-half hour before the arrival of, and one-half hour after the arrival of, any passenger train, cause their respective depots to be open for the reception of passengers, said depots to be kept well lighted and warmed for the space of time aforesaid;"
companies are in the practice of receiving and delivering passengers and freight at all towns and villages having a population of two hundred or more, on the line of their roads and roads leased and operated by them."
Hurd's Ill.Stat., 1901, pp. 1378, 1385. Clearly these statutes have nothing to do with the matter before us. They relate only to the comfort and convenience of passengers and shippers of freight, and do not confer or assume to confer any rights on hackmen or cabmen who seek to enter the depot grounds and station of the railroad company merely to solicit business for themselves. It does not appear that the state has undertaken by any statute to compel the railroad company to share the use of its depot grounds and station with hackmen and cabmen seeking to use them only to solicit custom for themselves. Whether such a statute would be valid we need not now consider or determine.
"So long as the public are served to their reasonable satisfaction, it is a matter of no importance who serves them. The railroad company performs its whole duty to the public at large and to each individual when it affords the public all reasonable express accommodations. If this is done, the railroad company owes no duty to the public as to the particular agencies it shall select for that purpose. The public require the carriage, but the company may choose its own appropriate means of carriage, always provided they are such as to insure reasonable promptness and security."
"The authorities cited in support of this contention have no application to such a contract as the one before us. The defendant was under a duty arising from the public nature of its employment to furnish for the use of passengers on its lines such accommodations as were reasonably required by the existing conditions of passenger traffic. Its duty as a carrier of passengers was to make suitable provisions for their comfort and safety. Instead of furnishing its own drawing room and sleeping cars, as it might have done, it employed the plaintiff, whose special business was to provide cars of that character, to supply as many as were necessary to meet the requirements of travel. It thus used the instrumentality of another corporation in order that it might properly discharge its duty to the public. So long as the defendant's lines were supplied with the requisite number of drawing room and sleeping cars, it was a matter of indifference to the public who owned them. Express Cases, 117 U. S. 1 ."
authority and by sound reason and public policy -- is that which we have expressed.
The defendants cite, as supporting their contention, Pennsylvania Company v. Chicago, 181 Ill. 289. But that case did not involve any question as to the right of licensed cabmen to enter the stationhouse of a railroad company, against its objection, solely for the purpose of soliciting the custom of passengers. What appears in the opinion of the majority, and in the particular cases cited by the learned state court on that point was, we feel constrained to say, outside of the issues presented, and cannot be deemed authoritative upon the question now being considered. The sole issue in that case was as to the validity of certain ordinances of the City of Chicago relating to the use by hackmen of the public street and sidewalk in front of the company's station -- a question wholly different from the one relating to the special arrangement between the railroad company and the Parmelee Transfer Company. If the question had been before the state court, and it had adjudged that a railroad corporation could not grant to one person or company the exclusive right within its station to solicit the custom of passengers (the subject not being covered by any valid statute), then it would have been necessary to consider whether the subject was not one of general law, in respect of which the courts of the United States were entitled to exercise their independent judgment, in light of the settled principles that must always control the determination of the legal rights of parties. No such question is now presented.
The next question to be examined is that which involves the respective rights of the parties in the use of the public street and sidewalk in front of the company's passenger station.
for cabs, etc., until the further order of the court, and that this order was so modified in the circuit court of appeals as to restrain only such congregating by defendants upon the sidewalk as would interfere with the ingress and egress of passengers and employees. We take it that the final decree recognized the right of the defendants in prosecuting their business to congregate, in reasonable numbers, upon the sidewalks in front of, adjacent to, or about the entrance of the company's station, and from there soliciting the custom of passengers, providing such use of the sidewalks did not obstruct the ingress and egress of passengers and employees.
As the railroad company did not appeal from the final decree of the circuit court, it cannot, upon this appeal, complain of any of its provisions. The defendants did appeal, and they object to the decree relating to the use of the sidewalk and street in front of the main entrance to the passenger depot.
That the railroad company, by its agents and employees, are entitled, in prosecuting its business, to use in all appropriate ways the sidewalk and street in front of its station and depot grounds cannot be doubted, that right being appurtenant to the lands upon which its stationhouse and depot grounds stand. Passengers may therefore in their own right, as well as in right of the company, use the sidewalk in order to gain access to the depot grounds and station, or to reach the public street when leaving the station.
"The dedication of the street by the plat, the sale of lots with reference to it, conveyance of abutting lots, and the payment of the money for the conveyances, were elements sufficient to create the right. The right may be regarded in the nature of an incorporeal hereditament. It becomes appurtenant to the lots. As to the rights secured, they are plain: to have the street kept open, so that free access may be had to and from lots abutting on the street."
"it has the conservation, control, management, and supervision of such trust property, and it is its duty to defend and protect the title to such trust estate. The city has no power or authority to grant the exclusive use of it streets to any private person or for any private purposes, but must hold and control the possession exclusively for public use, for purposes of travel and the like."
"For example, an abutting owner's right of access to and from the street, subject only to legitimate public regulation, is as much his property as his right to the soil within his boundary lines. . . . When he is deprived of such right of access, or of any other easement connected with the use and enjoyment of his property, other than by the exercise of legitimate public regulation, he is deprived of his property."
"But it was further seen that he had rights not shared by the public at large, special and peculiar to himself, and which arose out of the very relation of his lot to the street in front of it, and that these rights, whether the bare fee of the streets was in the lot owner or in the city, were rights of property, and as such ought to be and were as sacred from legislative invasion as his right to the lot itself."
and easements is therefore entirely independent of the mode in which the highway is established, or of the estate or interest which the public acquires in the soil of the street, whether a fee or less."
Lewis on Eminent Domain, 2d ed., § 91 f , and authorities cited in notes. See also Newell v. Sass, 142 Ill. 104.
But the right of the railroad company, as abutting owner, and the rights of passengers are not, in their nature, paramount to the rights of others of the general public to use the sidewalk in question in legitimate ways and for legitimate purposes. Licensed hackmen and cabmen, unless forbidden by valid local regulations, may, within reasonable limits, use a public sidewalk in prosecuting their calling, provided such use is not materially obstructive in its nature -- that is, of such exclusive character as in a substantial sense to prevent others from also using it upon equal terms for legitimate purposes. Generally speaking, public sidewalks and streets are for use by all upon equal terms for any purpose consistent with the object for which such sidewalks and streets are established, subject, of course, to such valid regulations as may be prescribed by the constituted authorities for the public convenience -- this to the end that, as far as possible, the rights of all may be conserved without undue discrimination.
"any licensed hackney, coach, cab, or other vehicles for the conveyance of passengers, may stand, while waiting for employment at the following places, and for the period of time hereinafter provided: . . . Stand No. 4. The east side of Canal Street, occupying one hundred and ten feet between Adams and Madison Streets, as the superintendent of police shall direct . . . Stand No. 6.
At all railroad depots ten minutes previous to the arrival of all passenger trains."
Rev.Code of Chicago, § 498. The validity of this ordinance has been sustained by the Supreme Court of Illinois. Pennsylvania Co. v. Chicago, 181 Ill. 299. Perceiving nothing in the above provisions inconsistent with any right secured by the Constitution of the United States, we accept the decision of the state court as authoritative upon this point. When, therefore, licensed hackmen and cabmen, at appropriate times, placed their vehicles in the public street next to the sidewalk in front of the company's passenger house, they did not violate the regulations established by the city council. Nor, so far as the plaintiff is concerned, did they violate such regulations, when, leaving their vehicles in the public street at the appointed places, they stood nearby them for a reasonable time upon the sidewalk awaiting the coming of passengers from the stationhouse. What they could not legally do -- what the final decree properly forbade them to do -- was to congregate upon the sidewalk in front of, adjacent to, or about the passenger house so as to interfere with the ingress and egress of passengers. Of course, any use of the sidewalk in whatever was that would unnecessarily or unduly obstruct and interfere with passengers in their going or coming would be inconsistent with the rights of such passengers, as well as an infringement of the right of the company, as abutting property owner, to have, by its agents and employees, for the purposes of its business, reasonable access to and from the sidewalk and the public street.
"When irreparable injury is spoken of, it is not meant that the injury is beyond the possibility of repair, or beyond the possibility of compensation in damages, but it must be of such constant and frequent recurrence that no fair or reasonable redress can be had therefor in a court of law."
See also Newell v. Sass, 142 Ill. 104, 115-116; Carpenter v. Capital Electric Co., 178 Ill. 29, 36; Lowery v. Pekin, 186 Ill. 387, 389.
* Jencks v. Coleman, 2 Sumn. 221; Barney v. The Martin, 11 Blatchf. 233; Commonwealth v. Power, 7 Met. 596; Barney v. Oyster Bay Steamboat Co., 67 N.Y. 301; Old Colony R. Co. v. Tripp, 147 Mass. 35; Commonwealth v. Carey, 147 Mass. 40, note; State v. Depot Co., 71 Ohio St. 379; Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. v. Old Dominion Baggage Co., 99 Va. 111; Fluker v. Georgia Railroad Co., 81 Ga. 461; Griswold v. Webb, 16 R.I. 649; Summitt v. State, 76 Tenn. 413; New York &c.; R. Co. v. Scovill, 71 Conn. 136; Kates v. Cab. Co., 107 Ga. 636; Godbout v. St. Paul Union Depot, 79 Minn. 188; Boston & Albany R. Co. v. Brown, 177 Mass. 65; Boston & Maine R. Co. v. Sullivan, 177 Mass. 230; New York &c.; R. Co. v. Bork, 23 R.I. 218; St. Louis Drayage Co. v. Louisville &c.; R. Co., 65 F. 39; Hedding v. Gallagher, 72 N.H. 377.

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