Opinion ID: 6983
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did the Railroad Begin to Possess for the City?

Text: The City essentially argues that upon taking corporeal possession, the railroad was merely maintaining the City's possession. The basis for the City's argument that River City possesses the former streets only by permission of the City is City Ordinance No. 8952, passed in 1912, in which the City granted MoPac's predecessor the right to build a railroad and related buildings, closing those city streets. The City contends that, as owner of the roadbeds, by this Ordinance it granted the railroad a franchise to occupy the streets for only so long as railroad operations continued.2 2 The Ordinance granted the railroad certain rights and privileges, including the right to enter the City of New Orleans and to construct, maintain and operate ... its lines of railway tracks in, along, across and over the streets, highways and public places in the City of New Orleans, herein mentioned, and to acquire in its name or through another corporation, for railroad purposes, by expropriation or otherwise, all necessary property in the City of New Orleans and particularly [the adjacent property] and thereon to erect, maintain and use such [railroad related structures necessary or convenient to such purposes]. The City agreed to close the specified streets so that the railroad could build on the streets and the contiguous property it acquired. In return for these rights, the railroad agreed to build a depot, pave some nearby streets, 5 According to stipulations, the railroad closed the streets and had begun to exercise physical control over the property by late 1916. At that time the railroad had satisfied the requirement in the 1912 ordinance that it acquire the property fronting the streets. When the railroad commenced corporeal possession of the streets, it did so with title to the land abutting the streets. The stipulations do not show that the railroad began possession of the streets or underlying land precariously in the name of or for the City at that time. The City possessed only a servitude of public use over the streets, as discussed next, and the railroad's possession began only after the City consented to closing the streets to public use.