Ann Arbor R. R. Officials Up For Contempt Of Court

ANN ARBOR R. R. OFFICALS UP FOR CONTEMPT

OF COURT

Dean & Co. Claim They Have Disobeyed Judge Lockwood's Injunction

Completion of Grade Separation Must Stop Until After Supreme Court Has Heard Injunction Suits in January

   Another move has been made in the grade separation problem. Dean & Co. ask that the officials of the Ann Arbor road be punished for not obeying an injunction issued by Judge Lockwood, of Monroe, who sat in the case here for Judge Kinne, restraining the road from building an embankment across First street or encumbering First street between Liberty and Willlam Streets.

   The officials whom it is sought to punish for contempt of court are Manager Henry W. Ashley, Roadmaster, Y. O. Laughlin, Chief Engineer O. D. Richards, Foreman Joseph W. Kinsey and Engineer William O. Huston.

   The order to show cause on October 2 was issued late yesterday and is accompanied with maps and proflies by City Engineer Groves with an affidavlt as to their correctness, and by affidavits by Henry S. Dean and Jasper C. Gates.

   Col. Dean's affidavit is to the effect that on Sept. 12 a gang of about 40 laborers under the direction of a foreman assisted by gravel trains and several teams began building an embankment along the right of way of the railroad company across First street, that he notifled Roadmaster Laughlin that this was in violation of the decree of the court, that on Sept. 17 Chief Engineer Richards was directing the work, that on Sept. 18 he heard his attorney, Gates, order Foreman Kinsey and Engineer Huston to desist. He sets up that the grade has been made so steep as to make it impracticable to haul the loads Dean & Co. have been accustomed to haul.

   Attorney Gates seems to be endowed with clairvoyant powers, for he swears to an interview in Judge Lockwood's office in Monroe on December 17, 1903, a date which of course has not yet arrived, with Manager Ashley, Chief Engineer Richards and Attorney Smith, in which he asked them to desist from raising the embankment. They told him they would not desist until the embankment had been raised to the height of four feet above the grade of First street.

   This is all of the case to be gathered from the court files yet. It is said that the Ann Arbor road claims to have simply raised the grade to the point from which they cut it down when they constructed their road.

   Work of separating the grade has practically stopped for the year. The various injunction suits were appealed to the supreme court and it was expected to hear them early in October, but in some way the cases did not get up in time and will hardly be heard now before next January. This means that the completion of the separation of the grade at the southern end must bo delayed until next year.

   The dirt under the Huron street bridge has been cleaned out and it is expected to drive piles on Washington street beginning tomorrow.