Gates v. City of Bloomfield

53 N.W.2d 279, 243 Iowa 671, 1952 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 517
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedMay 6, 1952
Docket48023
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 53 N.W.2d 279 (Gates v. City of Bloomfield) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gates v. City of Bloomfield, 53 N.W.2d 279, 243 Iowa 671, 1952 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 517 (iowa 1952).

Opinion

*673 OliveR, J.

This action is a sequel to Gates v. City Council of Bloomfield, 243 Iowa 1, 50 N.W.2d 578. That was certiorari to the City Council to test the validity of certain ordinances. Except for some omissions, the facts stated in the petition at bar are substantially those shown in the trial of the certiorari case.

. Plaintiff alleged he owned a property and building in Bloomfield in which was a hotel, restaurant and barbershop, with a west front of forty-three feet on Washington Street. Adjoining this on the south was a property twelve feet wide which also fronted west on Washington Street. It was leased for a bus depot which was operated by defendant bus lines. In 1950 the City Council enacted Ordinance 136, which was superseded in 1951 by Ordinance 143. Ordinance 136 established a bus-stop zone in the paved street, ten feet wide and along the entire forty-three-foot frontage of plaintiff’s property and ten feet of the bus depot property, and provided: “It shall be unlawful for the operator of any vehicle, except operators of common-carrier buses engaged in interstate and/or intrastate business, to park such vehicle in said bus-stop zone and loading area, except in order to take on or discharge passengers or freight, and thén only for such length of time as is necessary for such purposes.” The ordinance provided for signs reading, “No Parking — Bus-Stop.” Ordinance 143 was similar to Ordinance 136 with some changes in form and language which need not be considered in this appeal.

Upon the adoption of Ordinance 136, the city marked with yellow lines on the pavement, a zone, twenty-two feet wide and fifty-three feet long and erected the signs required by the ordinance which were set on heavy concrete bases placed in the street. Thereafter the large buses of both defendant bus lines commenced stopping for considerable periods of time to load and unload and to make connections with and transfer passengers and freight to other buses, and parking diagonally in the zone, in many instances continuously for more than one hour, with the front ends of the buses frequently projecting over the sidewalk to about two feet from plaintiff’s building. Ingress and egress to and from the building to the sidewalk and to the street was impeded and blocked by the buses, passengers and piles of baggage. The property Avas deprived of parking space by the signs placed in the zone and at times was made untenantable by noxious *674 gases emitted by buses. Traffic on Washington Street was obstructed and was halted when buses were stopped in the zone.

The ordinances constituted an unlawful obstruction of the street and a hazard to the traveling public. The taking of the space in front of plaintiff’s business and property was an unlawful appropriation of the street for private business and infringed upon plaintiff’s .rights in the street as an abutting owner. The establishment of bus zone, and the stopping, starting and parking of buses emitting noxious gases and obstructing the street and ingress and egress to the building constituted a nuisance, which the city maintained, acting in conjunction with defendant-bus lines. Plaintiff pleaded some of the matters' complained of-damaged and rendered unprofitable the business’, of the hotel, restaurant and barbershop-which had occupied his building. He prayed $10,000 damages.

Defendant City of Bloomfield filed a motion to dismiss the petition as against it,- which the -trial.court sustained on the ground: “Because the enactment of the ordinances was within the governmental functions of the city, the defendant city was not liable for any damages sustained by plaintiff as a direct or indirect result thereof * * Plaintiff has- appealed. In the consideration of such a motion, well pleaded, relevant and issuable facts are deemed true. '

The certiorari case, Gates v. City Council of Bloomfield, supra, 243 Iowa 1, 8, 50 N.W.2d 578, held Ordinance 136, in effect, turned over to the bus companies .a. strip of the paved street abutting the entire forty-three-foot frontage of plaintiff’s property, to be used as a passenger platform and freight loading dock by the interurban motorbuses. Otherwise stated, the ordinance was a grant to the bus companies' of the use of the street to carry on their business.. Both ordinances were held illegal-and their adoption in excess of the proper jurisdiction of the city council.

In that case (page 7’of 243 Iowa) the trial court had found the bus. companies- “have been maintaining a nuisance in front of plaintiff’s premises in violation of his rights as an abutter” and general nuisance statutes. The trial court áttributed most of plaintiff’s damage to. the violation of the ordinance, in that the buses .would often remain in the zone, with the city’s tacit *675 permission, much longer (an hour or two) than was necessary to'•discharge or take on passengers and freight. The decision of this court suggests the record showed these lengthy stops were to await the arrival of connecting buses and that it might be argued such stops were for the length of time necessary to take on or discharge passengers or freight, as permitted by the ordinance. In any event, the use of the zone made by the bus companies under the illegal ordinance was unlawful.

Section 657.1, Code of Iowa 1950, provides: “Whatever is injurious to health, indecent, or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as essentially to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property, is a nuisance.” Among the nuisances listed in section 657.2 are the obstructing of public roads and the occasioning of noxious exhalations injurious to the health óf people. Section 389.12 requires cities and towns to keep streets open and free from nuisances.

Real property consists not alone of the tangible thing but also of certain rights therein sanctioned by law, such as rights to access, light, air and view. Material interference with the rights of ingress and egress, etc.; of owners of property abutting on streets and highways is a taking of the property of such owners. Liddick v. Council Bluffs, 232 Iowa 197, 5 N.W.2d 361; Anderlik v. Iowa State Highway Comm., 240 Iowa 919, 924, 38 N.W.2d 605. It is well settled that one who is specially injured by a public nuisance may . maintain an action for damages by reason thereof, where his injury is distinct from that of the public. Ryan v. Emmetsburg, 232 Jowa 600, 603, 4 N.W.2d 435; 66 C. J. S., Nuisances, section 78, page 831.

Park v. C. & S. W. R. Co., 43 Iowa 636, 639, states:. “Among the various injuries resulting from nuisances * * * those resulting from the obstruction of highways leading to the premises of the plaintiffs, and interfering with access thereto and causing other special damages, are held to be grounds of recovery in an action by the party injured”’

Nor is it necessary that the obstruction of access be continuous to entitle the owner to relief. Baines v.

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Bluebook (online)
53 N.W.2d 279, 243 Iowa 671, 1952 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 517, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gates-v-city-of-bloomfield-iowa-1952.