New York Mining Co. v. Midland Mining Co.

McSherry, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, The record now before us has been brought into this Court ⁵⁰⁸ on petition as upon writ of .error to the Circuit Court for Allegany County for the purpose of assailing the validity of' a judgment which finally ratified and confirmed the inquisition of a jury of condemnation. The appellee, a mining company,, duly incorporated under the general corporation laws of the State, owns certain coal lands in Allegany County from which bituminous coal is mined. The Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad is a common carrier whose, road is near to, though not immediately adjoining, the lands of the Midland Mining Company. The appellant, namely, The Ñew York Mining Company, is also a coal mining corporation and . owns land lying between the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad tracks and the property of the appellee.

To enable the Midland Mining Company to get its coal to market it has a tramway constructed on its own land from the mouth of its mines to a tipple near the Cumberland and Pennsylvania tracks. The coal is brought from the mines down the mountain upon this tramway to the tipple. To get the coal which is thus brought to the tipple aboard the cars of the railroad for transshipment, it is necessary that a switch or siding connecting with’ the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad should be constructed. After the siding is built the empty coal cars will be brought from the main track of the railroad to the tipple on the appellee’s property so that the coal may be loaded and so that when loaded it may be hauled to market.

In. order to construct this siding, the Midland Company'must acquire two small portions of land owned by the appellant Mining Company and lying between the railroad right of way and the appellee’s property. Being unable to agree with the appellant in regard to the occupancy of these small parcels for the purpose of constructing this siding, the appellee made application by petition, to the Circuit Court for Allegany County for a warrant directed to the sheriff commanding'him to summon a jury to condemn the land needed for the construction of this siding. It is alleged that the proceeding thus taken is authorized by secs. 145 and 149 of Art. 23 of the Code', and that the method and details to be pursued are marked out in secs. ⁵⁰⁹ 248 to 253 of the same Article of the Code. By section 145 any mining company such as the appellee is conceded to be is invested with full power to locate and construct a railroad, beginning at or near its mines and running to any convenient point or points that may best suit the convenience and interest of the corporation, and to use and control such railroad and the necessary vehicles and appurtenances belonging thereto; provided, as declared by section 153, such railroad does not exceed ten miles in length.

Section 149, expressly empowers mining companies to obtain the land required for such railroads by condemnation. By section 248 it is enacted that condemnation proceedings for the acquisition of a right of way for such a railroad as a mining company is empowered to build must be commenced by filing a petition addressed to any Judge of the Circuit Court for the county in which the land wanted may lie; and it is further provided that upon its being made to appear satisfactorily to the Judge that the land needed is necessary and proper to be condemned for the use of such corporation, he shall thereupon issue his warrant directed to the sheriff requiring the latter to summon a jury to meet on the land to be valued and condemned on a day to be named in the warrant. Such a petition was filed and in it the Court was asked to direct the sheriff to summon a jury of twenty inhabitants of Allegany County not related to either of the parties and not stockholders in the petitioning company or in the appellant corporation, and not in any wise interested in the land to be condemned, or in the controversy arising- under the condemnation. A warrant was thereupon issued by Judge WrrxiAars to the sheriff as prayed, but the Judge in the warrant signed By him directed the sheriff to summon a jury of twenty inhabitants of Allegany County “above the age of twenty-one years and qualified to act as jurors under the laws of this State,” who were not related to either of the owners, that is, The New York Mining Company and The Midland Mining Company, the petitioner, and who were not in any wise interested in said lands and who were not stockholders in either of said corporations.

The sheriff accordingly sum ⁵¹⁰ moned a jury which met on the premises after due notice had been given to the appellant company; and the jury after having been empanelled and sworn, then and there proceeded to value the damages the appellant would sustain by the use and occupation of the land needed by the appellee company for the construction of the siding heretofore mentioned. The appellant attended by counsel on the premises when the jury assembled and from a panel of twenty persons struck off four names and the appellee company having also erased four names, the remaining twelve constituted the jury of inquisition. Upon the return of the inquisition by the sheriff to the Circuit Court, the appellant company filed eight objections to its ratification. Testimony was taken and the objections were heard by the Court below, and were overruled, and the inquisition was finally ratified and confirmed.

Thereafter the appellant company filed its petition in the Circuit Court for Allegany County alleging that there were errors in the action of the Court in confirming the inquisition and praying that the record be transmitted to this Court as upon writ of error so that the rulings of the lower Court might be here reviewed. Of the eight objections filed to the ratification of the inquisition five are relied on in the petition for a writ of error, whilst the other three are not alluded to. Of the five which are assigned as grounds of error, the second, third and sixth original objections aver in substance that there was no necessity for the condemnation of the appellant’s property for the construction of the siding, inasmuch as the appellee by adopting another and different route could reach the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad without crossing the appellant’s property. The first, second and fourth reasons assigned in the petition for a writ of error are substantially the same as the second, third and sixth objections filed against the confirmation of the inquisition.

The fourth objection to the confirmation of the inquisition, which is the third reason assigned in the petition for a writ .of error is in effect, that thé siding to be constructed is not such a railroad as is authorized under the sections of the Code heretofore alluded to, because in point of fact, it will be ⁵¹¹ when completed, a mere switch to be operated by the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad for the Midland Mining Company, and will be of no public use or 'benefit whatever; consequently that the condemnation proceedings are an attempt to take the property of one corporation for the private use and benefit of another corporation without warrant of law. The eighth objection to the ratification of the inquisition, which is the fifth reason assigned in the petition for a writ of error, is in brief that the warrant directing the sheriff to summon a panel of twenty inhabitants of Allegany County from amongst whom the jury of inquisition was to be obtained, was not issued in conformity with the requirements of law, and that the appellant’s rights as to the class of persons from whom the jury should have been selected were thereby abridged, to the detriment and injury of the appellant, and that in consequence all the proceedings taken and had under that warrant are ultra vires and void. A motion has been made in this Court to quash the writ of error upon the ground that the judgment of the Court below is final and conclusive and being pronounced upon a subject-matter exclusively within the jurisdiction of that tribunal and no appeal or writ of error having been provided by law, there can be no review by this Court of the action of the lower-Court. It is conceded by the appellant that no appeal lies to this Court from the order of the Court below ratifying the inquisition because none is provided by statute, Swann v. M. & C. C. Cumb., 8 Gill, 150 ; but it is insisted that the objections which were interposed to the ratification of the inquisition and which were overruled, present jurisdictional questions and that such questions when brought up on a writ of error are open for consideration by this Court.

Margraff v. Cunningham, 57 Md. 585 . It is obvious, therefore, that the fundamental inquiry is whether the questions as to the existence of a necessity for the condemnation of the particular land sought to be acquired; and as to'whether the switch or siding proposed to be con ⁵¹² strücted is'a railroad within the meaning of the sections of the Code'empowering the Mining Company to condemn land for the construction of a railroad ; and as to whether the warrant to the sheriff was in conformity with' the requirements of the Code, are-questions which the Court below had the right and was clothed with jurisdiction to pass upon. Whatever subject-matter involved in the controversy, the Court below had the right to decide was necessarily a subject-matter within the jurisdiction Of that tribunal. Accordingly the inquiry here is, not Whether the trial Court rightly decided but whether it had the right to decide, what it did decide.

If it had the right to decide what it did decide then, though its decision be, in point of fact or of law, erroneous it cannot be reviewed, because the statute has conferred no power upon.this Court to sit in review of such a judgment. So the ultimate question is, were the things complained of and. decided below, things which the Court had jurisdiction to decide? It was said by this Court in Hopkins v.’P. W. & B. Railroad Co., 94 Md. 263 , that the only ground upon which an appeal in a case similar to the one at bar can be maintained is that the condemning company had no right at dll to make the condemnation complained of, and for that reason, .the Circuit Court would be without jurisdiction to confirm the inquisition of the condemnation jury. And in Moores v. Belair Water & Light Co., 79 Md. 391 , many of the adjudged cases beginning with Wilmington and Sus.

R. R. v. Condon, 8 G. & J. 443 , and coming down to Greenland v. County Commissioners, 68 Md. 59 , and Francis v. Weaver, 76 Md. 457 , were reviewed and the same conclusion was announced that was subsequently restated in Hopkins' case in 94 Md. It is the settled law of this State, therefore, that in proceedings of this character this Court has no authority to review the judgment of the lower Court, whether that judgment be right or wrong, if it be pronounced upon a subject-matter within the limits of its jurisdiction. It would be supererogatory to cite the cases any more extensively. It is too plain for discussion that the three objections relat ⁵¹³ ing to the question as to the necessity for the occupancy, and, therefore, for the condemnation of the land sought to be taken, were clearly within the jurisdiction of the lower Court. There could be no more conclusive reason for refusing to confirm the inquisition than the non-existence of a necessity for an acquisition of the land sought to be condemned.

Whether such a necessity did in point of fact exist, was obviously a question for the Court below to determine upon the objections filed, before the inquisition could be confirmed. It did determine that question and being a question within the scope of its jurisdiction, and no appeal from that determination being provided by law, the conclusion reached is necessarily final and not open for review. Indeed in the brief of the appellant and in the oral argument no allusion was made to these three objections and we need not further pursue an investigation of them. The fourth exception is the one which avers that the rail road designed to be constructed is not such as the statute contemplates.

This, if true, like the other objections which have just been considered would furnish a complete bar to a ratification of the inquisition by the Court below, and it was therefore a subject rightly before the Court for its decision, and being rightly before the Court for decision was within its jurisdiction to decide. If wrongfully decided the mere fact that the Court below fell into an error in so deciding, furnishes no reason for reviewing that determination here, inasmuch as. the lower Court is clothed by the statute with exclusive jurisdiction to pass upon that subject. As said by this Court in B. & H. Turnpike Co. v. N. C. R. R. Co., 15 Md. 198 , we could not review a judgment confirming the inquisition without interfering with the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court confirming it. But apart from this technical view the proceedings for condemnation on their face disclose that the railroad which was to be constructed on the land condemned was a railroad of the kind authorized by the