Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/262/700/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 04:21:05+00:00

Document:
1. Whether a use for which private property is taken is public or private is a judicial question the determination of which is influenced by local conditions, and this Court, while enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment, should keep in view the diversity of such conditions, and regard with great respect the judgment of state courts upon what should be deemed public uses. P. 262 U. S. 705.
2. It is not essential that the entire community, or even a considerable portion, should directly enjoy an improvement in order to constitute a public use. P. 262 U. S. 706.
3. A taking of land for a highway extension is a taking for a public use, even though the extension he wholly within the tract of a single landowner and terminate at his boundaries and connect with no public road save at its beginning, if it be susceptible of present use not only by those gaining access from the highway, but by persons living on or adjacent to the tract with access by private ways, and of future use by those living beyond its terminus, through future road construction. P. 262 U. S. 706.
the adjoining state or county in reasonable anticipation of future connections and future public use. P. 262 U. S. 707.
5. Public use of a road is not limited to its use as a mere business necessity or ordinary convenience, but includes its use as a scenic highway for the public enjoyment, recreation, and health. P. 262 U. S. 707.
6. The necessity for appropriating private property for a public use is a legislative question which may be determined by a municipality to which the legislature has delegated the power, and the Fourteenth Amendment does not entitle the owner to a hearing before the determination is made. P. 262 U. S. 708.
Error to judgments of the District Court of Appeal of California which affirmed judgments condemning private lands as county highways.
This record includes two cases which were tried together in the state courts and have been heard together here.
The two fundamental questions involved are whether the uses for which these lands have been taken are public uses authorized by law and whether the taking was necessary to such uses.
Section 1238 of the California Code of Civil Procedure includes "highways" among the "public uses" for which the right of eminent domain may be exercised. Section 1241, as amended in 1913, provides that, before property can be taken, it must appear that the use to which it is to be applied is one authorized by law and that the taking is necessary to such use, provided, inter alia, that when the legislative body of a county has, by resolution adopted by vote of two-thirds of its members, found and determined that the public interest and necessity require the construction by the county of any proposed public improvement located within its limits and that designated property is necessary therefor, such resolution shall be "conclusive evidence" of the public necessity for such improvement, that such property is necessary therefor, and that such improvement is located in the manner most compatible with the greatest public good and the least private injury. Stats. 1913, p. 549.
In 1916 and 1917, the Board of Supervisors, the legislative body of Los Angeles County, without notice to the ranch owners, adopted, by the required vote, two resolutions declaring that the public interest and necessity required the construction of the two highways now in controversy "for public highway purposes" and that it was necessary for such "public uses" that the lands included therein be acquired by the county, and directing that condemnation proceedings be instituted for such purposes. One of these proposed highways, which is known in the record as the "main road," commences at the eastern boundary of the ranch, where it connects with and forms a continuation of a much traveled public county highway running along the shore of the ocean from Santa Monica, and extends lengthwise through the ranch in a westerly direction to the Ventura County line, where it terminates within the boundaries of the ranch. The other is a branch from this main road, extending to the northern boundary of the ranch, where it terminates. There are no connecting public roads either at the western termination of the main road or the northern termination of the branch road.
vigorously resisted by the ranch owners, who denied the county's right of condemnation. Certain special defenses which they interposed, alleging that the main road would furnish no way of necessity or convenience for public use or travel, were stricken out by the court. Upon a preliminary trial as to the right of condemnation, the trial judge, after the resolutions of the Board had been introduced in evidence by the county, ruled that, while they were not conclusive evidence of the matters specified in the proviso to § 1241 of the Code, they were prima facie evidence thereof. And the ranch owners then, without objection or limitation, introduced a large mass of evidence in support of all of their defenses, including the matters which had been alleged in the special defenses that had been stricken out, and a large mass of rebuttal evidence was then introduced by the county, the testimony on both sides relating to all the matters which had been or now are in issue in the cases.
The trial judge reviewed the evidence and, manifestly without reference to any presumption arising under his ruling as to the prima facie evidence furnished by the resolutions, decided all the questions submitted in favor of the county, and made specific findings that the public interest and necessity required the acquisition of these public highways; that the use to which they were to be applied was authorized by law; that they would afford accommodation to the traveling public, and that they were located as required. Thereafter, the amount of landowners' compensation and damages having been determined by a jury, as to which no question is made, judgments condemning these lands for public highways were entered.
the state or federal constitutions, and under it the resolutions were conclusive evidence of the matters specified; that, in any event, the ranch owners had not been prejudiced by the rulings of the trial court as to the effect of this proviso, as they had been permitted to introduce full and complete evidence on these subjects, and that they had not been prejudiced by the striking out of their special defenses not only because the resolutions were conclusive evidence that the taking was necessary, but also because every material issue tendered by these special defenses was otherwise raised by the pleadings, and they had been permitted to offer evidence touching every matter contained therein, and it thereupon sustained the findings of the trial court and affirmed the judgments of condemnation. Los Angeles county v. Rindge Co., 53 Cal.App. 166.
The ranch owners urge here, in substance, that the use for which their property was taken was not a public use authorized by law, and their special defenses raising this question as to the main road were erroneously stricken out; that their property was taken without any public necessity, and, the proviso to § 1241 of the Code purporting to make the resolutions conclusive evidence thereof being in violation of the state constitution and of the Fourteenth Amendment and constituting neither conclusive nor prima facie evidence, the burden of disproving this public necessity was erroneously cast upon them, and that, in consequence, the judgments of condemnation deprived them of their property in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
view the diversity of such conditions and regard with great respect the judgments of state courts upon what should be deemed public uses in any state. Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112, 164 U. S. 158-160; Hairston v. Danville Railway, 208 U. S. 598, 208 U. S. 606-607. That a taking of property for a highway is a taking for public use has been universally recognized from time immemorial. The California Code specifically declares "highways" to be "public uses" for which the right of eminent domain may be exercised. Here, the Board of Supervisors, familiar with local conditions, has declared these highways to be for public uses, and the local and appellate state courts have likewise held them to be for public uses authorized by law.
people in these cities will have reciprocal access to them for purposes of trade and otherwise. It is not essential that the entire community, nor even any considerable portion, should directly enjoy or participate in an improvement in order to constitute a public use. Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, supra, p. 164 U. S. 161. In like manner, if Ventura County should hereafter extend the main road to the western end of the ranch, the people living beyond it, who now have no practical outlet, would be furnished a similar means of egress, with reciprocal ingress to them by the people living in the cities to the east. A highway can be legally laid out terminating at a state line even though there be no connecting highway in the adjoining state and no definite official action has been taken to establish such connection highway; otherwise, great embarrassment and difficulty would be experienced in establishing highways across state lines. Rice v. Rindge, 53 N.H. 530, 531. So as to county highways. Public road systems, it is manifest, must frequently be constructed in installments, especially where adjoining counties are involved. In determining whether the taking of property is necessary for public use, not only the present demands of the public, but those which may be fairly anticipated in the future may be considered. Central Pacific Railway v. Feldman, 152 Cal. 303, 309.
of lands for public parks is now universally recognized as a taking for public use. Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U. S. 282, 147 U. S. 297. A road need not be for a purpose of business to create a public exigency; air, exercise, and recreation are important to the general health and welfare; pleasure travel may be accommodated as well as business travel, and highways may be condemned to places of pleasing natural scenery. Higginson v. Nahant, 11 Allen (Mass.) 530, 536. The Riverside Drive in New York is as essentially a highway for public use as Broadway; the Speedway in this city as Pennsylvania Avenue. And manifestly, in these days of general public travel in motor cars for health and recreation, such a highway as this, extending for more than twenty miles along the shores of the Pacific at the base of a range of mountains, must be regarded as a public use.
For these reasons, we conclude that these highways will, as found by the trial judge, afford accommodation to the traveling public, and that the taking of land for them is a taking for a public use authorized by the laws of California.
The ranch owners were not prejudiced by the action of the trial court in striking out their special defenses in this behalf, since, under the general issues, they were entitled, as held by the District Court of Appeal, and were in fact permitted, to introduce all their evidence bearing upon this question.
of the state constitutions are concerned. Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, supra, p. 164 U. S. 155; Georgia Railway v. Town of Decatur, ante, 262 U. S. 432. And, so construed, this statute is not in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment either because it fails to provide for a hearing by the landowners before such resolution is adopted or otherwise. The necessity for appropriating private property for public use is not a judicial question. This power resides in the legislature, and may either be exercised by the legislature or delegated by it to public officers.
"Where the intended use is public, the necessity and expediency of the taking may be determined by such agency and in such mode as the state may designate. They are legislative questions no matter who may be charged with their decision, and a hearing thereon is not essential to due process in the sense of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Bragg v. Weaver, 251 U. S. 57, 251 U. S. 58.
"That the necessity and expediency of taking property for public use is a legislative, and not a judicial, question is not open to discussion. . . . Neither is it any longer open to question in this Court that the legislature may confer upon a municipality the authority to determine such necessity for itself. . . . The question is purely political, does not require a hearing, and is not the subject of judicial inquiry."
Joslin Mfg. Co. v. City of Providence, ante, 262 U. S. 668. And clearly the fact that the resolutions are made conclusive evidence by the statute only when adopted by a two-thirds vote and as applied to an improvement lying within the county does not constitute an unjust or unreasonable classification.
be heard to question the validity of a statute only when and insofar as it is applied to his disadvantage. Dahnke-Walker Co. v. Bondurant, 257 U. S. 282, 257 U. S. 289.
After these judgments of affirmance, petitions to have the cases heard and determined by the Supreme Court of California were denied by that court.
There has been much litigation between the ranch owners and the county and federal authorities as to the public use of roads and ways across this ranch, in which, prior to these proceedings, the ranch owners have been successful. In this litigation are United States v. Rindge, 208 F. 611, and People v. Rindge, 174 Cal. 743.

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