Horace Gray

“ Commissioners, a railway company was held by Lord Chancellor SELBORNE, Lord Chief Justice COLERIDGE, and Lord Justice BRETT. in the English court of appeal, to be under no obligation to establish stations at any particular place or places unless it thought fit to do so, and was held bound to afford improved facilities for receiving, forwarding, and delivering passengers and goods at a station once established and used for the purpose of traffic only so far as it had been ordered to afford them by the railway commissioners, within powers expressly conferred by act of parliament. ”

“ Chief Justice WALTE, in delivering the opinion, said: 'No statute requires that connected roads shall adopt joint stations, or that one railroad company shall stop at or make use of the station of another. Each company in the state has the legal right to locate its own stations, and, so far as statutory regulations are concerned, is not required to use any other. A railroad company is prohibited, both by the common law and by the constitution of Colorado, from discriminating unreasonably in favor of or against another company seeking to do business on its road ”

“ But upon the facts found and admitted no sufficient case is made for a writ of mandamus, even if the court could under any circumstances issue such a writ for the purpose set forth in the petition. The fraudulent and wrongful intent charged against the defendant in the petition is denied in the answer, and is not found by the jury. The fact that the town of North Yakima was laid out by the defendant on its own lands cannot impair the right of the inhabitants of that town, whenever they settled there, or of the people of the surrounding country, to reasonable access to the railroad. ”

“ The question whether a mandamus should issue to protect the interest of the public does not depend upon a state of facts existing when the petition was filed, if that state of facts has cased to exist when the final judgment is rendered. ”

“ A writ of mandamus to compel a railroad corporation to do a particular act in constructing its road or buildings, or in running its trains, can be issued only when there is a specific legal duty on its part to do that act, and clear proof of a breach of that duty. ”

“ This discretion, however, is not absolute, but is subject to the condition that it must be exercised in good faith, and with a due regard to the necessities and convenience of the public.' But in the latter case the court also said: 'The company cannot be compelled, on the one hand, to locate stations at points where the cost of maintaining them will exceed the profits resulting therefrom to the company, nor allowed, on the other hand, to locate them so far apart as to practically deny to communities on the line of the road reasonable access to its use. ”