Case Name: The Prospect Park & Coney Island Railroad Co., Resp't, v. The Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad Co., App'lt
Court: New York Supreme Court, General Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1892-12-12
Citations: 50 N.Y. St. Rep. 862
Docket Number: 
Parties: The Prospect Park & Coney Island Railroad Co., Resp't, v. The Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad Co., App'lt.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York State Reporter
Volume: 50
Pages: 862–869

Head Matter:
The Prospect Park & Coney Island Railroad Co., Resp't, v. The Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad Co., App'lt.
(Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department,
Filed December 12, 1892.)
Specific performance—Agreement between railroads—Change of CONDITIONS.
Plaintiff and defendant both ran lines between New York ferries and Coney Island; defendant entirely by horse power and plaintiff part of the way by horse power and the remainder by steam. Many of defendant’s passengers were accustomed to leave its cars near plaintiff’s depot and walk the intervening five blocks to take the steam cars. For mutual convenience it was agreed between the parties that defendant should use plaintiff's tracks for the intervening five blocks to said depot and be furnished with terminal facilities, and run its cars according to plaintiff’s schedule; and it was further agreed that in case defendant should use steam on the southerly portion of its road either party might terminate the agreement on six months notice. Subsequently deiendant adopted the use of electricity as a motive power, and plaintiff sold its horse railroad to a rival company, which obstructed defendant’s use of the tracks and terminal facilities. Held, that the use of electricity under the circumstances was within the spirit of the provision of the contract giving either party the right to terminate it, and that the conditions were so changed by the sale of plaintiff’s road that it would be inequitable to decree specific performance.
(Brown, J., dissents.)
Appeal from decree of specific performance of a contract, compelling defendant to run its cars to plaintiff’s depot.
William N. Dykman, for app’lt;
Geo. W. Wingate, for resp’t.

Opinion:
Pratt, J.
The plaintiff owned or controlled the following franchises for passenger travel between Brooklyn and New York ferries and Coney Island on and prior to June, 1882. One for a horse railroad from Fulton ferry via Park, Vanderbilt & Ninth avenues to a depot at Ninth avenue and Twentieth street, Brooklyn, generally known as "Culver's." The other, also for a horse railroad, from Hamilton ferry via Fifteenth street & Ninth avenue to said depot. The road was built and operated by plaintiff on the former line, called the Vanderbilt avenue line. The latter franchise had not been practically used. From this depot (Culver's) it carried passengers by an ordinary surface road to Coney Island at West Brighton, its cars being drawn by locomotive steam engines.
The defendant owned and operated two lines of horse cars, one from Fulton ferry, byway of Smith, Jay & Ninth streets, to Ninth avenue, and thence via Ninth avenue to Fifteenth street, where it turned off towards Coney Island, and ran down the old Coney Island road to Coney Island, where it turned westward and terminated near the terminus of plaintiff's steam road. The other from Hamilton ferry through Hamilton avenue via Fifteenth street to Ninth avenue, where it joined its former line, and thence its passengers were carried over " the southerly portion " of its own line to Coney Island.
It is thus apparent that defendant's line, while in competition with plaintiff's lines, was, nevertheless, practically limited to city business; for it ran within five blocks of plaintiff's depot, and its passengers would there leave its cars and take the plaintiff's " rapid transit," getting over the five blocks as best they might. Defendant was, therefore, in a certain sense, a feeder to plaintiff's steam road, unless it adopted some method of rapid transit on the southerly portion of its line. Plaintiff had made an arrangement with the Iron Steamboat Co., by which its excursion tickets were good over its steam and horse-car road to bring passengers from Coney Island to Fulton Ferry. But the defendant was, nevertheless, bound to make some user of its franchise from Ninth avenue to Coney Island in order to save it, but at little, if any, profit.
It was, therefore, apparent that both parties would be gainers, and the public as well, if defendant was enabled, for the time being at least, to carry its passengers over these five blocks and deliver them at plaintiff's steam railway depot.
With this idea in view, the two companies entered into the contract which plaintiff seeks now to have specifically performed by our decree. It provides that, from June 1, 1882, for a term of twenty-one years, the defendant may use plaintiff's tracks on Ninth avenue, from Fifteenth street to its depot (Culver's), free of all charge for rent, repairs or alterations, but that such license should not interfere with plaintiff's stands for its own cars or the operation of its own road, by which was intended the Vanderbilt avenue line. The defendant covenanted that it would run its horse cars to this depot, and therefrom to Fulton and Hamilton ferries respectively, by time tables prepared by plaintiff, so far, at least, as the Ninth avenue lines were in common, during the spring, summer and fall months. The plaintiff covenanted to construct certain additional facilities at, or about its depots, for defendant's exclusive use, and that its own cars should not unnecessarily interfere with defendant's, and to pay the cost of these additional facilities.
It was also agreed that the tickets issued by the Iron Steamboat Company taken from passengers on plaintiff's steam trains should be good over defendant's lines, the plaintiff accounting to defendant for its part of the holder's transportation. This contract also provided that if defendant at any time used or permitted steam as a motive power on the southerly end of its line, then, on six months notice, the contract should be terminated at the option of either party, and in that event the plaintiff would repay defendant the cost of said additional terminal facilities at the Culver depot.
We think it apparent that the plain purpose of this contract, so far as it affected the parties thereto alone, was to avoid competition for through Coney Island travel, to enable plaintiff to obtain the benefit of defendant's Hamilton avenue line, with, perhaps, its better facilities from Fulton Ferry, as a feeder for its steam, road, to save the necessity of building its proposed road to Hamilton Ferry; and that it was to continue only so long as the two companies were not competitors for the through Coney Island travel, and that it should terminate when they again came into practical rapid transit competition. True, the power of this limitation is expressed with reference to steam as motive power, but that form of expression, as it seems to us, was used only because steam was then the only means in practical use as a motive power for rapid railway travel. The central thought of these parties in this respect was the avoidance for the time being of competition by any means on those portions of their lines which were practically adjacent, viz., " the southerly portion of defendant's line as compared with that part of plaintiff's line which ran from Culver's depot to the island. It can scarcely be said that they intended to •exclude the use of a cable propelled by steam power; for in that case the steam would be an active agent in energizing the otherwise inert cable. The distinction between locomotive steam as power and steam as motive power on railroads was recognized so far back as 1871, see chap. 609; see, also, 84 N. Y., 313; 48 Hun, 477, and it is a fact that this distinction had been drawn by the •court of appeals in the Sea View R. R. case in March, 1881, 84 N. Y., 313. And yetdt would occasion quite as much surprise to End that these parties thought of a steam cable system as of electricity when they made this contract. We repeat that the use of the term steam as motive power seems only another form of referring to rapid transit by whatever power accomplished as means of bringing these parties into competition on the southerly part of their lines. In this view it seems to us that the steam used by defendant in generating the electricity used in its trolley or overhead system is fairly within the contemplation of the parties. But, as already indicated, we do not base our judgment on that alone.
Again, we think that the changed circumstances of the parties Tender it inequitable that the extraordinary remedy of specific performance should be applied. While it is true that there is no •covenant on the part of plaintiff to maintain the status quo of the contract, it still plainly contemplated that the plaintiff should continue to operate the Vanderbilt Avenue line and that there should be no greater rivalry for the passenger traffic between the Culver depot and Fulton ferry than that which would naturally result from plaintiff's desire to work in harmony with defendant, and within the spirit of its covenant, that its cars and track should be so operated as not unnecessarily to interfere with defendants. So long as that relation existed the plaintiff was directly interested -to avoid conflict and to be fair in all its terminal arrangements as means to an end, viz., the increase of traffic for its own road ; and this personal interest might well have been relied on by defendant as a means of securing a generous, at least a fair arrangement of running times, departures, arrivals, &c. Indeed, as already remarked, the contract subordinated defendant to time-tables prepared by plaintiff for those five blocks,and that, of course, affected the whole of both its lines. But the plaintiff afterwards sold out its Vanderbilt Avenue line to a rival street railway company; and the evidence pretty plainly shows that the defendant was thereafter materially obstructed in its own terminal facilities at the Culver depot by the acts of this new owner and operator of that line. Without intending any reflection upon the management of this new operator of that line,it was but natural that it should consult its own convenience to a greater degree,or rather thafit should not consult defendant's convenience to the same extent, as it would have been to plaintiff's interest to do if it had remained tne owner and operator of the Vanderbilt Avenue line. JSTor was this complaint purely technical or insignificant. The evidence fairly shows that defendant's earnings wer'e materially and immediately decreased after that change, and it is difficult from the evidence to attribute that decrease to any other cause than the preference exhibited by travelers for the Vanderbilt Avenue line arising out of defendant's inability to start and progress its cars with the same promptness and frequency as when plaintiff controlled the terminal facilities.
We think that the spirit of this contract was that defendant should not be subjected to the temptations of greater rivalry in this respect than that which existed immediately when the contract was made. It subjected its entire business at that point, which had practically become the eastern terminus of both its lines, even to the time table of plaintiff. This was a subordination, having its origin in personal confidence predicated on identity of interest and common purpose. But by this change defendant was subjected to the time table arrangements made by a stranger, a business rival, who was under no restraint, or if under any, it was not predicated upon the same guaranty for fairness. And the best evidence of the change is the decreased earnings of defendant's business. And it would seem to have been the object of this action to fasten just this subordination upon defendant unless we have mistaken the object of some of plaintiff's requests for findings.
Thus the plaintiff has deprived the defendant of a material and valuable part of the plain consideration of this restraint, and yet it seeks the extraordinary remedy of specific performance to enforce its side of the bargain when it can no longer give that which it promised, or, at least, created the expectation that it would give.
Perhaps it may be thought that we have gone too far in predicating judgment upon the assumed fact of actual and serious damage to defendant upon these terminal inconveniences and disappointments. But the result will be the same in any view, because defendant requested findings on these points which the court refused manifestly for the reason that it deemed them immaterial. We think they were material, and that if the fact had been found according to defendant's contention it would alone have been an answer to the plaintiff's right to require specific performance of such covenants as these were.
We, therefore, direct a new trial, with costs of this appeal to the defendant to abide the event.
Barnard, P. J.
The conditions under which the parties contracted are as completely changed as if the defendant used steam as a motive power. A covenant not to use steam would not be broken by the use of electricity; but when the use of electricity made the roads competing as fully as if propelled by steam, and the use of steam made the contract terminable by either party, the use of electricity is within the spirit of the contract. The conditions are changed in other respects so as to render the specific performance inequitable, by reason of and in consequence of the sale of the plaintiff's road to the Atlantic Avenue B. B. Co.
The judgment should be reversed and a new trial granted, costs to abide event