Title: Jackson Municipal Airport Authority v. Evans
Citation: 191 So. 2d 126
Docket Number: 44190
State: Mississippi
Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court
Date: November 7, 1966

191 So. 2d 126 (1966) JACKSON MUNICIPAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY and City of Jackson, Mississippi, v. Dr. J.W. EVANS et al. No. 44190. Supreme Court of Mississippi. October 17, 1966. Suggestion of Error Overruled November 7, 1966. *127 E.W. Stennett, Robert E. Perry, N.W. Overstreet, Jr., Overstreet, Kuykendall, Perry &amp; Phillips, Jackson, for appellants. Watkins, Pyle, Edwards &amp; Ludlam, John H. Stennis, Jackson, for appellees. ROBERTSON, Justice. This is an appeal from the decree of the Hinds County Chancery Court sustaining a general demurrer to the Bill of Complaint filed by the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority and the City of Jackson, Mississippi. Complainants prayed for the issuance of a preliminary injunction against the defendants requiring defendants to immediately top or remove 15 offending trees growing on defendants' land near the Jackson Municipal Airport. It was alleged that the defendants permitted these trees to grow into the restricted area, that is to say, the area more than 50 feet above the surface of defendants' land, which area had been declared within an instrument approach zone and a transition surface zone, as defined and set forth in a zoning ordinance adopted by the Joint-City of Jackson, Hinds County, Rankin County-Airport Zoning Board. The Chancellor sustained a general demurrer and dismissed the Bill of Complaint. We affirm the judgment of the lower court. This is a case of first impression in this State. The Mississippi Legislature in 1950 passed a comprehensive act known as the "Airport Zoning Act," Mississippi Code Annotated 1942 sections 7544-01 through 17 (Recompiled 1956), which defined airport hazards, provided for the creation of a joint airport zoning board, and granted power to the joint board to adopt, administer and enforce under the police power airport zoning regulations for such airport hazard area. The Airport Zoning Act set forth in detail the procedure for adopting zoning regulations, cautioned that the regulations must be reasonable, provided for non-conforming uses, the issuance of permits and the application for and action on variances. The Act further provided for: the designation or creation of an administrative agency to administer and enforce the airport zoning regulations, the appointment of a Board of Adjustment to hear complaints and appeals from the decisions and orders of the administrative agency, and finally for judicial review. The Act also provided for acquisition of air rights, aviation easements, or other estates or interests in land, in the following language: Under the authority of this Act, the City of Jackson, Mississippi; Rankin County, Mississippi; and Hinds County, Mississippi, created a Joint Airport Zoning Board. In 1959 the said Joint Airport Zoning Board adopted a zoning ordinance containing airport zoning regulations and detailed plats illustrating the regulations, which ordinance was made an exhibit to the Bill of Complaint. The ordinance on its official plat placed the 80 acres owned by the defendants within an Instrument Approach Zone and a Transition Surface Zone as defined and set forth in the ordinance. In such zones, the Ordinance, by a complicated formula, imposes graduated height restrictions, the height of structures and trees on the defendants' land being limited to 50 feet. The complainants, in their Bill of Complaint, charged that since 1959, the date of the adoption of the zoning ordinance, the defendants had permitted 15 trees on their land to grow and continue to grow within the restricted height elevation as provided in the zoning ordinance. The complainants further charged that the offending trees were scrub trees without any value, and that the said restricted area into which the trees protrude, was not within the reasonable and ordinary useable air space above defendants' land. The exact footage that each tree protrudes into the restricted area is shown on a plat attached as an exhibit to the Bill of Complaint and it is not disputed that these 15 trees, being 14 oak trees and 1 hickory tree, extend into the restricted area as shown on said plat. The minimum extension is 1 foot and the maximum extension is 13 feet. Of course, all facts well pleaded in the Bill of Complaint and exhibits thereto, are admitted by the general demurrer. Thus all facts necessary for a final determination of the case were before the lower court. At issue is the narrow and precise question of whether the Bill of Complaint, taking all well pleaded and material facts as true, shows that the complainants under guise of a perhaps otherwise valid zoning ordinance have so interfered with and restricted the use and enjoyment of these defendants' private property as to constitute a taking or damaging thereof for public use without due compensation being first made to the owners, as required by Section 17 of The Constitution of the State of Mississippi. The development of the common law with respect to airspace rights in the United States has been summarized as follows: The offending trees are on that portion of the defendants' land which begins about 3500 feet from the south end of the main instrument runway. In the Bill of Complaint it is charged that: One of the first comprehensive cases on the use of airspace over a private owner's property by airplanes flying at low altitudes is United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 66 S. Ct. 1062, 90 L. Ed. 1206 (1946). In the Causby case, the end of the airport's runway was 2220 feet from Causby's barn and 2275 feet from his home. The path of glide to this runway passed directly over his property. The 30 to 1 safe glide angle approved by the Civil Aeronautics Authority passed over this property at 83 feet, which was 67 feet above the house, 63 feet above the barn and 18 feet above the highest tree. The Causbys brought suit to recover damages for the alleged taking of their property for public use without compensation by flying military airplanes of the United States across their property at such heights as to interfere with its normal use. The U.S. Supreme Court, in discussing this case, said: Because of the decision in Causby, the Congress amended the definition of "navigable airspace" to read as follows: Appellants in their brief would leave the impression that the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 "pre-empted the field" under the supremacy clause of the Federal Constitution and gave carte blanche authority to municipalities throughout the land to appropriate whatever airspace they desired to insure safety in take-off and landing. This is not how the Supreme Court of the United States interpreted the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 in Griggs v. County of Allegheny, 369 U.S. 84, 82 S. Ct. 531, 7 L. Ed. 2d 585 (1962), a case subsequent to the amendment of the federal act. In Griggs, the county had designed plans for its airport, including the arrangement of its take-off approach areas, in compliance with federal requirements and under supervision of and subject to the approval of the Civil Aeronautics Administrator. In the Griggs case, as in the case at bar, the enabling legislation had included authority to acquire air navigation easements, but none had been acquired from the plaintiff whose property was located near the end of a runway. The plaintiff in Griggs alleged that the constant and extremely low over-flights interfered with the use of his property and deprived him of property without due process of law, in violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court held that the interference with plaintiff's property caused by these over-flights amounted to a taking in the constitutional sense of an air easement, for which compensation must be paid by the county. In Griggs, the land was located 3250 feet from the end of the runway and the glide path passed 81 feet above the ground of plaintiff's property. In the case at bar, the exhibits to the Bill of Complaint show that appellees' property is approximately 3500 feet from the end of the main instrument run and that the glide slope utilized by airplanes varies from approximately 45 feet to approximately 70 feet above the surface of the land. The Court in Griggs noted that Congress had redefined navigable airspace to include airspace needed to insure safety in take-off and landing of aircraft, but nonetheless concluded that Congress merely intended to authorize the taking of this airspace by constitutional means, and did not intend that an owner be deprived of this airspace without compensation. The Court stated: The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 expressly provided that "Nothing contained in this chapter shall in any way abridge or alter the remedies now existing at common law or by statute * * *.", 49 U.S.C.A. § 1506. This makes it perfectly clear that it was not the intent of Congress to cut off common law and statutory rights of private landowners. The case of Ackerman v. Port of Seattle, 55 Wash. 2d 400, 348 P.2d 664, 77 A.L.R.2d 1344 (1960), quoted with approval by the U.S. Supreme Court in Griggs, is a modern and well reasoned case which should be given particular weight in Mississippi because Art. I, Section 16, Amendment 9 of the Washington Constitution prohibits a taking or damaging for public use, as does Section 17 of the Mississippi Constitution. The Ackerman case was procedurally the converse of this case, in that the landowner brought an action for damages, alleging that there had been a taking of his private property for public use by the Airport Authority, and the demurrer of the Airport was sustained by the trial court. The substance of the complaint was that appellant's land lay directly in the approachway or glide path for airplanes landing or taking off from the airport and that the airport, having the power of eminent domain, had nonetheless refused to acquire the proposed use for approachways, either by purchase or by appropriate condemnation proceedings. The Washington Court held that there had been a taking in the constitutional sense and reversed the cause to determine damages. The Court in Ackerman began its discussion of the constitutional issues as follows: The Washington Court quoted with approval the words of Mr. Justice Holmes in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 415-416, 43 S. Ct. 158, 160, 67 L. Ed. 322, 326 (1922), as follows: One of the latest cases, and perhaps one of the closest to the instant case, as to the facts is Indiana Toll Road Commission v. Jankovich, 244 Ind. 574, 193 N.E.2d 237 (1963), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 487, 85 S. Ct. 493, 13 L. Ed. 2d 439 (1965). In Jankovich, the City of Gary adopted an ordinance creating an airport commission and pursuant to legislative authority enacted an Airport Zoning Ordinance. This ordinance, which incorporated an Airport Zoning Map, prohibited the erection of any structure for a distance extending 6,000 feet from the end of the proposed runway to any height which would interfere with the glide angle therefrom within the inner approach zone area. The glide angle in Jankovich was 40 feet horizontally to each 1 foot of vertical height. The Jackson Airport ordinance provides for an approach zone glide angle of 50 feet horizontally to each one foot of vertical height, which is thus a lower and more restrictive glide path than that provided for in the Gary ordinance. The Gary ordinance contained the usual recitals about public health, public safety and general welfare and the usual provisions for nonconforming uses and variances. The plaintiffs-appellees in Jankovich were the lessees and operators of the airport, and had invested large sums in the purchase of facilities. Thereafter the appellant located and constructed its toll road, crossing the inner area approach zone at a point approximately 743 feet from the end of the proposed runway and approximately 25 feet higher than the elevation of the end of the proposed runway. Under the ordinance the permitted elevation of structures at the location of the toll road was approximately 18 1/2 feet, the toll road thus projecting itself into the prohibited area about 6 1/2 feet. Appellees based their action for an injunction requiring reduction in elevation of the toll road, and for damages on this encroachment by appellant upon the approach zone to the airport. The trial court found for the plaintiffs (lessees and operators of the airport). On appeal, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the trial court and directed a finding for the defendant (landowner). In deciding this case, the Court said: There are many cases from other states which support the judgment of this Court in the instant case. Some of these, involving airport zoning ordinances which impose height restrictions in approach zones, are Dutton v. Mendocino County, 1949 U.S. Av. 1 (Cal.Sup.Ct. 1948); Roark v. City of Caldwell, 87 Idaho 557, 394 P.2d 641 (1964); Bowling Green-Warren County Airport Board v. Long, 364 S.W.2d 167 (Ky. 1962); Mutual Chemical Company v. Baltimore, 1939 U.S. Av. 11 (Md.Cir.Ct. 1939); Yara Engineering Corporation v. City of Newark, 132 N.J.L. 370, 40 A.2d 559 (1945); and State ex rel. Royal v. City of Columbus, 3 Ohio St.2d 154, 209 N.E.2d 405 (1965). Other recent cases containing principles applicable are Thornburg v. Port of Portland, 233 Or. 178, 376 P.2d 100 (1962) and Martin v. Port of Seattle, 64 Wash. 2d 309, 391 P.2d 540 (1964). The validity of the 1950 Mississippi Airport Zoning Act is not at issue. Neither is the validity of the 1959 Jackson Municipal (Rankin County) Airport Zoning Order. We find that the Bill of Complaint shows on its face that the Complainants-Appellants under the guise of a perhaps otherwise valid zoning order have so interfered with and restricted the use and enjoyment of Defendants-Appellees' private property as to constitute a taking or damaging thereof for public use without due compensation being first made as required in Section 17 of the Constitution of the State of Mississippi. The judgment of the lower court in sustaining a general demurrer to the Bill of Complaint and dismissing the Bill of Complaint is, therefore, affirmed. Affirmed. ETHRIDGE, C.J., and JONES, PATTERSON and INZER, JJ., concur.