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Timestamp: 2019-04-22 14:09:11+00:00

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SALISBURY LAND AND IMPROVEMENT COMPANY vs. COMMONWEALTH.
Present: RUGG, C.J., MORTON, LORING, SHELDON, & DE COURCY, JJ.
St. 1912, c. 715, purporting by s. 4 to authorize the Salisbury Beach Reservation Commission to take by right of eminent domain as a public reservation any or all of the land or of the rights in any land in a described portion of the town of Salisbury bounding on the Atlantic Ocean and the Merrimac River, which included when the act was passed an existing seaside resort equipped with cottages and other appartenances, and providing in s. 10 that "Said commission may sell or lease any lands or rights in land taken or acquired by it, which are not needed as a public reservation," with other provisions contemplating the taking, not only of the seashore and other lands purely for reservation purposes, but also other real estate in the designated territory to be sold or leased to private persons, is unconstitutional as an attempt to authorize the exercise of the right of eminent domain in part for a private purpose, and because it is impossible to separate the valid from the invalid portions of the statute.
The interest of the public that the people should be well housed, although proper to be considered in the exercise of the police power, is not a proper subject for the exercise of the right of eminent domain. By RUGG, C. J.
PETITION, filed in the Land Court on January 12, 1911, by the Salisbury Land and Improvement Company, and amended by leave of court on July 13, 1912, by the substitution as petitioners of the trustees of the Salisbury Beach Associates and other persons who after the filing of the petition had acquired the title of the original petitioner, for the registration of title to certain land at Salisbury Beach in Salisbury notwithstanding an attempted taking of such land by the Salisbury Beach Reservation Commission under St. 1912, c. 715, which was alleged by the substituted petitioners to be unconstitutional.
of title as to all land covered by such alleged taking, and at the request of the parties reported the case for determination by this court. If the order of the judge was right, the decree was to be entered as ordered; otherwise, the case was to be remanded to the Land Court for such further proceedings as this court might direct.
H. I. Bartlett, (W. Coulson with him,) for the Salisbury Beach Associates.
J. M. Swift, Attorney General, & E. S. Abbott, for the Commonwealth, submitted a brief.
have not generally been renewed except in a few instances and at a substantial increase in rent.
construed as a whole. That which, by fair intendment, its terms may confer power to accomplish, must be ascertained by a broad consideration of the entire act, bearing constantly in mind the presumption in favor of its validity.
The establishment and maintenance of public parks and reservations out of moneys raised by taxation and the exercise of the power of eminent domain for their acquirement plainly are within the power of the Legislature. It requires no discussion to demonstrate that this is a public purpose. Nor can it be contended reasonably in view of many of our decisions that the taking of the fee rather than an easement in land to this end is not permissible. Higginson v. Treasurer & School House Commissioners of Boston, 212 Mass. 583 and cases cited at 591. The acquirement of beaches by eminent domain and at the public expense for bathing and other purposes of general utility has never been questioned in this Commonwealth. That it is a legitimate exercise of the sovereign power is not open to doubt. See In re Metropolitan Park Commissioners, petitioners, 209 Mass. 381. Looking alone at s. 4 of the act now under consideration, the power conferred does not appear to go beyond the right of acquiring and maintaining land and rights in land for a public park or reservation. But this section must be read in connection with other sections in order to understand the full scope of the act. Section 10 authorizes the commission to "sell or lease any lands or rights in land taken . . . by it, which are not needed as a public reservation." These words are not restricted as to time. They form a part of the original act and are operative contemporaneously with all its other provisions. There is nothing to require a determination that by reason of changed conditions land deemed necessary at the time of taking, has become no longer needed. These words in connection with s. 4 undertake to enable the commission to take "any or all of the land" within the designated area and at the same moment to determine that some of the lands thus taken "are not needed" and immediately to proceed to "sell or lease" such lands. Thus there may be an adjudication that lands are needed for the public use which involves a payment for them out of moneys raised by taxation, coupled with a determination not to devote some of these lands to the enjoyment of the people at large but to sell or lease them for private occupation.
act. The taking, [Note p376] which is made a part of the record, shows generally a careful exclusion of most of the lots not owned by the petitioner, even though in numerous instances this results in an interruption of the shore line and in many others leaves small lots owned by individuals surrounded by land taken. The impression created by looking at the plan of the taking was not inaccurately described in argument as a "checker board" effect. It was found by the Land Court that the commission interpreted the act to authorize them legally to "take such lands as they did take for the purpose of carrying out the intent of the law, which, for the protection of the present cottage owners and people who in the future may become cottage owners or occupants, was to be done by leasing or selling the lands taken." This statement aptly summarizes the effect of the act. It authorizes the taking of land a part of which may never be intended for any public purpose, but for lease or sale for private use. It would be possible for the commissioners, although strictly following the terms of the statute, to take this entire summer colony with its numerous houses and other buildings and substitute themselves for the petitioner as landlord, and lease all the cottages and buildings indefinitely, or ultimately to sell them. The statute would enable the establishment of what in essence would be a scheme for utilizing and developing a seashore summer resort for the benefit of cottagers on a scale of some magnitude. This being the meaning of the statute, it remains to inquire whether it is within the scope of legislative power.
rather than the general good. While incidentally it may be an advantage to the public that private persons prosper, if the essential character of the transaction in its direct object is private benefit to individuals, the purpose is not public. In a general sense it is of public interest that the people be well housed, but this does not authorize the State to become the general landlord. That subject is a proper one for the exercise of the police power but not of eminent domain. It was said by the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking through Mr. Justice Harlan in Madisonville Traction Co. v. St. Bernard Mining Co. 196 U. S. 239, 251: "It is fundamental in American jurisprudence that private property cannot be taken by the government, national or state, except for purposes which are of a public character, although such taking be accompanied by compensation to the owner. That principle .. . grows out of the essential nature of all free governments. " Private property cannot be taken directly or indirectly for a private end. It cannot be seized ostensibly for a public use and then diverted to a private use. Legislation which is designed or which is so framed that it may be utilized to accomplish the ultimate result of placing property in the hands of one individual for private enjoyment after it has been taken from another individual avowedly for a public purpose is unconstitutional. It would enable that to be achieved by indirection which by plain statement would be impossible. These principles have been expounded at length in early decisions and recent opinions of this court with affluent citation of authorities. It is not necessary to do more than refer to a few of them. The case at bar is indistinguishable from them. Lowell v. Boston, 111 Mass. 454. Wilkins v. Jewett, 139 Mass. 29. Mead v. Acton, 139 Mass. 341. Opinion of 'the Justices, 204 Mass. 607. Opinion of the Justices, 204 Mass. 616. Opinion of the Justices, 211 Mass. 624. See also Hairston v. Danville & Western Railway, 208 U. S. 598; Sanborn v. Van Duyne, 90 Minn. 215; Brown v. Gerald, 100 Maine, 351.
tem "no longer needed" therefor may be sold (St. 1892, c. 251, s. 1), while the metropolitan park commission "for all purposes not inconsistent with the purposes specified in the act establishing said commission" are given certain modified rights of granting interests in lands. Statutes like these where the right to sell or lease manifestly is purely incidental to the chief public end and is confined by fair intendment to land or buildings either once actually needed and used, which have ceased so to be needed, or which by lease may promote the general public aim, afford no support to the broad powers here attempted to be created. See Boston v. Boston Elevated Railway, ante, 41. The same is true of the right to develop and sell power as incidental to a public undertaking. St. 1895, c. 488, s. 3. United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co. 229 U. S. 53, 72, 73. An absolute and unqualified power to sell and lease such as the present statute confers is different in kind from the carefully guarded powers conferred by the statutes to which we have referred. Moreover, a right to sell, when no longer needed, property taken or used for a public enterprise, requiring extensive works of construction where during the period of excavation or building land might be needed which would have no use on the completion of the work, is quite distinguishable from land taken for park or reservation purposes.
The taking here is not of a vast extent of wild or unsurveyed land whose agricultural and other possibilities are undiscovered. It is in one of the oldest towns of the State, is relatively small in area, and is a settled community with a large number of cottages and all its characteristics thoroughly capable of easy comprehension. It requires no discussion to distinguish the power conferred by the present statute from that given to the metropolitan park commission and other like officers to construct or lease buildings manifestly in furtherance of the convenient use by the people of the parks and reservation. A shelter or a restaurant or a bath house, to which all have access on equal terms, do not stand on the same basis as a resort to a considerable extent devoted to cottages to be leased to private families, and from which when leased or sold the public must be excluded.
supporting the numerous statutes establishing irrigation districts. Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112. Clark v. Nash, 198 U. S. 361. Strickley v. Highland Boy Gold Mining Co. 200 U. S. 527. See Otis Co. v. Ludlow Manuf. Co. 186 Mass. 89; S. C. 201 U. S. 140; Turner v. Nye, 154 Mass. 579, 582; Wurts v. Hoagland, 114 U. S. 606. But this principle has no relation to the case at bar. Hellen v. Medford, 188 Mass. 42, affords no support to the contention of the Commonwealth. The statute there under consideration was held to be unconstitutional, but the plaintiff was not in a position to take advantage of it, a principle frequently applied but having no bearing upon the issues here raised, where the petitioner from the beginning has assailed this statute and has done nothing to waive its rights.
It is impossible to separate the valid from the invalid parts of this statute. The power of the commission to take land is inextricably interwoven with the power to sell and lease land so taken. It cannot be determined how the Legislature would have dealt with the subject matter if their attention had been directed specifically to the point that land and buildings, including a large number of dwelling .houses, could not be taken for the purpose of lease and sale under the changed conditions of being in the neighborhood of a public reservation and the expense of the undertaking lessened by the revenue to be derived therefrom. Different financial and other questions would have been presented, which might have caused the General Court to have refrained from action or to have enacted a statute of other tenor. Edwards v. Bruorton, 184 Mass. 529. Commonwealth v. Hana, 195 Mass. 262, 267.
We feel constrained to pronounce the statute unconstitutional. It becomes unnecessary to pass upon the other questions raised by the report.
Case remanded to the Land Court for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
[Note p373] Section 4 authorizes the commission "to acquire in fee, by purchase, gift or by right of eminent domain, in the name of the Commonwealth, and thereafter to maintain and make available for the inhabitants of the Commonwealth as a public reservation for the use, exercise and recreation of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, any or all of the land or any or all of the rights in any land in" a specific portion of the town of Salisbury bounding on the Atlantic Ocean and Merrimac River.
"Section 10. Said commission may sell or lease any lands or rights in land taken or acquired by it, which are not needed as a public reservation for the use, exercise and recreation of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, with or without restrictions as to its use as it may deem advisable, and may make sales of the grass, sand, and other materials in said reservation. The town of Salisbury shall levy, assess, and collect a tax on all buildings and personal estate in said reservation not owned by the Commonwealth in the same manner as if the said reservation had not been created, and shall collect a tax on all land in said reservation not taken, acquired or used by said commission for the purposes of this act.
"Section 11. The town of Salisbury shall have the general charge and supervision of the education of the children resident in the reservation as in the case of other children resident in the said town."
[Note p376] In the decision of the judge of the Land Court it was stated that "This taking was filed by said Salisbury Beach Reservation Commission under the advice of counsel specially employed by said commission and without the knowledge of the Attorney General."

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