Case Title: Kropitzer v. City of Portland

Citation: 237 Or. 157, 390 P.2d 356

Docket Number: 

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 1964-03-18T00:00:00Z

Document:
Reversed March 18, 1964.
Petition for rehearing denied April 7, 1964.
*158 Robert L. Hurtig, Portland, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were Alexander G. Brown and Marian C. Rushing, Portland.
Jonathan U. Newman, Portland, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Cake, Jaureguy, Hardy, Buttler & McEwen and John R. Faust, Jr., Portland.
Before McALLISTER, Chief Justice, and ROSSMAN, PERRY, O'CONNELL, GOODWIN and LUSK, Justices.
REVERSED.
O'CONNELL, J.
This is an action to recover damages for an alleged appropriation of plaintiffs' property by defendant city through inverse condemnation. Defendant demurred to plaintiffs' complaint on the ground that it failed to allege any act constituting a taking for which defendant would be required to compensate plaintiffs. The demurrer was overruled. Defendant appeals from a judgment for plaintiffs.
In 1911 plaintiffs' predecessor in interest subdivided a tract of land and dedicated to the public the streets designated in the plat. Defendant accepted the dedication and by ordinance enacted in 1912 established *159 the grades of the streets. In 1957 plaintiffs purchased a hillside lot in the subdivision and constructed a house on the lot. In 1960 a paved street at the established grade was authorized by defendant. In making the excavation to the grade the contractor cut into the hillside adjacent to plaintiffs' property but within the boundaries of the street. As a result of the excavation plaintiffs' land subsided. It was established that plaintiffs' land would have subsided to the same extent even if there had been no building upon it. There is no evidence that either the defendant or the contractor was negligent in any respect.
The trial court held that the defendant's conduct constituted a taking of a portion of plaintiffs' property without compensation and was, therefore, in violation of the Oregon Constitution, Article I, § 18.[1]
1. The right to lateral support is an interest in land. If land subsides as a result of the removal of support, the owner has been deprived of a property interest. It is "property" within the meaning of Article I, § 18, Oregon Constitution, and may not be taken without just compensation. We so held in Mosier v. Oregon Navigation Company, 39 Or 256, 64 P 453, 87 Am St Rep 652 (1901). In that case the defendant was a private corporation. The same principle is applicable, however, where lateral support is removed by a municipal corporation without the consent of the property owner. It follows from the foregoing that plaintiffs *160 here are entitled to recover unless they or their predecessors in interest had, prior to the subsidence, parted with the right to have the land supported.
2, 3. A landowner may, of course, convey to another an easement permitting the removal of support.[2] A similar interest in the form of a public easement may be created upon a dedication of streets for public use. The question is whether a dedication without an express grant of the right to remove support will give rise to such an easement.
Authority may be found both supporting and opposing the proposition that a dedication of land for street purposes includes an implied easement to remove necessary support to abutting property. There is a substantial body of authority supporting the view that a city stands in the same position as a private person with respect to liability for the removal of lateral support in the construction of city streets. This view is well stated in Lewis on Eminent Domain, § 126, p. 194-196 (3d ed (1909)):
Authorities expressing a contrary view frequently base municipal immunity upon the theory of the dedicator's implied intent to grant an easement to remove necessary support.
In some cases it appears that even in the absence of a finding of an intent to include in the dedication the right to remove support, the city is found to be free from liability simply because the public interest would thus best be served. Sometimes both of these rationales are employed in the same case. Illustrative is Fletcher v. City of Seattle, 43 Wash 627, 86 P 1046, 1047 (1906). There the court reasoned:
Although the opposing viewpoints discussed above are predicated generally upon the dedicator's presumed intent to include or exclude the right to remove lateral support, it seems likely that ordinarily the dedicator has no actual intent either way.[4] Where the dedicated streets are platted on hilly terrain, it is fair to assume that he would foresee the removal of lateral support for abutting lots when the streets were constructed. But this does not tell us whether or not he wishes to relieve the city from liability for removing the support.
4, 5. If the scope of the dedication is to be resolved in terms of the dedicator's intent, it must be based upon the intent which the dedicator would have had if he had *164 considered the question. Inasmuch as we have no evidence or judicially cognizable statistics on this point, it is necessary to make a judicial assumption. Under these circumstances we are entitled to make the assumption that the dedicator would have intended to make a dedication which would best serve the public interest. 3 Restatement, Property § 243 (b) expresses this constructional preference as follows:
6. We are of the opinion that the dedication of streets by the filing of a plat of a subdivision should be construed as granting to the city the privilege of removing naturally necessary lateral support in the construction of a street, assuming of course, that the work is not negligently done. A dedication is defined as a devotion of property to public uses. If this is taken to mean that the dedicator is motivated by a desire to create a public improvement by donating a part of his land for street purposes, it is not unreasonable to assume that he intends to go the full way and make a complete, rather than a partial gift to the public. A complete gift would embrace all of the privileges incident to the construction of the streets. The dedicator certainly would know that in building streets in a hilly subdivision there is a real likelihood that an excavation to an established grade might remove support to the land abutting the streets. If such freedom from liability is not included, the gift could well be extremely costly to the city. We shall not assume that the gift was made with such a burden of liability.
*165 It is perhaps unrealistic to find such altruism in the dedicator's purpose. Even if we do not, there is a ground for implying an intent on the part of the dedicator to assume the cost of supporting the lots abutting the dedicated streets. Certainly it is to his advantage to have streets which will furnish a means of ingress and egress to each of the lots in the subdivision. In fact, it would seem that the private benefit to the dedicator and his successors in interest outweighs the benefit to the general public. Land is subdivided for the commercial purpose of selling lots at a profit. If the city is required to pay for the loss involved in the innocent removal of support, the public is, in effect, subsidizing private enterprise. Since the principal benefit inures to the abutting owners they, rather than the general public should bear the cost of constructing the streets. The cost of grading, curbing and paving is normally specially assessed against these abutting owners to whom the benefit accrues. They should, for the same reason, assume the cost of shoring up their own land if it is necessary to remove support in the construction of the streets.
7. A further consideration prompts us to construe the dedication favorably to the defendant city. If we should hold that the city is liable in the present case, it would follow that liability would be imposed upon the city for subsidences resulting from the construction of streets in the past, no matter how much time had elapsed between the construction of the street and the subsidence because the statute of limitations runs from the time subsidence occurs and not when support is removed.
8. The rule applied by the lower court would impose a potential liability upon municipalities which, in *166 Oregon, apparently has not been regarded by them as a cost of operation. If liability should be imposed, it should be made prospective through legislation. New Hampshire adopted this solution in Landry v. Manchester, 101 N H 412, 415, 144 A2d 909 (1958) where the court said:
The judgment of the lower court is reversed.
[1]  "Private property shall not be taken for public use, nor the particular services of any man be demanded, without just compensation; nor except in the case of the state, without such compensation first assessed and tendered; provided, that the use of all roads, ways and waterways necessary to promote the transportation of the raw products of mine or farm or forest or water for beneficial use or drainage is necessary to the development and welfare of the state and is declared a public use." Oregon Constitution, Art. I, § 18.
[2]  Penman v. Jones, 256 Penn 416, 100 A 1043 (1917) (dissent); Hohfeld, Faulty Analysis in Easement Cases, 27 Yale L J 66 (1917).
[3]  It is also said that a city is insulated from liability for the removal of lateral support under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. See 5 Powell on Real Property, § 699, p. 290, n. 36 (1962). Some cases have held that there is no liability because the removal of support does not constitute a "taking" within the meaning of constitutional provisions similar to Art. I, § 18 of the Oregon Constitution. Constitutional provisions to the effect that property shall not be "taken or damaged" are generally contrasted with provisions which simply proscribe a "taking," it being recognized generally that the city may be liable for the removal of support under the former but not under the latter type of provision. Compare French v. City of Bluefield, 104 W Va 129, 139 SE 644 (1927) with Crane v. Harrison, 40 Idaho 229, 232 P 578, 38 ALR 15 (1925).
[4]  It has been observed that frequently an "implied" easement is recognized, not because the servient owner intended to create it, but because the public interest would be served by the recognition of the servitude. As Powell on Real Property puts it, the "fictional implications of `intent' are genuinely rooted in considerations of public policy." 3 Powell on Real Property, § 410, p. 416 (1952) citing Buss v. Dyer, 125 Mass 287, 291 (1878).