George D Harter Bank v. Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District

4 N.E.2d 996, 53 Ohio App. 325, 20 Ohio Law. Abs. 341, 4 Ohio Op. 339, 1935 Ohio App. LEXIS 338
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 10, 1935
DocketNo 453
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 4 N.E.2d 996 (George D Harter Bank v. Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District) 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
George D Harter Bank v. Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, 4 N.E.2d 996, 53 Ohio App. 325, 20 Ohio Law. Abs. 341, 4 Ohio Op. 339, 1935 Ohio App. LEXIS 338 (Ohio Ct. App. 1935).

Opinion

*342 OPINION

By LEMERT, PJ.

So, without further reviewing the history and preliminary steps in this case, suffice fit to say that the main question presented for the consideration of this, a reviewing court, goes to the constitutional right of Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District to appropriate the private property described in its petition for the relocation of the tracks and right-of-way of the Pennsylvania Railroad, as incidental to and made necessary by the construction of Dover Dam, in accordance with the official plan of the district, approved and adopted by the Conservancy Court. For a proper decision of this case, we must not lose sight of the fact that the acquisition of the property appropriated in these proceedings for railway relocation purposes was incidental to, in connection with, and made necessary by the construction of Dover Dam in accordance with the official plan of the district. So, with this issue so clarified, we will proceed to an analysis of the law and authorities in favor of the district’s right of eminent domain in this particular respect.

Sec 6828-18 GC provides:

“Said board shall also have the right to condemn for the use of the district any land or property within or without said district * * ' according to the procedure provided by law for the appropriation of land or other property taken for telegraph, telephone and railroad rights-of-wa.y.”

This section should be interpreted and read along with and in connection with §6828-15 GC, which recites the general powers of the district:

“In order to effect the protection, reclamation, or irrigation of the land and other property of the district, and to accomplish all other purposes of the district, the board *343 of directors is authorized and empowered * t * to remove or change the location of any * 4 * railroad 4 4 * or other improvements in or out of said district; and shall have the right to hold, encumber, control, to acquire by donation, purchase or condemnation, to'construct, own. lease, use and sell real and personal property * ’ * in or out of said district for right-of-way, holding basin or for any necessary purpose

Sec 6828-2, GC, in reciting the purposes for which a district may be organized and to which §6828-15 GC refers, provides, under sub-section (f), that it can be done; that is, “do all other things necessary for the fulfillment of this act.”

The powers of the district granted by the legislature, as above staled, are applicable to the instant case. The construction, maintenance and operation of Dover Dam, according to the official plan of the district, necessitated the relocation of that portion of the Pennsylvania Railroad within the reservoir area of said dam- below its spillway elevation of nine hundred and sixteen feet to a point above said spillway elevation, and the acquisition of the premises described in the petition was, therefore, necessary and essential for such relocation purposes. Certainly, it can not be contended that an Act which grants to the district the power to do all things necessary for the fulfilfilment of the purposes of the Conservancy Act, that is, to remove or change the location of any railroad, and to acquire by condemnation real property for the necessary purpose, can not be construed as giving the district the right to condemn property for railroad relocation purposes made necessary by the execution and accomplishment of the official plan for which the district was organized.

Even if such power of eminent domain were not expressly granted by the Conservancy Act of Ohio, we are of the opinion that it would still be a lawful exercise of that power as a necessary incident to the execution and accomplishment of the official plan for which the district was organized. Upon this point we cite the case of Pitsnogle v Western Maryland Railway Company, 119 Md. 673, 46 L.R.A. (n.s.) 319. It was sought by the railway company to acquire an existing private highway for the relocation of its tracks and also to acquire other real estate for the relocation of said private highway. Tire appellant in thai' case contended that the appropriation1 of the property to be used as a private road in substitution for-the existing- private-road' which was taken for the relocation of the railway company’s tracks would constitute a private use of said land, in violation of the railway company’s constitutional and statutory right of eminent domain. The court held:

“A railroad which takes under the right of eminent domain, for the purpose of its track and yards, the space occupied by a private way which is necessary to permit the 'owner to reach a highway from his home, may, in order to afford him full compensation for the taking, condemn a strip of land belonging to a stranger as a substitute for the private way.”

The court, in commenting upon that case, said:

“The right of eminent domain having been conferred upon the plaintiff by legislative enactment, it has the undoubted right to condemn, if need be, the aforementioned * * * road or private way for railroad purposes, and in our opinion, it was not intended by the framers of the constitution that there should be no adequate relief from the conditions that we have mentioned resulting from the taking of said private road for private use. The condemnation of a part of this land here sought to be condemned for a substitute private road or way is incident to and results from the taking, by reason of public necessity, of the existing private road for public use, and the use of it for such purposes should, we think, be regarded as a public use within the meaning of the Constitution.”

We are of the opinion that the Conservancy District has the right to appropriate the right-of-way of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company if it impedes the construction- of an improvement within the permitted purposes of the district. In the case of Brown v United States, 263 U. S. 78, it was held:

“The power of eminent domain may be exercised by thfe United States Government to secure land for a townsite, locations in which may be exchanged for those in a tract which it has taken for a reservoir site for an irrigation project, and to which buildings on the tract taken may be removed, all in part payment for the tract taken, because the acquisition of the town site is so closely connected with the carrying out of the irrigation project, and the mere, existence of a residue of land- taken which may hay.e to be sold if all exchanges are completed is. immaterial.”

In-this'case; the Federal Government, in *344 ¡onnection with the construction of American Falls Reservoir on the Snake River in the State of Idaho, proceeded to condemn private property for the relocation of the town, American Falls, which would be flooded by said reservoir. It was contended that the power of eminent domain did not extend to the taking of one man’s property to sell it to another, and that such an object can not be regarded as for the public use of the property. Upon this point Chief Justice Taft in delivering the opinion of the court, said:

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Bluebook (online)
4 N.E.2d 996, 53 Ohio App. 325, 20 Ohio Law. Abs. 341, 4 Ohio Op. 339, 1935 Ohio App. LEXIS 338, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/george-d-harter-bank-v-muskingum-watershed-conservancy-district-ohioctapp-1935.