Section 38 Additional Use Granted by Easement Holder

• Library: Condemnation Practice 2009

In Kansas City v. Ashley, 406 S.W.2d 584 (Mo. 1966), the Court reviewed prior cases regarding the right of an adjacent fee owner to object to a diversion or an additional burdening of public use property. The Court took note that when a railroad acquires an easement and a telegraph is constructed on the right-of-way for the dual purpose of serving the operation of the railroad and serving the general public as a commercial enterprise, it is not an additional servitude or burden on the fee for which the fee owner may make a claim because the telegraph also served the purposes of the railroad. That determination was made because the use of a telegraph company is a legitimate development for railroad purposes and was essentially contemplated by the easement and was something for which the grantee or the condemnee holder would have been compensated. But if...