Springville Banking Co. v. Burton

Utah Supreme Court

Springville Banking Co. v. Burton

349 P.2d 157, 10 Utah 2d 100, 1960 Utah LEXIS 140

CourtUtah Supreme Court

DecidedFebruary 1, 1960

Docket9066

StatusPublished

Cited by40 cases

This text of 349 P.2d 157 (Springville Banking Co. v. Burton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Springville Banking Co. v. Burton, 349 P.2d 157, 10 Utah 2d 100, 1960 Utah LEXIS 140 (Utah 1960).

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Opinions

HENRIOD, Justice.

Appeal from a dismissal of plaintiff’s mandamus action which sought to require members of the State Road Commission to initiate eminent domain proceedings to assess damages allegedly caused by impairment of ingress to and egress from plaintiff’s property. Affirmed. Costs to defendants.

Plaintiff owns a lot and building on the East side of Main Street at Seventh South in Springville, Utah. Main Street is a segment of a transcontinental highway. R runs North-South. The Commission placed [102]*102a concrete island in the middle of Main Street, eliminating U-turns and left turns, and denying access of southbound Main Street traffic to plaintiff’s property. The official project map indicates, however, that a new diversion highway permits southbound traffic seeking plaintiff’s property to travel about 1400-1500 feet further than it was wont to do before.

Plaintiff seeks no removal of the island, but damages for interference with access to the property. It claims “damage” for which it urges compensation should be paid under Constitutional provisions.¹ This amounts to an asserted constitutional right to be damaged.

Plaintiff concedes that in cases like this the State cannot be sued for lack of consent;² that an action will not lie against the Road Commission;³ and that damages are not assessable against the Commission members individually.⁴ It is further conceded that the Commission acted reasonably, plaintiff alleging in its complaint that:

“The impeding of plaintiff’s ingress and egress was determined by the defendants to be necessary for the proper and skillful construction of a highway for the use of the public, and the highway was skillfully and properly constructed.”

This concession that there was no unreasonable exercise of the police power provokes two questions: 1) Can plaintiff, employing the extraordinary writ of mandamus, compel the state to pay damages, when, because of sovereign immunity, it could not have done so in a direct suit against the State or the Road Commission? and 2) Was the damage here compensable in any event ?

As to 1) ; We believe and hold that the procedure chosen by plaintiff was an effort indirectly to do that which repeatedly we have held could not be done directly, which is dispositive of this case on that ground.

As to 2) : In this area of the freeway, citizens must yield to the common weal, albeit injury to their property may result. We espouse the notion that if the [103]*103sovereign exercises its police power reasonably and for the good of all the people, when constructing highways, consequential damages such as those alleged here, are not compensable.⁵ On the other hand, if public officials act arbitrarily and unreasonably, causing, for example, total destruction of the means to get in and out of one’s property, without any reasonable justification for doing so in the public interest, in a manner that imposes a special burden on one not shared by the public generally,⁶ principles of equity no doubt could be invoked to prevent threatened action of such character or to remove any instrumentality born of such conduct. Plaintiff did not allege or assert anything akin thereto.

The complaint makes it obvious no such case exists here. Access has not been denied. Interfered with, it is true, but in our opinion to no unreasonable extent. Southbound travelers seeking plaintiff’s property have to travel but a quarter mile further to reach it. The island concededly was necessary and desirable for safety reasons and to effect traffic control. This case more nearly is akin to Robinett v. Price,⁷ where we held a much more circuitous route gave rise to no claim for damages where one end of a road was closed.

If every abutter on a highway or street where proper authority reasonably has eliminated left or U-turns, could obtain damages incident to such eventuality, the result is obvious: Highways would remain unmarked because of the prohibitive cost involved in payment of damages to owners on both sides, or else they would be bypassed entirely as was the case in State by State Road Commission v. Rozzelle,⁸ which accomplishment we approved. Highways would become increasingly more dangerous, what with the rapidly increased traffic that has evolved in the past years and which clearly will increase further. Thousands of miles of highway would be left with no traffic control. No city could afford the luxury of a one way street lest it was of that type in the inception. Exigencies of the times require a practical, sensible approach to the limited-access highway problem, with the general public good being the primary consideration in determining each case as it arises, every case being different.

We believe, conclude and hold that the plaintiff here had no cause of action by way of mandamus, and that any damage provable here must yield without compensation in view of the obvious and admitted neces[104]*104sity for dividing the subject highway in this cáse.

CROCKETT, C. J., and CALLISTER, J., concur. McDONOUGH, J., concurs in the result.

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HENRIOD, Justice.

Appeal from a dismissal of plaintiff’s mandamus action which sought to require members of the State Road Commission to initiate eminent domain proceedings to assess damages allegedly caused by impairment of ingress to and egress from plaintiff’s property. Affirmed. Costs to defendants.

Plaintiff owns a lot and building on the East side of Main Street at Seventh South in Springville, Utah. Main Street is a segment of a transcontinental highway. R runs North-South. The Commission placed [102]*102a concrete island in the middle of Main Street, eliminating U-turns and left turns, and denying access of southbound Main Street traffic to plaintiff’s property. The official project map indicates, however, that a new diversion highway permits southbound traffic seeking plaintiff’s property to travel about 1400-1500 feet further than it was wont to do before.

Plaintiff seeks no removal of the island, but damages for interference with access to the property. It claims “damage” for which it urges compensation should be paid under Constitutional provisions.¹ This amounts to an asserted constitutional right to be damaged.

Plaintiff concedes that in cases like this the State cannot be sued for lack of consent;² that an action will not lie against the Road Commission;³ and that damages are not assessable against the Commission members individually.⁴ It is further conceded that the Commission acted reasonably, plaintiff alleging in its complaint that:

“The impeding of plaintiff’s ingress and egress was determined by the defendants to be necessary for the proper and skillful construction of a highway for the use of the public, and the highway was skillfully and properly constructed.”

This concession that there was no unreasonable exercise of the police power provokes two questions: 1) Can plaintiff, employing the extraordinary writ of mandamus, compel the state to pay damages, when, because of sovereign immunity, it could not have done so in a direct suit against the State or the Road Commission? and 2) Was the damage here compensable in any event ?

As to 1) ; We believe and hold that the procedure chosen by plaintiff was an effort indirectly to do that which repeatedly we have held could not be done directly, which is dispositive of this case on that ground.

As to 2) : In this area of the freeway, citizens must yield to the common weal, albeit injury to their property may result. We espouse the notion that if the [103]*103sovereign exercises its police power reasonably and for the good of all the people, when constructing highways, consequential damages such as those alleged here, are not compensable.⁵ On the other hand, if public officials act arbitrarily and unreasonably, causing, for example, total destruction of the means to get in and out of one’s property, without any reasonable justification for doing so in the public interest, in a manner that imposes a special burden on one not shared by the public generally,⁶ principles of equity no doubt could be invoked to prevent threatened action of such character or to remove any instrumentality born of such conduct. Plaintiff did not allege or assert anything akin thereto.

The complaint makes it obvious no such case exists here. Access has not been denied. Interfered with, it is true, but in our opinion to no unreasonable extent. Southbound travelers seeking plaintiff’s property have to travel but a quarter mile further to reach it. The island concededly was necessary and desirable for safety reasons and to effect traffic control. This case more nearly is akin to Robinett v. Price,⁷ where we held a much more circuitous route gave rise to no claim for damages where one end of a road was closed.

If every abutter on a highway or street where proper authority reasonably has eliminated left or U-turns, could obtain damages incident to such eventuality, the result is obvious: Highways would remain unmarked because of the prohibitive cost involved in payment of damages to owners on both sides, or else they would be bypassed entirely as was the case in State by State Road Commission v. Rozzelle,⁸ which accomplishment we approved. Highways would become increasingly more dangerous, what with the rapidly increased traffic that has evolved in the past years and which clearly will increase further. Thousands of miles of highway would be left with no traffic control. No city could afford the luxury of a one way street lest it was of that type in the inception. Exigencies of the times require a practical, sensible approach to the limited-access highway problem, with the general public good being the primary consideration in determining each case as it arises, every case being different.

We believe, conclude and hold that the plaintiff here had no cause of action by way of mandamus, and that any damage provable here must yield without compensation in view of the obvious and admitted neces[104]*104sity for dividing the subject highway in this cáse.

CROCKETT, C. J., and CALLISTER, J., concur. McDONOUGH, J., concurs in the result.

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349 P.2d 157, 10 Utah 2d 100, 1960 Utah LEXIS 140, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/springville-banking-co-v-burton-utah-1960.

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