Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/300

 286 FEOBBAL BEFOBXaB. �thereafter they continued in the use and enjoyment of it until on or about the twenty-seventh day of February last. wben the officers of the railway company took possession of the telegraph, and have excluded the telegraph company therefrom ever since that time. To prevent such action the telegraph company filed, in the district court of Arapahoe county, the original bill in this cause against the Kansas Pacific Eailway Company and the American Union Telegraph Company, and, on the twenty-sixth of February last, ob- tained from the judge of that court an order restraining the Kansas Pacific Eailway Company from interfering in any manner vrith the plaintiff's possession of the telegraph line. A. writ of injunction was issued out of that court pursuant to auch order, and due service thereof made on the officers of the railway company. The latter, assuming to be officers of another corporation called the Union Pacific Eailway Com- pany, which was ûrganized about the first of February last by consolidating the Union Pacific Eailroad Company and the Denver Pacific Eailway & Telegraph Company with the said Kansas Pacific Eailway Company, disregarding the writ, took possession of the telegraph line for and in the name of the said Union Pacific Eailway Company. The cause was after- wards removed into this court, under the act of congress of 1875, and a supplemental bill was filed, in which the said Union Pacific Eailway Company eonsolidated, and others, were made defendants with the Kansas Pacific Eailway Com- pany. In this bill, and upon the argument, the right of the eeveral corporations before mentioned to unite in the manner pursued in organizing the Union Pacific EaUway Company, is denied; and it is claimed that the officers of the railway company, whether acting for the Union Pacific Company, assuming that company to bave been legally organized, or for the Kansas Pacific Company, were guilty of disobedience to the writ of injunction issued from and out of the district court of the state, for which they'should be punished. When that question shall be considered it may become necessary to ex- amine the proceedings of the several corporations looking to consolidation, and to determine whether they are effectuai; ����