Case Name: STATE of New Mexico ex rel. STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul A. SILVA and Gloria Q. Silva, Defendants-Appellants
Court: Supreme Court of New Mexico
Jurisdiction: New Mexico
Decision Date: 1962-12-14
Citations: 71 N.M. 350
Docket Number: No. 6958
Parties: STATE of New Mexico ex rel. STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul A. SILVA and Gloria Q. Silva, Defendants-Appellants.
Judges: COMPTON, C. J., and CARMODY and CHAVEZ, JJ., concur.
Reporter: New Mexico Reports
Volume: 71
Pages: 350–362

Head Matter:
378 P.2d 595
STATE of New Mexico ex rel. STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul A. SILVA and Gloria Q. Silva, Defendants-Appellants.
No. 6958.
Supreme Court of New Mexico.
Dec. 14, 1962.
Rehearing Denied Feb. 27, 1963.
Phillips, Dolan & Clear, Albuquerque, for appellants.
Earl E. Hartley, Atty. Gen., M. W. Hamilton, Hadley Kelsey, Epifanio Garcia, Joseph L. Droege, John C. Worden, J. 0. Walton, Sp. Assts. Atty. Gen., Santa Fe, for appellee.

Opinion:
NOBLE, Justice.
The action was in declaratory judgment to determine whether defendants suffered a compensable damage to their property by reason of a highway improvement.
It should be noted that none of defendants' property was appropriated, nor was there any change of grade on the road in front of their property.
U. S. 85, south of Belen, New Mexico, on which defendants' property abutted, was the principal north-south highway over which all through traffic flowed. Interstate 25, a new, controlled-access highway, was constructed on a new location roughly parallel and to the west of U. S. 85. Where it passes defendants' property it is separated from the old road by a barrier. The two rights-of-way do join or overlap at some places and an "on grade" interchange was constructed some 350 feet south of defendants' land, giving access between U. S. 85 and the new highway. Simultaneously, U. S. 85 was reconstructed on its same location and grade from the interchange to a point some 800 feet north of defendants' property. At that point the two rights-of-way intersect and a barrier was constructed across U. S. 85 to prevent access at that point to the interstate highway. The barrier effectively closed U. S. 85 to further travel in a northerly direction. All of the traffic formerly flowing over U. S. 85 was diverted to the interstate highway. The case was tried to the court upon the facts and issues made by the pleadings. No evidence was adduced at the trial.
The trial court determined the property damage to be damnum absque injuria and non-compensable.
Defendants, as owners of real estate abutting on a highway, have a .right of access — the right of ingress and egress to and from their property — which is a property right — a special interest of which they •cannot be deprived without just compensation.
Article II, § 20, New Mexico Constitution provides: "Private property shall not be taken o.r damaged for public use without just compensation."
It seems to be conceded by both parties that defendants operated a bar. The real cause of the depreciation in value of their property by reason of the highway improvement is the diversion of traffic from U. S. 85 to the new interstate highway.
We are committed, in New Mexico, to the rule that a landowner, abutting on a public highway, enjoys no vested interest in the flow of public travel past his premises, and is not entitled to compensation for depreciation in his property value or loss of business resulting from diversion of traffic by the opening of a new highway. Board of County Commissioners v. Slaughter, 49 N.M. 141, 158 P.2d 859. But defendants assert that the closing of U. S. 85 north of their property deprives them of the right of travel to the general highway system in one direction and access to the general highway system except in one direction. They contend that the closing of U. S. 85 north of their property requires them, if they want to go north to Belen, to travel by a more circuitous and inconvenient .route, and leaves them in a pocket or cul-de-sac.
Courts are agreed that only one whose damage, occasioned by highway improvement, is special and direct as distinguished from remote and consequential, and which differs in kind from that of the general public, suffers a compensable injury. Wine v. Commonwealth, 301 Mass. 451, 17 N.E.2d 545, 120 A.L.R. 889, was cited in Slaughter as an example of distinguishing special and direct from remote and consequential damages caused by highway improvement. In Wine v. Commonwealth, supra, it was said that the closing of a road beyond petitioner's premises as a result of the construction of an overpass and bridge, which diverted traffic with resultant damage to him, standing alone, was not a special injury, but one general to the public as a whole; but that the subsequent barricading of other streets which completely shut off his access to the general system of public highways in the city did constitute injury special and peculiar to him, different in kind from that suffered by the general public.
Defendants argue that the vacation of U. S. 85 north of their property distinguishes Board of County Commissioners v. Slaughter, supra, and that they are so specially injured as to entitle them to compensation for the diminution in the value of their property.
Courts are not agreed as to the extent of private rights in public highways, some courts holding that if the street upon which one's property abuts is so closed that his property is left in a pocket or cul-de-sac so that his right of access to the main street system of the municipality is cut off from one direction, he suffers a special injury even though he has access thereto by a more circuitous and inconvenient route. Defendants predicate their claim to damages upon the theory of those decisions so holding and rely principally upon In re Vacation of Part of Melon Street (1897), 182 Pa. 397, 38 A. 482, 38 L.R.A. 275; Park City Yacht Club v. City of Bridgeport (1912), 85 Conn. 366, 82 A. 1035, 39 L.R.A.,N.S., 478; and, the note at 49 A.L.R. 351. In Bacich v. Board of Control of California, 23 Cal.2d 343, 144 P.2d 818, damage resulting from creation of a culde-sac was limited to those situations where the closing of the street at one end was between the abutting property and the next street intersection. The majority in that case limited application of the cul-de-sac rule to such situations inside municipal limits. The court said:
" we are not concerned with the correct rule in a case where the obstruction occurs beyond the next intersecting street nor with what the rule may be for rural property. "
Other jurisdictions hold that no special injury is sustained by one whose property does not abut on the closed section, and he has no right to compensation by reason of the closing of a street, if there remains reasonable access to the main street system in the other direction. 49 A.L.R. 330 and the supplementing note in 93 A.L.R. 639; Freeman v. City of Centralia, 67 Wash. 142, 120 P. 886; Olsen v. Jacobs, 193 Wash. 506, 76 P.2d 607; Jackson v. Birmingham Foundry & Machine Co., 154 Ala. 464, 473, 45 So. 660.
In New York, Chicago & St. Louis Rd. Co. v. Bucsi, 128 Ohio St. 134, 190 N.E. 562, 93 A.L.R. 632, a part of Nevada Street was closed at a point 350 feet east of the Bucsi property, ' thereby rendering the street a cul-de-sac with entrance only from one street. Bucsis' access from their property to East 89th Street was completely destroyed. It was contended that they suffered a special damage which was compensable, but the court held, as set forth in the syllabus:
"Where a duly dedicated and accepted east and west street of a city is vacated by the city some distance from its eastern terminus and completely closed to travel, the owner of property abutting upon such street but not upon the vacated portion thereof has no right of action for damages because of such vacation, so long as his access to the city street system to the west is not impaired; and that under such circumstances, the abutting property owner's damage, if any, differs in degree but not in kind from that of the general public, and his legal status falls within the category of damnum absque injuria."
Other Ohio decisions to the same effect are, State ex rel. Merritt v. Linzell, 163 Ohio St. 97, 126 N.E.2d 53, and New Way Family Laundry, Inc. v. City of Toledo, 171 Ohio St. 242, 168 N.E.2d 885.
The question was considered in Arcadia Realty Co. v. City of St. Louis, 326 Mo. 273, 30 S.W.2d 995, where the Supreme Court of Missouri said:
"But if it be assumed that plaintiffs' properties will be stripped of potential uses and their value thereby lessened, and that the streets on which such properties are located will become cul de sacs as plaintiffs claim (although Johnson street, Fifteenth street, and the alley in block 219 will be connected at their south ends by an east and west traffic way), all as a result of the street vacations in question, still plaintiffs will not by reason therev of suffer injury special or peculiar to them within the meaning of the rule long established in this state."
See, also, Wilson v. Kansas City (Mo.). 162 S.W.2d 802; Handlan-Buck Co. v. State Highway Commission (Mo.), 315 S.W.2d 219; Department of Highways v. Jackson, 302 S.W.2d 373 (Ky.); Thomas v. Jultak, 68 Wyo. 198, 231 P.2d 974; and Warren v. Iowa State Highway Commission, 250 Iowa 473, 93 N.W.2d 60, where the Iowa decisions are collected and discussed. Compare Grand River Dam Authority v. Misenhimer, 195 Old. 682, 161 P.2d 757, where compensation was awarded for the closing of roads in both directions leaving only a dirt road as access to the main highway system which was said to be practically impassible at times.
The growing use of automotive transportation naturally led to many problems connected with the health and general safety of the traveling public and to the necessity for restrictions and regulations concerning the use of public highways. With the construction of modern, high-speed, through interstate highways came the necessity for controlled access to and from such highways in the interest of the safety of the public generally. It is well settled that limitation or regulation of highway traffic comes under the police power. State ex rel. Suksdorf v. Superior Court, 169 Wash. 195, 13 P.2d 460. Its exercise affects the safety of all persons traveling upon the roads of this state. Likewise, it cannot be doubted that the state, in the exercise of its police power, in the interest of the safety of the traveling public, has the right to limit or control access to certain highways. The barricade across U. S. 85, in this instance, was to prevent access from U. S. 85 to Interstate 25 at that point. The regulation of traffic without liability for payment of compensation has included prohibiting left turns except at designated places and one-way streets. Jones Beach Boulevard Estate, Inc. v. Moses, 268 N.Y. 362, 197 N.E. 313, 100 A.L.R. 487. Median dividers have likewise been held to be a reasonable exercise of the police power, and the damage caused an abutting owner by loss of access in one direction has been held a reasonable exercise of the police power and non-compensable. Turner v. State Roads Commission, 213 Md. 428, 132 A.2d 455; Langley Shopping Center, Inc. v. State Roads Commission, 213 Md. 230, 131 A.2d 690; City of Chicago v. Spoor, 190 Ill. 340, 60 N.E. 540; Gayton v. Department of Highways, Colo., 367 P.2d 899.
It is inevitable that in the construction of modern, high-speed, controlled-access interstate highways, there will be intersections between such through highways and secondary roads which will of necessity result in the barricading of such secondary roads at the point of such intersection to prevent uncontrolled access. This is necessary for the protection of the traveling public and is in the exercise of the police power. Warren v. Iowa State Highway Commission, supra. Such action, of course, will result in some inconvenience and circuity of travel to those property owners adjacent to such secondary roads to gain admission to the main system of through highways. It is well established in this jurisdiction that mere inconvenience resulting from the closing of a street does not give rise to a legal right in one so inconvenienced, when another reasonable, though perhaps not equally accessible, means of access to the main street system remains. Mandell v. Board of Commissioners of Bernalillo County, 44 N.M. 109, 99 P.2d 108.
We are not concerned in this case with the rule where an obstruction occurs or a street is closed or vacated in a municipality, but only with the rule as .it applies to a highway in a rural area. Generally speaking, an obstruction placed in a highway by public authority reasonably necessary for the protection of the public is not a special injury to an abutting landowner. The injury is to the right to travel upon the highway which applied to the public generally.
We think the better rule, and the weight of the more recent decisions, is that one whose property abuts upon a road or highway, a part of which is closed or vacated, has no special damage if his lands do not abut upon the closed portion there of, if there remains a reasonable access to the main highway system. If one has the same access to the road ar highway upon which his property abuts as before the closing of a portion thereof and there remains a reasonable, even though more circuitous, access to the general highway system, his injury is the same in kind, even though greater in degree, as that suffered by the general public and is damnum absque injuria.
In the case before us, the defendants' right of access to the road upon which their property abuts has not been affected. True, it has been obstructed some 800 feet north of their property preventing their further travel in that direction, but that is an injury suffered in common with the general public and is not compensable. They never had direct access to the new highway, constructed upon a different location, and are not entitled to direct access to it. D'Arago v. State Roads Comm., 228 Md. 490, 180 A.2d 488. It is true their travel to the main highway system can only be in one direction and the traveling public will find it less convenient to reach defendants' premises. This, however, is a common injury inevitable in the building of highways. We hold that the interchange, some 350 to 400 feet south of their premises, affords them reasonable access to the principal highway system of the state and that, therefore, their right of access to the principal highway system has not been substantially impaired.
Other points argued have been disposed of by what we have said, are not necessary to be determined, or are found to be without merit.
Finding no error, the judgment appealed from is affirmed.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
COMPTON, C. J., and CARMODY and CHAVEZ, JJ., concur.
MOISE, J., dissenting.