Fidelity Title & Trust Co. v. West Side Belt Railroad
Fidelity Title & Trust Co. v. West Side Belt Railroad
Opinion of the Court
In the latter part of 1902 the West Side Belt Railroad Company entered upon and took about an acre of land belonging to Mary J. Wilson and Flora J. Kenney, for the purpose of making a connection with the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. Some months later this was discovered by an agent of the owners of the land, and he immediately made complaint of wfcat had been done to the vice president and general manager of the railroad company, who referred him to its chief engineer for a settlement. Upon the suggestion by that officer that the company would pay for the land taken, the agent declined to settle on that basis, insisting that the balance of the plot, which consisted of about sixteen acres, had been injured by the taking of the one acre. Negotiations were then commenced looking to a purchase of the entire seventeen acres by the company. These negotiations were pending for about a year, when a verbal agreement, according to the evidence submitted by the plaintiffs, was made by the railroad company to purchase the entire tract for $550 an acre, and the present action was brought to recover this purchase money. One of the defenses set up Was that the statute of frauds barred a recovery, and this was sustained by the court below in entering judg
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.