Randall v. City of Milwaukee

249 N.W. 73, 212 Wis. 374, 1933 Wisc. LEXIS 39
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 12, 1933
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 249 N.W. 73 (Randall v. City of Milwaukee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Randall v. City of Milwaukee, 249 N.W. 73, 212 Wis. 374, 1933 Wisc. LEXIS 39 (Wis. 1933).

Opinion

The following opinion was filed June 6, 1933 :

Feitz, J.

This appeal is from a judgment enjoining the city of Milwaukee from erecting a structure to shelter the entrance to a subway on West Wisconsin avenue in front of the plaintiffs’ property, which has a frontage of sixty feet on the south side of that street, until the city acquires the right to erect such structure by condemnation or other proceedings, in accordance with due process of law. West Wisconsin avenue, as dedicated for street purposes on plats recorded in 1869 and 1870, is 100 feet wide. Of that width, 25 feet adjacent to the property lines on each side of the street are used for sidewalks and grass plots, which extend to the curbs; and between the curbs there is a 50-feet-wide roadway, which is used for vehicular traffic. The common council of the city duly determined to construct a tunnel underneath the surface of West Wisconsin avenue fox-pedestrians crossing that street at North Thirteenth street; and also to erect a building to shelter the entrance and stairway down to that tunnel on the south side of Wisconsin avenue. That stairway and shelter are to be six feet south from the curb, in the grass plot and sidewalk, in front of the east thirty feet of plaintiffs’ property. The shelter is to [377]*377be 23^4 feet long, 8 feet wide, and its height is to he “stepped down” from about 11 feet to 5 feet above the sidewalk.

The trial court found that the proposed shelter will, in a substantial degree, obstruct and interfere with the ingress and egress to and from the east thirty feet of plaintiffs’ property and the street in front thereof; with the view from the first story of any store or apartment building which may be erected on the plaintiffs’ property, as well as the view of any store windows or other windows in any building on the plaintiffs’ premises from the street in front thereof; with easements of light and air, of abutting owners; and that it will result in substantial injury and damages to the plaintiffs, as the owners of the property. The court also found and concluded that the erection of such a permanent shelter over the subway entrance, in the public sidewalk in front of plaintiffs’ property, is an unreasonable interference with plaintiffs’ property rights; an unreasonable use of the public highway; and will constitute an additional servitude upon the plaintiffs’ property which was not within the contemplation of the parties at the time of the original dedication of the street to public use. The city, however, contends that the proposed shelter is necessary as a suitable covering over the subway entrance; that the shelter, as well as the subway, is incidental to the ordinary use of the street, and to facilitate safe travel thereon; that there is no departure from the original purpose of the dedication of the street; and that there is no additional servitude upon the abutters’ land, and no taking of property requiring any compensation. Plaintiffs, on the other hand, contend that they have certain property rights, such as the easements of access and view, which the city will impair by an unusual and unreasonable use of the street; and that, consequently, the city’s act will constitute a taking of such property rights for public use, without compensation, in violation of plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.

[378]*378This court has recognized that an owner of land abutting on a street has the right, as an incident to his ownership, whether he or the public owns the fee to the center of the street, (1) of access, i.e. egress and ingress, (2) of light and air, (3) of view, (4) to have the street kept open and continued as a public street for the benefit of his abutting property, and (5) to whatever adds to the value of the street to the abutter. Park Hotel Co. v. Ketchum, 184 Wis. 182, 185, 199 N. W. 219. However, his rights as an abutting owner are subject to such public street use and purpose as the location of the street requires.

“The primary use and purpose is public travel. The servitude imposed on the land is the right of the public to construct and maintain thereon a safe and convenient roadway, which shall at all times be open and free for public use as a highway.” Krueger v. Wisconsin Telephone Co. 106 Wis. 96, 102, 81 N. W. 1041.

As this court said in La Crosse City R. Co. v. Higbee, 107 Wis. 389, 397, 83 N. W. 701:

“When a new mode of using the public streets and highways is adopted, the question arises of whether it violates the rights of the owners of the fee to the streets and is inconsistent with the original design in setting the land aside for a public thoroughfare, keeping in view the fact that such design is presumed to have contemplated the adoption from time to time of improvements in mechanical appliances and their use in aid of travel upon the street, — the keeping abreast with the march of civilization, with the growth of population and consequent increase of travel, so as to adequately satisfy public needs and conveniences. Lands are set aside for public streets and highways, not for the present, with its necessities and modes of use, but for all time, with all the added demands that may be made upon the public ways within the scope of their original design, in the course of natural development that is constantly going on.”

As was said in McCandless v. Los Angeles (Cal. App.) 296 Pac. 895, 897, in an action to recover consequential [379]*379damages, caused by the construction of a pedestrian subway entrance on the sidewalk of a street in front of plaintiff’s abutting property:

“The trend of judicial opinion in the matter under consideration is that a general dedication of a street or highway to public use ordinarily is all-inclusive in character, and, at the time such dedication becomes effective, embraces, not only any and every use then known, practiced, or even conjectured either by the general public or by private individuals for the moving, carriage, locomotion, transportation, or conveyance of either persons or property of any kind, but as well includes any other or additional reasonable use either of a similar or of a dissimilar kind, nature, or character which thereafter may be discovered for the benefit or welfare of the traveling public.”

So, in Hobart v. Milwaukee City R. Co. 27 Wis. 194, the use of a street for street railway purposes was held not of itself to impose an additional burden upon the fee; and in La Crosse City R. Co. v. Higbee, supra, a similar conclusion was reached as to poles set at the edge of a street to support the trolley wires of an electric street railway, but that “reasonable regard must be had, in locating such poles, for the convenience of abutting property owners in the enjoyment of their property.”

In Palmer v. Larchmont Electric Co. 158 N. Y. 231, 52 N. E. 1092, the court said in relation to placing electric wires and poles in the streets for lighting them:

“The care, management, and control of the public ways devolve upon 'the local municipal government in which they are located, and it is the duty of the local government to maintain them in such condition that the public, by the exercise of due care, may pass over them in safety.” (Page 234.)
“. . .

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Bluebook (online)
249 N.W. 73, 212 Wis. 374, 1933 Wisc. LEXIS 39, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/randall-v-city-of-milwaukee-wis-1933.