Mandell v. Board of Com'rs of Bernalillo County

99 P.2d 108, 44 N.M. 109
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 19, 1940
DocketNo. 4499.
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 99 P.2d 108 (Mandell v. Board of Com'rs of Bernalillo County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mandell v. Board of Com'rs of Bernalillo County, 99 P.2d 108, 44 N.M. 109 (N.M. 1940).

Opinion

MABRY, Justice.

This cause was instituted and tried in the district court upon grounds seeking two types of relief, viz: (1) review by certiorari" of certain proceedings had by defendant Board of County Commissioners in vacating and closing a street or highway of a platted area within the county but outside the city of Albuquerque, and (2) injunctive relief against the vacation and closing of said road or street as an interference with plaintiffs’ private easement of way. Upon hearing on the merits the complaint was dismissed and plaintiffs bring this appeal.

The street or road involved, and for the vacating and closing of which plaintiffs complain, lies between two ordinary city size blocks of land theretofore laid out and platted by plaintiffs as a residential addition, and known as Mandell Addition #2. The abutting property in both the blocks in question and between which the designated and dedicated, and now closed, street or road ran is the sole property of the county school system.

Plaintiffs .are the owners of lots and parcels of land in this platted area immediately to the north of the two blocks- in question, but not abutting upon the closed street. The closed street or road may be designated as' a part of or a continuation of North First street if First street be extended from the northern boundary of the city of Albuquerque, which boundary lies some four blocks south of the closed section in question. This area of some four blocks between the north boundary of the city, and therefore the city terminus of North First street, and the section of the platted Mandell addition outside of the city, area, has no well defined or improved street in line with what would be an extension north on North First street, but there is a slightly used, winding, though quite passable road connecting, along this line, the city proper and this outside Mandell addition area in question.

Practically all the traffic to and from the property of plaintiffs, in the area involved, to the city and to all outside points as well, is over North Second street, extended, which is a highly improved roadway accommodating much general traffic north and south, to and from the city. To this improved highway, plaintiffs and others of the neighborhood have access by several cross and intersecting streets within the platted area of the Mandell addition.

The closing of the 300 foot section between the two blocks in question, would require that plaintiffs and others in their immediate vicinity to the north reach this main North and South Second street road, of travel by using one of the several other easily accessible and well maintained east and west streets to the north of the blocks through which the closed streets ran, rather than the one just south of said closed section and block.

The trial court’s action in dismissing the complaint must be- appraised for correctness upon a determination of whether plaintiffs had an easement o.f right-of-way, or at least one superior to the statutory right of the county to vacate the section of the street or road in question. Then, if not this right, whether upon the ground of their requiring a way of necessity in the use of their property to the north, or for some other reason, including the one that as a part of the general public, the plaintiffs may properly complain and have a review of the action of the defendant Board in so vacating the street in question without, as • plaintiffs allege, complying with the statutory prerequisites.

We consider first the question of whether plaintiffs, having platted the area and having thereby dedicated to public use the section of the street in question together with other streets shown upon their recorded plat, and having built upon and improved the lots in question, or some of them, they have such an interest in the matter of keeping open all such streets and roads that the county, though with statutory authority for so doing, may not, upon a finding , that there is no longer a need, vacate and close some part of the street, providing plaintiffs still have fair and reasonable access to their own and neighboring property.

This rule seems to be so general as to be almost universal that one whose property does not abut on the closed section of a street or road ordinarily has no right to complain of the closing or vacation of such street or road, provided he still has reasonable access to the general street or road system. The cases generally hold that there being no injury suffered by the owners of adjoining or near-by property not common to all former users of the street or road, compensation is not allowable; nor is such owner, not of the abutting property owner class, entitled to injunctive or other relief against the proposed closing. An array of authority upon this question and supporting this general proposition has been collected in 49 A.L.R. 330, supplemented by more recent cases collected under a similar note in 93 A.L.R. 639.

A mere inconvenience resulting from the closing of a street when another reasonable though perhaps not equally accessible approach remains, does not give rise to a legal right in one so inconvenienced, and courts do not look with favor upon claims based upon such grounds. Long v. Wilson, 119 Iowa 267, 93 N.W. 282, 60 L.R.A. 720, 97 Am.St.Rep. 315. Proof of some special or peculiar damage to the claimant, though not an abutting owner, under many authorities will support damages. Denver Union Terminal R. Co. v. Glodt, 67 Colo. 115, 186 P. 904; Hill v. Kimball, 269 Ill. 398, 110 N.E. 18; Park City Yacht Club v. Bridgeport, 85 Conn. 366, 82 A. 1035, 35 L.R.A.,N.S., 478. But the damage suffered must be substantially different in kind, and not merely in degree, from that suffered by the public in general. In the case of Parker v. Catholic Bishop, 146 Ill. 158, 34 N.E. 473, this rule, with good reason, was adhered to where the statute under consideration provided for compensation where any property be “damaged” by the vacation. In the case of Buhl v. Fort Street Union Depot Co., 98 Mich, 596, 57 N.W. 829, 23 L.R.A. 392, such injury, where not unlike that suffered by the public at large, was declared to be simply damnum absque injuria and not to be regarded as coming within the statute providing for the payment of “all damages” consequent upon the closing of a street. See, also, Knapp Stout & Co. Company v. St. Louis, 156 Mo. 343, 56 S.W. 1102; John K. Cummings Realty & Investment Co. v. Deere & Co., 208 Mo. 66, 106 S.W. 496, 14 L. R.A.,N.S., 822.

The general rule would not apply, according to the weight of authority, where the property is left fronting on a cul-desac, which is not, however, the situation presented here. Newark v. Hatt, 79 N.J. L. 548, 77 A. 47, 30 L.R.A.,N.S., 637; Illinois Central R. Co. v. Moriarity, 135 Tenn. 446, 186 S.W. 1053; In re Hoyt, 162 App.Div. 469, 147 N.Y.S. 599.

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Bluebook (online)
99 P.2d 108, 44 N.M. 109, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mandell-v-board-of-comrs-of-bernalillo-county-nm-1940.