Brown v. St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad
Brown v. St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad
Opinion of the Court
These plaintiffs sued for the value of a strip of land alleged to have been appropriated by the defendant railroad companies for right of way, without condemning it, and for damage done to the remainder of the tract through which the strip runs. The parcel taken is one hundred feet wide and thirteen hundred feet long, comprising three acres out of a forty-acre tract. Plaintiffs claim $100 an acre, or $300
It was proved the St. Louis, Moorehouse and Southern Railroad Company cut the right of way through the tract in 1901, constructed the roadbed by September, 1902, and laid the rails in January, 1903. On those dates the land belonged to plaintiff Lillie Weaver as sole heir of her deceased father and a deceased sister. The sister had been married, but died without issue and plaintiff, James Weaver, husband of Lillie, purchased whatever interest the surviving husband of the deceased, sister may have owned. Lillie and James Weaver conveyed the forty acres to plaintiff Brown February 26, 1904, but prior to said date had conveyed and sold small portions of the tract to other persons. The St. Louis, Moorehouse and Southern Railroad Company, which had originally appropriated the strip for right of way, conveyed its interest therein to the St. Louis & Gulf Railroad Company, which in turn conveyed to the St. Louis, Memphis & Southeastern Railroad Company, and the latter company is now the owner, but has leased its railroad, franchises and appurtenances to the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad Company, which operates the road and has since June 1, 1904. Several 'defenses were pleaded in the answer, but as some of them are not noticed in the brief for the defendant, we will say nothing about them. We find but one assignment of error which deserves attention or is much pressed. This is that as Brown, with knowledge of the acts of the railway companies, bought the tract through which the right of way runs, after the railroad company had appropriated the strip used for right of way, and had constructed its road, he was not entitled to recover for injury to the remainder of the tract, but- only for the value of the
Complaint is made of the instructions, but only with reference to the above point. The instructions on the measure of damages were correct and were in the form approved by the Supreme Court in Ragan v. Railroad, 144 Mo. 623, 46 S. W. 602. In an instruction granted at the request of the defendants, the jury was forbidden to allow damages for any injury the building of the railroad caused to those small portions of the forty acres which had been sold by the Weavers to other persons prior to the date of their conveyance to Brown. The case was well instructed and was tried without error; therefore the judgment will be affirmed. It is so ordered.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.