Town of Clio v. Lee

74 So. 243, 199 Ala. 145, 1917 Ala. LEXIS 161
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedFebruary 8, 1917
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 74 So. 243 (Town of Clio v. Lee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Town of Clio v. Lee, 74 So. 243, 199 Ala. 145, 1917 Ala. LEXIS 161 (Ala. 1917).

Opinion

SAYRE, J.

— This is an appeal from the decree of the chancery court dissolving a temporary injunction by which had been .restrained an action of ejectment brought by appellee against appellant. The municipal authorities of the town of Clio, appellant, having resolved to widen South Elba street, made application to the clerk of the circuit court, as provided by article 29 of the Code, for a writ ad quod.damnum to assess the value of certain land owned by appellee therein described and referred to in the manner following: The application set forth the resolution of the town council to the eifect that- “South Elba street between Brundidge street crossing and Mcllwain street crossing should be widened on the east side as follows: Beginning at a point opposite and in line with the front of the sidewalk of Teal & Teal storehouse, thence southward on a line parallel with the brick storehouse on the west side of said South Elba street and to Mcllwain crossing.” The application further, among other things, showed that appellee owned land adjoining said street as follows: “At the corner of South Elba street and Brundidge street 70 feet more or less, fronting said South Elba street.” On the facts averred in the bill, as they will presently appear the foregoing description of one parcel of the property sought to be condemned is an impossibility. The application sought to condemn also another parcel, a narrow strip, situated on the west side of South Elba street further to the south and beyond Mcllwain street. No mistake was made as to this other parcel; it is not involved in the present suit, and it is necessary to refer to it for the reason only that appellee’s contention, which appears to have had currency in the court below, comes to this in substance, that because this narrow strip on the west side of the street was correctly described in the proceeding for condemnation, and no other land was correctly described, the whole of the money which [147]*147appellant, as we shall see, paid into court as the assessed compensation for all the land taken should be treated by the court .as compensation for the narrow west side strip only, and not at all as for the land now in controversy. The proceeding for condemnation, thus evidently involving two different and separated parcels of land, the one to the north and the other to the south of Mcllwain street, the one on the west and the other on the east .side of South Elba street, progressed through intermediate stages to a trial by jury in the circuit court where the damages sustained by this appellee were assessed in solidio and paid into court whence they were received by appellee. Afterwards, appellant having gone into possession of both pieces of the property which it supposed had been condemned, that is, as the bill explains, having gone upon the property and prepared it for the public use as a part of the street, appellee sued in ejectment for a lot -described as being on the south side of Blue Springs street and fronting 70 feet on the east side of South Elba street; in other words, on the southeastern corner of South Elba and Blue Springs streets, after which the bill in this cause was filed.

By the bill it is made to appear that the town of Clio was built about the crossing of what is known as the Elba road and the road between Brundidge and Blue Springs. The Elba road to the south of the crossing is now South Elba street. The Brundidge-Blue Springs road west of the crossing is now known as Brundidge street, while that part of it to the east is known as Blue Springs street. For all practical purposes the two are one continuous road or street, different parts of which are now differently named. It further appears that appellee owned the property at the southeastern corner of the intersection and none other that touched upon either street at the intersection or north of Mcllwain, which is a cross street next south of the street to which we may now conveniently refer as the Brundidge-Blue Spring street. The Teal & Teal storehouse, referred to in the description of the property in the application for condemnation, fronts on South Elba street at the northeast corner of that street and the street to which we have referred as the Brundidge-Blue Springs street. Appellee contested the ad quod damnum proceeding at all stages; but, as we have pointed out, she finally accepted . and still retains the damages assessed. It also appears in the bill that testimony was submitted to the freeholders summoned for the preliminary assessment on the subject of the proper amount [148]*148that should be paid to appellee as damages, she being present by counsel, and that at said hearing no property was mentioned other than the property described in the application as the property of appellee; that in the circuit court no reference was made to any other land; that “the said land and the value of the buildings and fence” — the bill shows the buildings were at the southeast corner of the intersection — “was the issue before the jury, and their verdict was- with reference to the value of the buildings and fences and land along with the rental value of the same; that through inadvertence the land at the corner of Blue Springs and South Elba streets was incorrectly described in the condemnation proceedings, it being described as being at the corner of Brundidge and South Elba streets, instead of at the corner of Blue Springs and Elba streets.”

The manifest theory of the ejectment suit is that the property for which appellee there sued was not condemned for the reason that the application for the writ ad quod damnum described the property to be condemned as lying to the south of Brundidge street, or on the corner of Brundidge and Blue Springs streets, whereas the property in question lies directly south of Blue Springs street, or on the corner of Blue Springs and South Elba streets.

Defendant has not answered the bill. There is no denial of the facts averred. The injunction was dissolved on the ground that there was no equity in the bill. The natural justice of complainant’s case is plain. Defendant has accepted the price, and the prompt judgment of the unsophisticated conscience is that the enjoyment by the public of the easement or the land for which it has paid the price should not be disturbed. Nor do any of the more or less artificial rules which of necessity affect the system of equity administered by the courts change the nature of the judgment. Defendant (appellee) objects to the bill for the alleged reason that to allow an interference by injunction with its action of ejectment would be equivalent to allowing a collateral impeachment of the judgment in the condemnation proceeding.

(1) We cannot accept appellee’s view of the case. If only the parcel of property on the west side of South Elba street and south of Mcllwain had been described in the condemnation proceeding, it may be conceded that appellant could not be permitted to show that the damages assessed included also the value of a [149]*149different piece of property, for that is what appellee’s cited cases hold. But here it is perfectly plain on the face of the record of the proceeding for condemnation, which constitutes appellant’s muniment of title, that the effort was to condemn two different and separated parcels of land, and that the damages for both parcels were assessed in solido. It is conceded that one parcel was adequately described, and that to it appellant acquired a good title.

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Bluebook (online)
74 So. 243, 199 Ala. 145, 1917 Ala. LEXIS 161, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/town-of-clio-v-lee-ala-1917.