Title: Arizona-Colorado Land & Cattle Co. v. DISTRICT CT., ETC.

State: colorado

Issuer: Colorado Supreme Court

Document:

511 P.2d 23 (1973) ARIZONA-COLORADO LAND & CATTLE COMPANY, an Arizona corporation, Petitioner, v. The DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR the TENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT of the State of Colorado, et al., Respondents. No. 25977. Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc. June 11, 1973. Phelps, Fonda, Hays, Farley, Abram & Shaw, Thomas J. Farley, Pueblo, for petitioner. Lee, Bryans, Kelly & Stansfield, Richard W. Bryans, Alfred J. Hamburg, Denver, for respondents. GROVES, Justice. In an action in the district court of Pueblo County, Public Service Company is *24 seeking to condemn an easement for electric transmission lines. The proposed lines will extend 44 miles. Over half of the easement is to be located on property owned by the petitioner. The petitioner filed a motion in the district court to dismiss the proceeding for the reason that the petitioner would be injured unnecessarily by the proposed route, and would have far less injury if an alternate route across petitioner's lands were used. The motion was denied. Petitioner brought an original proceeding and we issued a rule to show cause. We now make the rule absolute. The trial court made the following conclusions of law in ruling on the motion: The petitioner emphasized to us the statement in Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Colorado Postal Telegraph-Cable Co., 30 Colo. 133, 69 P. 564 (1902): As the trial court inferred, a determination as to the location of a public improvement can be disturbed by the courts if there is fraud or bad faith by the corporation seeking to condemn. We are asked to approve the emphasized language in Union Pacific, supra, as an exception in addition to fraud and bad faith. This we do not do. However, we do hold that where the taking of a particular easement by a private corporation would entail a great loss to the landowner which might *25 readily be avoided, the court in limine may consider this factor in determining whether the corporation is acting in bad faith. This is our interpretation of the quoted language from Union Pacific, supra. This opinion is limited to the narrow issue of the selection of a route for an easement by a private corporation. If the rule is to be extended any further, it will have to be under further opinions. The trial court found the pleading of the motion to dismiss to be insufficient. We have treated it as an answer and as having sufficiently pleaded the proposition asserted for the purpose of this opinion. However, this does not prevent the trial court from conditioning any further proceedings upon the filing of a more complete answer by the petitioner. The rule is made absolute, and the trial court directed to conduct further proceedings consonant with the views herein expressed. ERICKSON, J., dissents.