Court Opinion

ID: 9832480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:56:57.509382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:47.312932
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing.
In our original opinion, we said that the judgment of the trial court should be so reformed as to allow a recovery by appellant’s trustees of the sum of $243,000. That statement is withdrawn, since the trustees were not parties at the time of the trial, and in lieu of that statement we will now say that the judgment of the trial court will be and the same is hereby so reformed as to allow the Chicago, Rock Island & Gulf Railway Company a recovery for the sum of $243,000 in full satisfaction of its claim for damages, subject to the right of interveners, Frank O. Bowden, James E. Gorman, and Joseph B. Fleming, its trustees in bankruptcy, to collect same.
It was our opinion on original hearing that the same equitable reasons which prompted the trial court in granting the six months’ period mentioned, within which the railway company would have the right to substitute facilities to take the place of those condemned and which finding was not challenged, should likewise apply to the judgment as reformed, since to hold otherwise ■ would be "to deny to the railway company the benefits of the equities so found in its favor. And that conclusion was reached irrespective of the application of the railway company filed pending the appeal for an injunction to restrain the water improvement district from taking possession prior to a disposition of the appeal.
Pending the appeal in this case, and before the rendition of the judgment of this court, appellee filed in the trial court an application *150for the immediate issuance of a writ of possession of the 3.9791 miles of track which would be actually inundated by the proposed condemnation. That application was based on the fact that since the six months’ period fixed by the trial court as the period which should expire before the issuance of the writ of possession had already terminated, the ap-pellee was entitled to immediate possession of that portion of the railway track, without waiting for a disposition of the appeal, under and by virtue of’ the provisions of chapter 275 of the Acts of the 42d Legislature (Ver'non’s Ann. Civ. St. art. 7880 — 126 and note) and article 3264a, Rev. Civ. Statutes. The writ so desired was not issued due to the pen-dency in this court of a motion for injunction, whereby appellant sought to restrain appellee from pursuance of the writ. This motion for injunction had not been determined prior to the day of the filing of our opinion upon the merits of this appeal. On that day the motion for injunction was overruled.
With the foregoing corrections and explanations, the motion of appellee for rehearing and for reformation of our former judgment is overruled.
Appellant has also filed a motion for rehearing, again insisting upon the assignments of error which have been discussed and determined on original hearing, with the further argument that the denial to the railway company of the right to recover the costs of a new railway line that must be built to replace that portion of its present line which will be destroyed by the condemnation proceedings, plus the agreed amount of extra expense that will be required for operation of the, new line, would be a denial of the right guaranteed to it by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. That contention was necessarily overruled by the decision of the Supreme Court in expressly denying the right'to those items of damage; and that decision is conclusive upon that point.
The appellant also presents a federal question, to wit, that the federal law imposes "on the appellee the duty of procuring from the Interstate Commerce Commission the statutory certificate of convenience and necessity before the appellant may abandon that part of its line that will be destroyed by the lake, and before the new line to replace this -destroyed segment may be built. We have considered this contention, and it is likewise overruled.
The other grounds urged by appellant for rehearing have been duly considered, and its motion for rehearing is in all respects overruled.