Opinion ID: 1695578
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: highway construction

Text: It is impossible not to be sympathetic to the plight of the landowners here. Few businesses have the resiliency to survive several years of a massive highway construction project on their doorsteps. However, each of the property owners here was in much the same position as its neighbors. Further, although the effects on their properties may have been more severe in degree than other businesses and landowners who were similarly situated, the effects were of the same general nature suffered by their neighbors. Traditionally, property owners have borne a heavy burden in establishing that their properties have been constructively taken as a result of such government activity. We have long adhered to the principle that [i]f injury or inconvenience is the same in kind as that suffered by others similarly situated, but different only in degree, compensation is not recoverable. Anhoco, 144 So.2d at 798. We restated that principle in Tessler: A landowner must demonstrate that he has suffered special damages which are not common to the general public... . The fact that a person loses his most convenient method of access is not such damage which is different in kind from damages sustained by the community at large where his property has suitable access from another street even though the alternate route is longer. 538 So.2d at 849 (quoting Pinellas County v. Austin, 323 So.2d 6, 8-9 (Fla. 2d DCA 1975)) (citations omitted); see also 2A Julius L. Sackman, Nichols' The Law of Eminent Domain § 6.08[2] (rev. 3d ed. 1995) ([W]hen there is no appropriation of land ... it is generally held that the consequential damage must be special and peculiar to the impacted property or else there can be no recovery.) (footnote omitted). Highway and street construction necessarily disturbs traffic flows and access to businesses located in the vicinity. To make the State or a local public agency liable for damages caused by all road construction would place an impossible burden upon the taxpayers, would reduce the number of projects that increase road safety, and would hamper the expansion of the system of public roads. See Berman Corp. v. State ex rel. State Highway Comm'n, 24 Or. App. 813, 547 P.2d 192, 194 (1976). Or, as put more bluntly by another court, to hold the State liable for damages from road construction which renders access to property less easy but which does not actually or virtually destroy access to the highway would require the State to pay through the nose for the privilege of further improving and adding to the safety of highways which it has built and which have evidently brought customers to the doors of the owners of land fronting on such highways. Langley Shopping Center, Inc. v. State Roads Comm'n, 213 Md. 230, 131 A.2d 690, 693 (1957). Generally speaking, the privilege of receiving the benefits of life within a municipality or other governmental jurisdiction carries with it certain attendant burdens, including the obligation to suffer the inevitable inconvenience associated with public works construction without compensation. 2A Julius L. Sackman, Nichols' The Law of Eminent Domain § 6.09[2] (rev. 3d ed. 1995). In other words: Consequential damages to adjoining property owners in the way of diminution of business while construction is in progress does not constitute a taking of property for which compensation must be made under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. Such losses are damnum absque injuria and unfortunately must be borne by the individual as part of the price that he pays for being a member of organized society and living in an urban community. Id. (quoting Meyers v. District of Columbia, 17 F.R.D. 216, 217 (D.D.C. 1955) and citing cases from 13 other states); see also Anhoco, 144 So.2d at 799.