Clisbee v. Chicago, R. I. & G. Ry. Co.
Clisbee v. Chicago, R. I. & G. Ry. Co.
Opinion of the Court
This is an appeal from a judgment of the lower court perpetuating an injunction against the appellants, B. L. Clisbee and others, from entering upon the appellee’s property for the purpose of soliciting or procuring business for their personal gain and from parking their automobiles on appellee’s premises.
*236 Appellants operated , automobiles. in and about the city of Bowie for the purpose of transporting passengers from place to place, and particularly in transporting passengers to and from appellee’s depot, situated in said city. The hearing was both upon the demurrer to the appellee’s petition for the injunction a'nd upon evidence submitted, and the questions presented here are raised both by demurrer and by the facts. Both by allegation and proof it appears that the railway company operates a line of railway into the city of Bowie; that in the same city is located a passenger depot of the Fort Worth & Denver City Railway, located several blocks from the depot of appellee; that appellee in the prosecution of its business sells through passenger tickets along and over its road and along and over the road of the other named railroad to points beyond, giving to the passengers transfer tickets which authorize the ¡passenger trans% portation from the depot of the appellee to that of the Fort Worth & Denver; that ap-pellee for its own convenience and that of its passengers entered into a contract with the Bowie Cab & Transfer Company, a corporation, giving the latter the sole and exclusive privilege of entering in and upon ap-pellee’s right of way and depot premises for the puipose of transferring its passengers to the depot on the Fort Worth & Denver Railway, by the terms of which contract the Cab & Transfer Company, for a compensation stated, was obligated to recognize ap-pellee’s transfer tickets, issued as above indicated.
One of the leading cases supporting the ruling of the court below is that of Donovan v. Pennsylvania Co., 199 U. S. 279, 26 Sup. Ct. 91, 50 L. Ed. 193, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. In that case Mr. Justice Harlan, who rendered the opinion, quoted with approval from the W. U. Telegraph Co. v. Pennsylvania Ry. Co., 195 U. S. 510, 25 Sup. Ct. 133, 49 L. Ed. 312, 1 Ann. Cas. 517, the following:
“A railroad’s right of way has, therefore, the substantiality of the fee, and it is private property even to the public in all else but an interest and benefit in its uses. It cannot be invaded without guilt of trespass. It cannot be appropriated in whole or part except upon the payment of compensation. In other words, it is entitled to the protection of the Constitution, and in the precise manner in which protection is given.”
After referring to the nature and general duties of the carrier to use its property for the use and comfort and convenience of its passengers, the court further said:
“It [the railroad company] is under no obligation to refrain from using its property to the best advantage of the public and of itself. It is not bound to so use its property that others, having no business with it, may make profit to themselves. Its property is to be deemed, in every legal sense, private property as between it and those of the general public who have no occasion to use it for purposes of transportation.”
The final conclusion was that a railway company, which had entered into an arrangement similar to the arrangement made by the appellee and the Bowie Cab & Transfer Company, could, in furtherance of its business and for the i>rotection and convenience of its passengers, legally exclude from its station and depot grounds all other hackmen and cabmen seeking entrance for the purpose of soliciting for themselves the patronage of the passengers. We do not find where this ease has been overruled or modified on the question under consideration.
In the case of Denton v. T. & P. Ry. Co., 160 S. W. 113, this court upheld the right of the railway company to confer upon a given transfer company the exclusive right to enter upon the company’s trains and premises to solicit baggage, etc. In another case by this court, Lewis v. Weatherford M. W. & N. W. Ry. Co., 36 Tex. Civ. App 48, 81 S. W. 111, it was held that a regulation by the railway company conferring upon a named individual, to the exclusion of others, the privilege of soliciting on its trains the *237 transfer business of its passengers, did not “create or carry out restrictions in tlie free pursuit of any business authorized or permitted by the laws of this state,” in violation of tlie anti-trust law.
So also in the case of Fort Worth & Denver City Ry. Co. v. White, 156 S. W. 241, it was held in an opinion by Mr. Justice Dunk-lin that a railway company is entitled to perpetually injoin lunch vendors from going upon its depot platform, or upon its right of way at or adjacfent to its passenger station, as well as going upon its passenger coaches, in order to sell articles' of food to the passengers or others. See, also, the following authorities of like import: Fluker v. Railway Co., 81 Ga. 461, 8 S. E. 529, 2 L. R. A. 843, 12 Am. St. Rep. 328; Mader v. City of Topeka, 106 Kan. 867, 189 Pac. 969; M. P. Ry. Co. v. Kohler, 107 Kan. 673, 193 Pac. 323; Godbout v. St. Paul Union Depot Co., 79 Minn. 18S, 81 N. W. 835, 47 L. R. A. 532; Celli & Del Papa v. Galveston Brewing Co., 186 S. W. 279; 10 Corpus Juris, Title Carriers, §§ 1070, 1075, 1076.
Among the reasons given in support of the rule, it is said that the privilege of dealing with competent transfer and baggage agents is in the interest of the traveling public, that a traveling stranger is often ignorant of the best means of transportation to and from stations, and that he is entitled to receive this information from responsible persons, and not to be annoyed by rival agents beseeching him for his business, and without assurance that the selection made by him was either a competent or responsible agency for his transportation.
We conclude that the judgment must be affirmed, and it is so ordered.
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Reference
- Full Case Name
- CLISBEE Et Al. v. CHICAGO, R. I. & G. RY. CO.
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