Court Opinion

ID: 8309412
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-10-17 13:46:16.773937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:44:39.840904
License: Public Domain

McKenhaN, C. J.,
concurring. The opinion of Judge Acheson "announces the decision of the court on the motion for a preliminary injunction in this case. The motion was argued before him alone at Erie, and was then denied; but as he assented to the request of counsel for a reargument, and desired me to be present at it, I consented to sit with him merely that I might render him, by conference and suggestion, such assistance as I could, leaving still with him the ultimate burden of responsible decision. I concur with him in the denial of the motion, and in the reasons given for it.
It is undoubtedly true that the real estate acquired by a railroad corporation by purchase or eondemnatkm, and held for the necessary enjoyment of its essential franchises, cannot be taken from it by another corporation by the usual method of appropriation. But I do not agree with the argument that the extent of such acquisition is conclusively determinable by the directors of the corporation, and that the exercise of their power in this connection is questionable only on the ground of bad faith, as the equivalent of fraud. The power of acquisition is limited by the necessary wants of the corporation, and an exercise of it beyond this limit is not within its protection. I see no reason, then, why this limitation of the power of a corporation to acquire and hold real estate is not as proper a subject of judicial inquiry, where alleged encroachments by another corporation are to be determined, as the existence of the power itself. Upon the result of such an inquiry the decision of this case depends. In finally dispos*860ing of it, every reasonable intendment must be made in favor of the primary rights of the complainant. At the points of the alleged conflict, no actual encroachment upon these rights can be sanctioned or allowed; and in measuring their extent there must be a liberal consideration of the future as well as the present necessities of the complainant, touching the use of the existing tracks, the construction of additional ones, the convenient storage of its freight at all seasons, and the unembarrassed transaction of its freight business.
In view of these considerations, the suggestion of Judge Acheson has great force, that it might be most prudent on the part of the respondent to modify its location at Moorhead’s and Harbor Creek.