Case Title: McGiffin v. City of Gatlinburg

Citation: 260 S.W.2d 152

Docket Number: 

State: tennessee

Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Date: 1953-06-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
260 S.W.2d 152 (1953) McGIFFIN et al. v. CITY OF GATLINBURG. Supreme Court of Tennessee. June 5, 1953. Rehearing Denied July 17, 1953. Clyde W. Key, Knoxville, Ogle & Ogle, Sevierville, for complainants. O. M. Tate, Jr., Knoxville, for defendant. PREWITT, Justice. This is a suit for a declaratory decree stating that complainants are the owners of a certain portion of a street right of way in the City of Gatlinburg, on the theory that the right and title of the defendant thereto has terminated and become extinguished and has reverted to complainants by reason of the facts charged in the bill. The defendant City of Gatlinburg interposed a demurrer which was overruled by the trial court and a discretionary appeal allowed. The City of Gatlinburg had heretofore filed a condemnation proceedings against complainants Hattie McGiffin and others for the purpose of obtaining a right of way eighty feet in width and running from east to west and twelve hundred feet in length running from north to south in the northern portion of Gatlinburg. Later, the city amended its petition so as to include something over one acre lying east of said eighty-foot right of way and adjacent thereto, which the city undertook and did acquire for the construction of slopes of cuts and fills on the east side of said right of way. Complainants now insist that said street having been constructed within the measurements of said eighty feet in width and twelve hundred feet in length, that said additional acreage of fills and slopes are no longer needed by the city and that said additional acreage has reverted to the complainants as the owners of the fee in said property to which the city only obtained an easement. It seems that the adjoining property owners have leveled off said additional acreage at a cost of some $15,000 so that this property can be sold for residential purposes. *153 The question here is whether under said condemnation proceedings the city acquired a fee-simple title to said additional acreage or only an easement. From a certified copy of the record in the condemnation proceeding it is shown: (1) That part of the verdict of the jury describing the lands, interest and estate awarded by the jury to the city of Gatlinburg reads as follows: (2) On April 13, 1951 a final judgment was entered upon the verdict of the jury in the condemnation proceeding which provided as follows: There was no appeal from this final judgment. The City of Gatlinburg paid the amount awarded condemnees and went into possession and constructed entirely within the bounds of the eighty-foot strip a concrete street with concrete sidewalks on each side thereof. The city paid to the adjoining owners the sum of approximately $18,000. It is conceded that the city has done no act that would amount to an abandonment of this 1.5 acres. The complainants insist, however, that the city acquired only a terminable easement for a particular purpose that is, a right of way necessary for the construction of slopes of cuts and fills. An order dated July 17, 1950 in the condemnation proceedings heretofore mentioned directed that the condemnation petition be amended so as to describe the easement (outside the eighty-foot strip) that the city would be permitted to acquire, in this language: We think this language supports the contention of the complainants that the city acquired only an easement in said 1.5 acres. Further, Section 3 of the condemnation proceedings avers that the city has "taken proper corporate action enabling it to acquire * * *." In describing what this "corporate action" enabled the city to acquire, the petition, after describing the eighty-foot strip, provides as follows: This is the only estate or interest which the city by corporate action has ever determined to be necessary to be acquired for public use. We are therefore of the opinion that the city acquired only an easement to said additional acreage. See Clouse v. Garfinkle, 190 Tenn. 677, 231 S.W.2d 345. The effect of Code section 3398 is to permit a municipality to condemn "the fee of the land necessary to be taken". In the present case, there is no doubt that the city intended that the title to the land should remain in the adjoining property owners and that they had a right to erect a building or buildings on said 1.5 acres whenever the land was graded to the same level as the surface of the street. See Land Co. v. Hotel Co., 132 N.C. 517, 44 S.E. 39, 61 L.R.A. 937; Gregory v. Forbes, 96 N.C. 77, 1 S.E. 541. In Atlantic & N.C.R. Co. v. Way, 172 N.C. 774, 90 S.E. 937, 939, it was said: Washburn in his Treatise on Easement, Third Edition, page 654, says: In 154 A.L.R. Annotation 33-34, it is said: In 17 Am. Jur., page 1023, it is said: We are therefore of the opinion that this 1.5 acres has reverted to the adjoining owners and that the city no longer has an interest in said acreage. It results that the decree of the Chancellor is affirmed.