Case Name: DESERET RANCHES OF FLORIDA, INC., Appellant, v. Dorothy BOWMAN, etc., et al., Appellees
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1977-04-21
Citations: 349 So. 2d 155
Docket Number: No. 49241
Parties: DESERET RANCHES OF FLORIDA, INC., Appellant, v. Dorothy BOWMAN, etc., et al., Appellees.
Judges: OVERTON, C. J., and ADKINS, HATCHETT and DREW (retired), JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 349
Pages: 155–159

Head Matter:
DESERET RANCHES OF FLORIDA, INC., Appellant, v. Dorothy BOWMAN, etc., et al., Appellees.
No. 49241.
Supreme Court of Florida.
April 21, 1977.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 6, 1977.
Philip W. Watson and George T. Eidson, Jr., of Akerman, Senterfitt & Eidson, Orlando, for appellant.
Bruce E. Chapin, Orlando, for appellees.

Opinion:
BOYD, Justice.
In December 1975 Dorothy Bowman and other trustees of a certain trust filed a complaint in the Circuit Court, Ninth Judicial Circuit, in and for Osceola County, against Deseret Ranches of Florida, Inc. Among the types of relief sought was establishment of a way of necessity pursuant to Section 704.01(2), Florida Statutes:
"(2) Statutory way of necessity exclusive of common law right. — Based on public policy, convenience, and necessity, a statutory way of necessity exclusive of any common law right exists when any land or portion thereof outside any municipality which is being used or desired to be used as a dwelling or for agricultural or for timber raising or cutting or stockrais-ing purposes shall be shut off or hemmed in by lands, fencing, or other improvements of other persons so that no practicable route of egress or ingress shall be available therefrom to the nearest practicable public or private road. The owner or tenant thereof, or anyone in their behalf, lawfully may use and maintain an easement for persons, vehicles, stock, and electricity and telephone service over and upon the lands which lie between the said shut-off or hemmed-in lands and such public or private road by means of the nearest practical route, considering the use to which said lands are being put; and the use thereof, as aforesaid, shall not constitute a trespass; nor shall the party thus using the same be liable in damages for the use thereof; provided that such easement shall be used only in an orderly and proper manner."
The complaint alleged that plaintiffs owned real property which was surrounded by land owned by the defendant and that no route of ingress or egress was available from their land to the nearest public or private road. Alleging further requirements necessary to establish a cause of action under the statute, Count II of the complaint requested that the court establish a statutory way of necessity over the land of Deseret Ranches to provide access to the nearest road.
Deseret Ranches moved to dismiss Count II of the complaint on the ground that the statute is unconstitutional. The court denied the motion and in so doing directly passed on the constitutional validity of the statute. The interlocutory order was appealed by Deseret Ranches to this Court. The appeal is treated as a petition for cer-tiorari. We have jurisdiction.
Appellant's only meritorious argument against the statute's constitutional validity is that it violates Article X, Section 6(a) of the Florida Constitution (1968):
"SECTION 6. Eminent domain.—
"(a) No private property shall be taken except for a public purpose and with full compensation therefor paid to each owner or secured by deposit in the registry of the court and available to the owner."
The argument is that in contravention of the foregoing provision no purpose which is predominantly public is served by the taking of easements through operation of the statute. Although it is conceded that the statute provides a public benefit, it is argued that the benefit is incidental to a purpose which is predominantly private, that purpose being to provide a private land owner with conventional access to the outside world.
In 1961, before the adoption of the Florida Constitution of 1968, there was advanced in Stein v. Darby a similar argument against the statute, cast in terms of unconstitutionality under both the Florida Constitution of 1885 and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. After an excellent review of the common law history of the doctrine of ways of necessity, the Court concluded that the doctrine is grounded in the public policy against the loss of the use of landlocked property. As to the statutes' provision for ways of necessity, Stein stated,
" . . .we find no logic in the argument that the statute in question, which aids to render the earth — from which all sustenance flows — available to the uses of man, is unconstitutional as serving something other than a public purpose." 126 So.2d at 320.
Appellant contends that the intervening adoption of the 1968 Florida Constitution, including Article X, Section 6(a) and its "public purpose" requirement, mandates a different result from that reached in Stein and, Article X, Section 6(a) aside, that Stein was wrongly decided.
We agree with the reasoning in Stein and hold the statute constitutional under the present Constitution. The inverse of appellant's contention is true: the statute's purpose is predominantly public and the benefit to the private landholder is incidental to the public purpose. Although state public policy may have altered with respect to the methods of land use since 1961, sensible utilization of land continues to be one of our most important goals. We take notice that Florida grows in population at one of the fastest rates of any state in the nation. Useful land becomes more scarce in proportion to population increase, and the problem in this state becomes greater as tourism, commerce and the need for housing and agricultural goods grow. By its application to shut-off lands to be used for housing, agriculture, timber production and stock-raising, the statute is designed to fill these needs. There is then a clear public purpose in providing means of access to such lands so that they might be utilized in the enu merated ways. The statute therefore is in keeping with Article X, Section 6(a), Florida Constitution.
Certiorari is denied.
It is so ordered.
OVERTON, C. J., and ADKINS, HATCHETT and DREW (retired), JJ., concur.
SUNDBERG, J., dissents with an opinion, with which ENGLAND, J., concurs.
. Burnsed v. Seaboard Coastline RR., 290 So.2d 13 (Fla.1974).
. The Supreme Court "May review by certiora-ri . . any interlocutory order passing upon a matter which upon final judgment would be directly appealable to the supreme court. ." Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla.Const.
. Arguments that the statute works a denial of property without due process of law are without merit. Section 704.04, Florida Statutes, provides for judicial remedy if the servient owner objects to a claim under Section 704.-01(2). The objections to statutory easements of Section 704.01 voiced by this Court in South Dade Farms v. BSL Farms Co., 62 So.2d 350 (Fla.1950), have also been cured by the enactment of Section 704.04, Florida Statutes, since it provides for compensation to the servient owner if the court finds the statutory claim to exist.
. 126 So.2d 313 (Fla. 1st DCA 1961).
. Witness Article II, Section 11, Florida Constitution, and the many enactments of environmental legislation by the Florida Legislature.