Prunty v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co.
Prunty v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co.
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Appellants .brought this action praying for the abatement of a nuisance and for an injunction against the appellee from maintaining the same. The court found in favor of the railway company, and gave judgment against appellants for costs. The appellee owns and operates a line of railroad running in a southeasterly direction from the town of Benedict, in Wilson county, extending for about one mile across the river bottom where it crosses the Ver
The case was submitted to the court.upon the appellants’ testimony, no evidence having been offered by the appellee.
Appellants’ contentions are (1) that the judgment is against the weight of the evidence; (2) that it is actionable per se for a railroad company to collect and cast surface water upon the lands of an adjoining proprietor. We find no difficulty in reaching the con
The failure of appellants to produce any evidence to-show that the collecting and casting of the surface water complained of. was caused by the negligent or-unskillful construction of the railroad by the appelleecompelled a judgment against them. (Mo. Pac. Rly. Co. v. Renfro, 52 Kan. 237, 34 Pac. 802; A. T. & S. F. Rld. Co. v. Hammer, 22 Kan. 763.) The Renfro casa
“If, by such usual and ordinary construction of its road, the surface of the earth was necessarily changed, and the currents of the surface water were interrupted and diverted, it was one of those ordinary incidents of railroad construction which might have been reasonably expected to have resulted from such work, and oné that plaintiffs themselves were bound to have guarded against and to have used such precautions as were in their power to remedy. Any other rule would require railroad companies in level countries to build their roads upon elevated trestles, or encounter the*46 hazard of some disturbance of surface elements.” (p. 24.)
In A. T. & S. F. Rld. Co. v. Hammer, 22 Kan. 763, it was ruled in the syllabus:
“The simple fact that the owner, of one tract of land raises an embankment upon it which prevents the'surface water falling and running upon the land of an adjoining owner from running off said land, and causes it to accumulate thereon to its damage, gives to the latter no cause of action against the former; nor is the rule changed by the fact that the former is a railroad corporation, and its embankment raised for the purpose of a railroad track, nor by the fact that a culvert could have been made under said embankment sufficient to have afforded an outlet for all such surface water.”
It is apparent that the trial court concluded from the evidence that the embankment and opening thereunder which appellants complain of as constituting a nuisance per se are merely incidental and necessary to the proper construction of appellee’s road in the usual and ordinary manner in which railroads are constructed and maintained. In the language of the Dakota court, supra, “Any other rule would require railroad companies in level countries to build their roads upon elevated trestles, or encounter the hazard of some disturbance of surface elements.” (p. 24.)
It is suggested by the appellee that since the record shows that at the time it acquired its right of way for the construction of its road the lands on both sides of the right of way where the opening' complained of is maintained belonged to a single proprietor; that the relief which appellants seek, if granted, would, require a court of equity to enter a decree defeating the very purpose and intention which the railway company and appellants’ predecessors in title had in mind when the transaction occurred whereby the railroad company acquired its right of way across the lands. And this is true for the reason that the interruption and diversion
The judgment is affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Frank Prunty v. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- SYLLABUS BY THE COURT. Nuisance—Railroad Embankment—Pile Bridge. A railway company was sued by adjoining landowners to abate and enjoin as a nuisance the maintenance of a railroad embankment with a pile bridge therein, with an opening thereunder through which surface water collected by such embankment was cast upon plaintiffs’ lands. It was not alleged in the petition nor was there any proof that the railroad was negligently or unskillfully constructed, but it appears from all the evidence that the embankment and the opening therein were built and maintained in the usual and ordinary manner in which railroads are constructed across lands of the character in question, and that the interruption and diversion of the surface water is merely one of the ordinary incidents of railroad construction. Held, following Mo. Pac. Rly. Co. v. Renfro, 52 Kan. 23V, 34 Pac. 802, that the action can not be maintained.