Providence & Worcester Railroad v. Norwich & Worcester Railroad
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Bill in equity, filed April 23, 1883, for an injunction to restrain the defendant from entering upon and using a strip of land, about twenty-eight hundred feet long and twelve feet wide, in Worcester, owned in fee by the plaintiff and being a part of the location of its railroad.
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Bill in equity, filed April 23, 1883, for an injunction to restrain the defendant from entering upon and using a strip of land, about twenty-eight hundred feet long and twelve feet wide, in Worcester, owned in fee by the plaintiff and being a part of the location of its railroad. The answer admitted that the plaintiff owned the land in fee; and alleged that, by virtue of the St. of 1871, o. 343, and by a decree of the board of railroad commissioners, the defendant had filed its location over the land in question with the county commissioners. The case was reserved by Holmes, J., on the…
1Opinion of the CourtMorton, C. J.
It is well settled, as the general rule, that a right conferred by the Legislature to build or extend and maintain a railroad between certain termini does not, prima facie, give the power to lay out such railroad over land already devoted to a like public use by the location of another railroad or highway. But it is an equally well-settled qualification of the rule, that when it appears by the statute, or by the application of the statute to the subject matter, that the contemplated road cannot reasonably be built without appropriating land already devoted to public use, an implication arises…
2Cases cited3 opinions
- Housatonic Railroad v. Lee & Hudson RailroadMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1875
- Worcester & Nashua Railroad v. Railroad CommissionersMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1875
- Boston & Maine Railroad v. Lowell & Lawrence RailroadMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1878
3Cited by9 opinions
- Beauvais v. Springfield Institution for SavingsMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1939
- Old Colony Railroad v. Framingham Water Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1891
- Minnesota Power & Light Co. v. StateSupreme Court of Minnesota · 1929
- Inhabitants of Easthampton v. County Commissioners of HampshireMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1891
- Little Nestucca Road Co. v. Tillamook CountyOregon Supreme Court · 1897
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