Case Name: Harry BREWER, Appellee, v. The CITY OF NORMAN, Oklahoma, a municipal corporation, Appellant
Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Oklahoma
Decision Date: 1974-10-22
Citations: 527 P.2d 1134
Docket Number: No. 46087
Parties: Harry BREWER, Appellee, v. The CITY OF NORMAN, Oklahoma, a municipal corporation, Appellant.
Judges: DAVISON, C. J., WILLIAMS, V. C. J., and IRWIN, HODGES, LAVENDER, SIMMS and DOOLIN, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Pacific Reporter 2d
Volume: 527
Pages: 1134–1139

Head Matter:
Harry BREWER, Appellee, v. The CITY OF NORMAN, Oklahoma, a municipal corporation, Appellant.
No. 46087.
Supreme Court of Oklahoma.
Oct. 22, 1974.
Miskovsky, Sullivan & Miskovsky, by Robert B. Smith, Oklahoma City, for ap-pellee.
William M. Bonnell, Counsel of the City, Richard R. Linn, Jr., Associate Counsel of the City, Norman, for appellant.

Opinion:
BARNES, Justice:
This is an appeal from a judgment in conformity with a verdict for Appellee [hereinafter referred to as "plaintiff"] against Appellant [hereinafter referred to as "defendant" and/or "City"] in the sum of $5,625.00 as property damages in an inverse condemnation action.
Plaintiff's property consists of two adjoining city lots 210 feet deep with frontages of 50 feet each on the west side of North Flood Street, located at a distance of approximately one block south of that street's intersection with Robinson Street, in the defendant City of Norman. The respective Norman street addresses of the two lots are 1300 and 1302 North Flood Street.
The cause of the claimed damages to plaintiff's property lies in the consequences to it of the changes in Flood Street which the City completed making on December 2, 1969.
On that date there stood on the northernmost of plaintiff's lots [at 1302 North Flood Street] a building whose front roof line and porch extended to the public sidewalk running along the west side of North Flood Street in front of plaintiff's property. At that time there was a dirt parking between this sidewalk and said' street's western curbing.
The building housed plaintiff's television sales and service business. Between this building and another businessman's build ing on the property immediately north of plaintiff's is a double driveway made of concrete, which afforded vehicles and pedestrians ingress and egress between Flood Street and the repair shop in the back of plaintiff's building, as well as between said street and his frame residence on the back, or west end, of this 1300 North Flood Street address. Also on, and previous to, the date of the changes in Flood Street, there stood on plaintiff's southernmost lot, at 1300 North Flood Street, another frame residence.
The changes that the City made in North Flood Street [with the help of Federal funds because of the routing of interstate highway traffic to both Flood and Robinson Streets] consisted of widening the paved portion thereof to the full width of its right-of-way and converting it from a conventional street, with only one traffic lane for north bound traffic and one for south bound traffic, to a four-lane street with two lanes each for north bound and south bound traffic, respectively. When North Flood Street was thus widened in front of plaintiff's property, there was constructed in the street's center a concrete median island separating these north and south bound traffic lanes. This concrete island extended from said street's intersection with Robinson Street, approximately the distance of a block north of plaintiff's property, south to a point approximately parallel to the south wall of plaintiff's television store building. South of this point, the separation of Flood Street's north and south bound traffic lanes was indicated or dictated by two parallel yellow stripes painted down the center of the street past the southernmost of plaintiff's lots and the house standing thereon at 1300 North Flood Street.
It is the effect of these Flood Street improvements on the value of his above described property, without any physical taking thereof, that comprises the gravamen of plaintiff's cause of action, if any, against the defendant City.
When it appeared that access to the driveway extending along the north side of plaintiff's building would be restricted to Flood Street's north bound vehicular traffic by the median island and yellow stripes forbidding such traffic from turning left into it from in front of said building, plaintiff sold, and caused to be moved away, the frame house on the adjoining lot south of it; and he thereafter converted said lot into an off-street parking lot. This arrangement renders off-street parking readily available to vehicles driven to plaintiff's television business either from the north or from the south on Flood Street, but it does not alleviate the difficulties and hazards motorists are now subjected to in attempting to back their vehicles out of the driveway extending along the north side of that business's building.
To prove a part of his cause of action for damages, plaintiff introduced evidence to show that since North Flood Street was widened and its western curb line moved to both the western boundary of said street's right-of-way and the eastern edge of the public sidewalk paralleling it [thus abolishing the dirt parking between the curb and the said sidewalk] motor vehicles can no longer back out of the driveway extending along the north side of plaintiff's building into Flood Street with the same degree of safety as before the above indicated changes in said street, because motorists and truckers cannot see [past the front edge of the building next door north of plaintiff's property] traffic approaching from the north on Flood Street until the rear end of their vehicles are already protruding into said street and are in a precarious position for collisions with such traffic.
Plaintiff also introduced evidence of the cost of his providing the above described off-street parking area on the lot adjoining his business on the south.
The defendant City took the position that the above described improvements to better regulate and accommodate heavy traffic on said North Flood Street approaching its busy intersection with Robin son Street were within the police powers of such a municipality, and that any consequential damages therefrom [as distinguished from direct taking of property for such improvements] must be regarded as coming within the context of the legal maxim, "damnum absque injuria", as long as there is no unreasonable, capricious, or absolute denial of ingress or egress to plaintiff's property.
This theory constituted one of the grounds upon which defendant demurred to the only evidence bearing upon defendant's liability ever introduced at the trial.
After this demurrer was overruled, and before the case was submitted to the jury, the parties stipulated that no evidence had been introduced of the unreasonableness, arbitrariness, or capriciousness of the making of the above described changes in Flood Street; and, as far as the record shows, the court gave the jury no instructions concerning the necessity, or absence, of such evidence.
The trial court's unfavorable ruling on defendant's demurrer to plaintiff's evidence was one of the claimed errors relied upon by defendant in its present appeal to review the aforementioned verdict and judgment against it.
In a Memorandum Opinion, the Court of Appeals impliedly approved said ruling when it held that the judgment was sufficiently supported by competent evidence. We disagree, and therefore grant defendant's Petition for Certiorari.
Plaintiff concedes that he neither offered nor introduced any evidence that defendant's installation of the center median on Flood Street in front of his property was arbitrary or capricious. And, on the basis of his argument and the record, we must assume that tacitly, at least, plaintiff also concedes that there was nothing arbitrary or capricious about the other above mentioned Flood Street changes of which he complained at the trial. However, he contends that the evidence established that these changes resulted in damages to his property and says this "is sufficient as long as the damages are special in nature." This is no answer to defendant's position which is amply supported by the authorities it cites. The essence of this position is indicated in the following quotation from 29A C.J.S. Eminent Domain § 14, p. 202;
"The limitation and regulation of street or highway traffic are referable to the police power, and not to the power of eminent domain. Accordingly, in the proper exercise of its police power in the regulation of traffic, a state or municipality may do many things which are not compensable to an abutting property owner, such as the re-routing or diversion of traffic, the use of suitable traffic control devices, prescribing one-way traffic, prohibiting particular types of turns at specified places, and restricting the speed, weight, size and character of vehicles allowed on certain highways. Furthermore, a state or municipality may, in the lawful exercise of the police power, regulate the right of ingress or egress to a street or highway without compensation, as long as there is no unreasonable or absolute denial of ingress or egress to the street or highway."
In Gibbons v. Missouri, K. & T. R. Co., 142 Okl. 146, 148, 149, 285 P. 1040, this Court recognized the principles supporting the above quoted statements and the validity of the City's defense in this case by quoting the general rule showing that the exercise of police power, if reasonable, differs from the exercise of eminent domain in that the former, unlike the latter, does not necessarily give a property owner, consequentially injured thereby, a cause of action.
On the basis of the foregoing, we hold that plaintiff's evidence, without anything therein to indicate that the Flood Street changes effected an absolute denial of ingress or egress between said street and his property, or that they constituted an unreasonable or capricious exercise of the City's police power to regulate and accommodate the movement of traffic on said street, was insufficient to establish a cause of action for the damages he claimed. The trial court should therefore have sustained defendant's demurrer to his evidence. On account of said court's error in overruling said demurrer, defendant's Petition for Certiorari is hereby granted, the Court of Appeals' decision is vacated, and the judgment appealed from is reversed with directions to the trial court to vacate said judgment and render judgment for defendant City.
DAVISON, C. J., WILLIAMS, V. C. J., and IRWIN, HODGES, LAVENDER, SIMMS and DOOLIN, JJ., concur.
BERRY, J., dissents.