Morris v. City of Salem

174 P.2d 192, 179 Or. 666, 1946 Ore. LEXIS 192
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 9, 1946
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 174 P.2d 192 (Morris v. City of Salem) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morris v. City of Salem, 174 P.2d 192, 179 Or. 666, 1946 Ore. LEXIS 192 (Or. 1946).

Opinion

HAY, J.

In this suit plaintiff, a resident and taxpayer of the City of Salem, sought to enjoin the city, its mayor and recorder from entering into and performing a contract for the purchase and installation of parking meters upon certain streets in the business district of said city.

On May 2, 1939, the common council adopted an ordinance for the regulation of traffic upon the city streets, establishing parking-meter zones, and providing for the installation and operation of parking meters. On October 15, 1945, the council adopted a resolution authorizing the mayor and recorder, on behalf of the city, to execute a contract between the city and Michaels Art Bronze Company, Inc., provid *670 ing for the installation of parking meters upon certain streets for an experimental period of six months, at an agreed rental, with an option to the city to purchase the meters at the expiration of the six months’ period. Fifty per cent of the moneys derived from the operation of the meters was to he paid to the meter company as rental and, in the event that the city should exercise its option to purchase, was to he credited upon the purchase price, the remainder to be paid by continued application thereto of fifty per cent of the income of the meters.

The fiscal year for municipal corporations begins on the first day of July and ends with the thirtieth day of June. The complaint herein was filed November 28, 1945. It alleged, and it is admitted, that the city was then about to enter into the contract above mentioned. We must assume, therefore, that it was the intention of the city that parking meters should be installed immediately and should be in operation during a considerable part of the fiscal year T945-1946. It alleged further that the proposed contract was invalid, for reasons hereinafter discussed.

The defendants filed a general demurrer to the complaint, which demurrer was overruled. Thereupon they filed an answer, which was, in effect, an admission of the major allegations of the complaint coupled with a denial of the invalidity of the proposed contract. The plaintiff thereupon moved for judgment in his favor upon the pleadings and, upon such motion, the court entered a decree perpetually enjoining the defendants as prayed for. Defendants appeal.

The principal ground upon which defendants rely in seeking a reversal of the decree is that the court erred in overruling their demurrer to the complaint.

*671 Plaintiff contended that the city has no right to install parldng meters. Such right, however, has been sustained generally throughout the United States, and by this court in Hickey v. Riley, 177 Or. 321, 162 P. (2d) 371, wherein the authorities are collated.

Plaintiff maintained, further, that, by the proposed contract, the city would lend its credit to or assist a private corporation within the meaning of the prohibition contained in Article XI, section 9, Oregon Constitution. This article of the constitution was intended to prevent the investment of public funds in private enterprises. Johnson v. School Dist. No. 1, 128 Or. 9, 270 P. 764, 273 P. 386. There is nothing in the proposed contract, however, which contemplates that the city shall invest public moneys for the benefit of the meter company. Under the ordinance and resolution, the city had specific authority to install parldng meters. It was within the power of the city, moreover, to purchase the meters and to finance such purchase out of the revenue to be derived from their use. Hendricks v. Minneapolis, 207 Minn. 151, 290 N. W. 428, 430.

■ The plaintiff suggests that the experimental period provided for in the contract is an unlawful scheme to-enable the company to profit through being permitted to use. the city streets for the purpose of demonstrating . and selling its meters. This argument, if sustained, would have the effect of debarring a municipal corporation from purchasing, subject to approval after due trial, any street equipment whatever. Title to the meters, it is true, is reserved in the company until they are paid for. The city, however, has full control of their operation and of the collection and disbtirsement of the income. There is no a-rant of *672 any easement or privilege in favor of the meter company in respect of the nse of the public streets. The argument is patently unsound.

Plaintiff suggests that the installation of a parking meter in front of his premises will constitute a taking of his property without due process of law. In Hickey v. Riley, supra, we held that the parking of vehicles upon city streets is a privilege which may be granted by municipal corporations as an incident to the right of travel. It would seem that what plaintiff’s claim amounts to in this respect is that he has a right of continuous and uninterrupted access to his property, not only from the sidewalk but from the street itself. He maintains that he is entitled to such access, to be exercised through the parking, or through the loading or unloading, of his own vehicles, or those of persons having business or social relations with him, at the sidewalk curbing in front of his premises, at any time, in preference to parking by the vehicles of members of the general public. . He has no such rights. The streets of the city are primarily ways for public travel, and the public right of travel includes the privilege of parking for reasonable periods. Hickey v. Riley, supra. Without the privilege of .parking as the reasonable exigencies of business or social intercourse may require, the right to use city streets for the purposes of travel would be so restricted as to be of little benefit to the public. Plaintiff’s rights in these respects are no greater than those of any other member of the public, except that he has the additional right of reasonable ingress and egress to and from his own property.

The original dedication of the street in front of plaintiff ?s property for street or highway purposes *673 subjected, it not- only to the ordinary usages of travel then prevailing, but also to such additional usages as might, from time to time, be demanded by changing conditions of society, increased population, or improved methods of transportation. McClintock v. Roseburg, 127 Or. 698, 700, 273 P. 331; Hickey v. Riley, supra. Such additional usages do not impose additional servitudes upon the land, nor do they constitute a taking of plaintiff’s property without due process of law., Andrews v. Marion, 221 Ind. 422, 47 N. E. (2d) 968; Wilhoit v. Springfield, 237 Mo. App. 775, 171 S. W. (2d) 95; William Laubach & Sons v. Easton, 347 Pa. 542, 32 A. (2d) 881, 883; Foster’s, Inc. v. Boise City, 63 Idaho 201, 118 P. (2d) 721; Burns v. Enid, 92 Okla. 67, 217 P. 1038 ; 25 Am. Jur., Highways, section .135. The maintenance of a parking meter in front of plaintiff’s,property, while not a direct encroachment thereon, will nevertheless impair his use of the property to some extent. This, however, is not a taking within the meaning of the constitution. Willamette Iron Works v. O. R. & N. Co., 26 Or.

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Bluebook (online)
174 P.2d 192, 179 Or. 666, 1946 Ore. LEXIS 192, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morris-v-city-of-salem-or-1946.