Pan-Pacific Construction Co. v. Meadows

260 P. 355, 85 Cal. App. 775
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedOctober 6, 1927
DocketDocket No. 5720.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 260 P. 355 (Pan-Pacific Construction Co. v. Meadows) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pan-Pacific Construction Co. v. Meadows, 260 P. 355, 85 Cal. App. 775 (Cal. Ct. App. 1927).

Opinion

HOUSER, J.

This is a petition for a writ of mandate to be directed to respondent, requiring him in his official capacity as superintendent of streets of the city of Hermosa Beach to pass upon the sufficiency and form of certain bonds ■ tendered to him by the petitioner herein, and also requiring said respondent to execute a certain contract for the improvement and repair of portions of a designated pier and boat landing located within the said city of Hermosa Beach.

In ordinary circumstances, it is unquestioned that the official duty of the respondent would require the performance by him of each of the things included within the demands of the petitioner herein. But in the particular circumstances surrounding the transaction which is the basis of this controversy, it is the contention of respondent that the city of Hermosa Beach was without authority or jurisdiction to order the contemplated work or to execute the contract for its performance, and for that reason it became and is no part of the duty of respondent as such official to comply with said demands of petitioner.

*777 By the record herein it stands as admitted facts that the city of Hermosa Beach is the owner of the Hermosa Beach pier, boat landing, and the lands which they cover; that the pier abuts upon and is a continuation or extension of a street within said city; that an ordinance of intention adopted by the legislative body of said city of Hermosa Beach provided that the “ocean end of . . . the pier be repaired and reinforced by the driving of certain piles; that the present boat-landing be cut loose from the pier, changed and reconstructed—all as shown in the plans and specifications hereinafter referred to . . . ; that all the foregoing work is fully set forth and delineated in plan No. 2453a, on file in the office of the city engineer, to be done under specification No. 78, on file in the office of the city clerk, to which reference is hereby made for a full and detailed description of said proposed work.”

Sections 1, 2, and 79a of the “Improvement Act” (Stats. 1911, p. 730, as respectively amended by Stats. 1925, p. 244; Stats. 1923, p. 104, and Stats. 1913, p. 57) authorize the doing of any work which may be deemed necessary to improve the whole or any portion of any street owned by a city of the class of the city of Hermosa Beach.

The solution of the question presented to this court depends primarily upon whether the pier in contemplation of law was a continuation or extension of the street upon which the pier abutted.

It often happens that a street crosses a stream or marshy or overflowed land, and in such case a causeway or bridge (which in no material respect would differ from a pier or a wharf) over such stream or land would constitute a part of the street or highway with which such causeway or bridge connected. The authorities are so numerous to that effect that citation thereof is deemed unnecessary. It is apparent that the test of whether a structure in the nature of a pier is a street depends primarily upon its location with reference to existing and recognized highways, as well as upon the use to which it is put or is adaptable by the general public.

In Gould on Waters, third edition, section 119, it is said: “ . . . The question whether a wharf is public or private depends upon the purpose for which it was built, the uses to which it has been applied, the place where located, and *778 the nature and character of the structure. When a public highway is laid out to navigable waters, its termination is presumed to be a public landing as incident to the highway. . . . ” (Citing authorities.)

In the case of Hafner Mfg. Co. v. City of St. Louis, 262 Mo. 621 [172 S. W. 28], it is held that a public wharf may be a “public highway.” In ruling upon the question the court said in part: “It may be taken as acceptable doctrine that a public wharf on a navigable stream connected, as here, with public streets and in a sense an extension of such streets is "in the eye of the law a public highway. Its character is similar. The right to the common use of it in the public is similar, and in a very just sense the rights of the city in and its duty toward it are akin to its rights and duties toward its public streets. ...”

Although in State v. Cowan, 29 N. C. 239, 247 (7 Ired. 187, 193), it was held that (syllabus), “A wharf, simply as such and not being part of a street, is not a public highway,” nevertheless in the course of the opinion the following language may be found: “It is possible, the wharf may form part of the street, at its termination; for example, as some are made for ferry landings.”

In the case of City of Buffalo v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 190 N. Y. 84 [16 L. R. A. (N. S.) 506, 82 N.. E. 513], where many authorities are cited, it is held that where a private dock is built on a public street on the shore of navigable waters the dock becomes a part of the street and the public has a righ„t to travel over it.

In' the case of Frater v. Baylen Street Wharf Co., 57 Fla. 63 [131 Am. St. Rep. 1084, 49 South. 188], it appeared that a street as originally platted abutted on the waters of a bay; that thereafter such street was extended into the bay by means of a wharf or pier constructed of wooden piling and planks, and that as time went by the wharf extension of the street was filled in with earth and stone and thus converted into solid ground. Touching the main point at issue in the ease, in part the court said:

“The contention of the plaintiff below is that the whole extension of said Baylen street, from its original terminus at Main street clear out to the end of its present terminus at deep water, is still the wharf of plaintiff, and that it is *779 entitled to wharfage upon all goods landed upon said extension from the, water at any point south of Main street.
“This contention we cannot sustain. The rule of law is well settled that a public street leading to navigable waters would keep even pace with the extension of the land, whether the change in the land be due to natural causes or to the voluntary act of the owner of the land. Mark v. Village of West Troy, 151 N. Y. 453 [45 N. E. 842]; Dana v. Graddock, 66 N. H. 593 [32 Atl. 757]; Hoboken Land & Improvement Co. v. Mayor, 36 N. J. L. 540; People v. Lambier, 5 Denio (N. Y.), 9 [47 Am. Dec. 273]; Mayor of Jersey City v. Morris Canal & Banking Co., 12 N. J. Eq. 547; Newark Lime & Cement Co. v. Mayor of Newark, 15 N. J. Eq. 64; Gould on Waters, 3d ed., sec. 157.”

The case of Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Mayor etc. of New York, 85 App. Div. 530 [83 N. Y. Supp. 469], was similar in its facts to the case just cited in that a street which abutted on navigable waters was extended into such waters by means of earthen approaches and a pier. In part the court said:

“ . . .

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Bluebook (online)
260 P. 355, 85 Cal. App. 775, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pan-pacific-construction-co-v-meadows-calctapp-1927.