Eastern Ohio Transport Corp. v. Bridgeport

185 N.E. 891, 44 Ohio App. 433, 15 Ohio Law. Abs. 257, 1932 Ohio App. LEXIS 260
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 15, 1932
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 185 N.E. 891 (Eastern Ohio Transport Corp. v. Bridgeport) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Eastern Ohio Transport Corp. v. Bridgeport, 185 N.E. 891, 44 Ohio App. 433, 15 Ohio Law. Abs. 257, 1932 Ohio App. LEXIS 260 (Ohio Ct. App. 1932).

Opinion

*259 OPINION

By POLLOCK, J.

The right of a municipality to exercise all powers of local self-government and to adopt and enforce within its limits such local police, sanitary, and other similar regulations as are not in conflict with the general law is provided by §3, Article XVIII of the Constitution, since the adoption of the Constitution, municipalities receive and derive their power and authority for the exercise of local self-government from this provision.

*260 “1. Since the Constitution of 1912 became operative, all municipalities derive all their ‘powers of local self-government’ from the Constitution direct, by virtue of §3, Article XVIII, thereof.
“2. The power to establish, open, improve, maintain, and repair public streets within the municipality, and fully control the use of them, is included within the term ‘powers of local self-government’.” Village of Perrysburg v Ridgway, 108 Oh St 245, 140 NE 595.

Further authority is conferred upon a municipality by §3714 GC: “Municipal corporations shall have special power to regulate the use of the streets, to be exercised in the manner provided by law. The council shall have the care, supervision and control of public highways, streets, avenues, alleys, sidewalks, public grounds, bridges, aqueducts, and viaducts, within the corporation, and shall cause them to be kept open, in repair, and free from nuisance.”

Sec 3632, GC, also provides that municipalities shall have power to regulate “the use of carts, drays, wagons, hackney coaches, omnibuses, automobiles, and every description of carriages kept for hire or livery stable purposes; to license and regulate the use of the streets by persons who use vehicles, or solicit or transact business thereon. * *

The general principle controlling municipalities and the rights of the public is announced by the Supreme Court in Froelich v City of Cleveland, 99 Oh St 376, 124 NE 212, third paragraph of the syllabus: “The state and municipalities may make all reasonable, necessary, and appropriate provisions to promote the health, morals, peace, and welfare of the community. But neither the state nor a- municipality may make any regulations which are, unreasonable. ■ The means adopted must be suitable to the end in view, must be impartial in operation and not unduly oppressive upon individuals, must have a real and substantial relation to their purpose, and must not interfere with private rights beyond the necessities of the situation.”

When the municipality has acted, it is presumed to be within the authoriy granted it by the Constitution and provisions of the Code: “Unless there is a clear and palpable abuse of power, a court will not substitute its judgment for legislative discretion. Local authorities are presumed to be familiar with local conditions and to know the needs of the community. Allion v City of Toledo, 99 Oh St 416, 124 NE 237, 6 A.L.R. 426.

Having these rules in mind, which govern a municipality in passing ordinances regulating traffic on the streets of a municipality, and also the rights of the courts to interfere upon the petition of citizens, we now turn to a consideration of the traffic conditions on Lincoln Avenue.

Starting at the intersection of Bridge Street and going south, Lincoln Avenue must take care of the traffic that comes into the city on Lincoln Avenue, and also that on Pike Street, which is quite a heavy traffic. South on Lincoln Avenue from Pike Street until you come to at least the railroad crossing over Lincoln Avenue, the street is very narrow, business properties on both sides of the street and the traction company’s line in the center of the street. You then cross the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks, composed of two main tracks and switch track, and then the street widens somewhat, but is used as a business street until it enters or intersects with Howard Street. What is known as Kirk-wood of Bridgeport is the largest residential section of the village. In reaching the business part of the village, and in going north or east, the residents of that section must pass over Lincoln Avenue. Lincoln Avenue is also a part of Federal Route No. 7, which is a much-traveled route. The traction company, in operating its cars along Lincoln Avenue to the intersection, and there turning on to Howard Street, stops to receive and discharge passengers at about the same place the plaintiff’s motor vehicles stop ior that purpose, except that its cars stop in the center of the street. Street cars and motorbusses must stop again in a short time before crossing the railroad tracks; and private vehicles should stop, or at least slow down, in order to avoid danger.

From these conditions, we are unable, under the above rules or principles, to say that the ordinance is unreasonable and arbitrary regarding the rights of plaintiff upon the public streets and highways.

It is further urged by the plaintiff that to enforce this ordinance in preventing the transport corporation from stopping near the intersections of Howard Street is confiscatory of its property.

It appears from the evidence that something like 400 passengers per month either enter the motorbusses of plaintiff on the *261 east side of Lincoln Avenue, or leave the bus on the west side near Howard Street. It is urged that the plaintiff will be deprived of this revenue, should the ordinance be sustained.

The certificate received by the plaintiff from the Public Utilities Commission, under which it is exercising, does not designate stops for automobiles for the purposes of taking on and discharging passengers within the corporate limits of the village of Bridgeport. The only right plaintiff has to stop for the purpose of taking on pass-enters or discharging them is in interstate traffic. The enforcement of this ordinance does not limit the conditions of the state license or certificate of the plaintiff company. The certificate of convenience and necessity granted by the state commission to a corporation for the purposes of transporting by motor vehicle passengei’s for hire does not convey to such motor company any property right in the streets or public highways over which it is permitted to operate its bus.

“The recipient of a certificate of convenience and necessity to operate a motor transportation line over portions of the public highways does not thereby acquire any property right in such- highways, and the acquisition of such certificate does not add to his capital assets.” Pennsylvania R. Co. v Public Utilities Commission, 116 Oh St 80, 155 NE 694.

The same principle was announced in the opinion in the case of Sylvania Busses, Inc. v City of Toledo, 118 Oh St 187, 160 NE 674.

The principle is also referred to by the Supreme Court in the second proposition of the syllabus, in the case of Rowe, Jr., v City of Cincinnati, 117 Oh St 382, 159 NE 365: “A lessee from an owner of real property abutting upon a public street acquires no right by virtue of his lease of such abutting property which entitles such lessee permanently to appropriate any part of such public street to use for private business purposes.”

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Related

Greater Fremont, Inc. v. City of Fremont
302 F. Supp. 652 (N.D. Ohio, 1968)
McHenry v. Clark
87 Pa. D. & C. 348 (Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, 1953)
Eastern Ohio Transport Corp. v. City of Wheeling
175 S.E. 219 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 1934)

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Bluebook (online)
185 N.E. 891, 44 Ohio App. 433, 15 Ohio Law. Abs. 257, 1932 Ohio App. LEXIS 260, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/eastern-ohio-transport-corp-v-bridgeport-ohioctapp-1932.