Opinion ID: 1695578
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: utilization of the service road

Text: As with the previous two DOT activities, we find that DOT's temporary conversion of the north side of S.R. 84 to a service road adjacent to petitioners' properties with continuing, although limited, access to S.R. 84 did not constitute a taking under Tessler. In Tessler, respondents' property was denied direct access to a primary commercial thoroughfare  Palmetto Park Road. In this case, petitioners were never denied access to the main road, S.R. 84, and did not lose more than their most convenient means of access for a temporary, albeit extended, period. [3] In fact, it appears that DOT purposefully constructed the temporary service road to provide the properties with continuing access to S.R. 84. We also find petitioners' reliance on Anhoco Corp. v. Dade County, 144 So.2d 793 (Fla. 1962), misplaced. In Anhoco, the petitioners owned the basic fee in S.R. 826, with an easement of ingress and egress to and from its theaters which abutted the land service road. Id. at 795. They also owned the land on the north side of State Road 826, which contained two large outdoor theaters, the Western Theater and the Eastern Theater. In August 1957, the Road Department, pursuant to statute and in carrying out its plan to convert S.R. 826 into a limited access highway, dug a ditch across the access road between the Eastern Theater and S.R. 826. As a consequence, access to S.R. 826 was completely eliminated and the Eastern Theater remained closed until October 1958. During this same month, the Road Department dug another ditch and access to the Western Theater was completely destroyed. When Dade County eventually filed a condemnation suit to take Anhoco's fee in the right-of-way of former S.R. 826, as well as Anhoco's rights of access, the Road Department had eliminated the land service road and instead constructed a service road across the front of Anhoco's property which provided Anhoco with direct access to the new limited access highway. The county claimed that, since Anhoco now had access to the new highway, it should not be entitled to compensation for the prior temporary loss of access to its property. A jury agreed, and the Third District affirmed. We quashed the Third District's holding on this issue and found that the right of access was destroyed [albeit temporarily] not merely regulated. We held that Anhoco was entitled to damages for the destruction of its rights of access prior to the establishment of the new service road. Id. 397 P.2d at 798. Here, unlike the situation in Anhoco, petitioners' access to S.R. 84 was not completely destroyed, even temporarily. Rather, the lanes of the existing highway, which abutted the properties, were temporarily changed into a service road which provided continuing access to the existing highway, S.R. 84. At no time in Anhoco did the government provide the property owners with a temporary service road with access to the highway. Rather, the loss of access was complete, although temporary. In fact, we noted in Anhoco that the completion of the service road, which provided Anhoco with access to the highway, had effectively remedied Anhoco's access problem: In this instance the right was not permanently destroyed. However, the fact that the condemning authorities subsequently provided a substituted type of access which should have been provided originally will not suffice to compensate for the harm which was done in the interim. Stock v. Cox, 125 Conn. 405, 6 A.2d 346 [(1939)]; Casa Loma Springs Development Co. et al. v. Brevard County et al., 93 Fla. 601, 112 So. 60 [(1927)]. We should interpolate, of course, that when assessing any damages suffered Anhoco is not entitled to recover for losses occasioned merely by the customary limitations on the flow of traffic over a highway which is being constructed under so-called traffic conditions. Every business abutting an established highway which is being reconstructed suffers the same type of loss. To this extent any damage suffered is damnum absque injuria. Id. at 799. [4] This latter comment in our Anhoco opinion is also relevant here.