Contract, Consideration, Validity. Duress. Where the owner of a coal business and his predecessor in title have enjoyed for about twenty-nine years the use of certain side tracks, maintained and operated for them by a certain railroad company and its predecessor and connecting with its main lines, but there has been no contract or agreement as to the duration of the privileges so enjoyed, and the railroad company threatens the coal dealer that it will take out his switch and throw him out of business unless he will sign a contract in writing providing that in consideration of the railroad company's continuing to maintain and operate such side tracks, the coal dealer will assume all risks to buildings owned by him by reason of fire communicated thereto by locomotives of the company, and because of such threat the coal dealer signs the contract "under protest," such a contract is supported by a good consideration and is not invalid by reason of the threat of the company, and it therefore is a bar to an action by the coal dealer against the railroad company for damages resulting from the burning of coal sheds of the dealer caused by sparks communicated from a locomotive of the company.
HAMMOND, J.
These exceptions relate only to the seventh count. It is agreed that the verdict for the defendant on that count was rightly ordered if the contract of July 28, 1897, between the parties was valid.
This contract is attacked upon the grounds of want of consideration, and of duress. Upon neither ground can the attack succeed. The defendant was under no obligation, either as a common carrier or by reason of any previous contracts, to continue either the maintenance or operation of the tracks in question, and its undertaking to continue such maintenance and operation was ample consideration for the undertakings on the part of the plaintiff. The defendant, having the right to discontinue the maintenance and operation, had the right to inform the plaintiff that unless he conformed to its terms it would be obliged to do so. The action of the defendant's station agent, even if correctly stated by the plaintiff, which the defendant does not admit, falls far short of duress.
Exceptions overruled.