Court Opinion

ID: 9574687
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:07:07.235376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:41:58.928787
License: Public Domain

PARKER, J.,
concurring. The trial court enjoined Pee Dee Electric Membership Corporation from maintaining its lines and facilities “upon, along or over the streets, roads and public ways of the town of Rockingham,” and ordered it to dispose of or dismantle and remove its lines and facilities within a specified time. The Court holds that this is error.
I agree with the opinion of the Court on the facts in the present record.
However, I desire to put on record my views in respect to this question. N.C.G.S., § 160-222 provides: “The governing body of the city shall have power to control, . . . the streets and sidewalks of the city . . . , and regulate, control, license, prohibit, and prevent digging in said streets and sidewalks, or placing therein of pipes, poles, wires, fixtures, and appliances of every kind, whether on, above, or *620below the surface thereof, and regulate and control the use thereof by persons . . . ; to prevent, abate, and remove obstructions, encroachments, pollution or litter therein. ...”
This is said in McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations, 3rd Ed., Vol. 7, § 24.588: “Municipal corporations ordinarily may and do exercise police control over the erection and maintenance of poles, wires, pipes and similar apparatus of utility companies or others in streets, alleys and public ways. They can, in this respect, where they act reasonably, compel all generally accepted improvements which tend to decrease the obstruction of the streets or increase the safety or convenience of the public in their use. Municipal police power in this respect and for these purposes is not precluded by the fact that such structures have been erected and maintained under franchise or permission, the fact that the power to grant the franchise is vested in the legislature or the fact that the utility company has a sole and exclusive privilege, e.g., street lighting in part of the city. A municipality on incorporation becomes vested with police power over existing poles, wires, pipes, underground conduits and other apparatus of utility companies or others, located on, in or over streets and public ways within the municipality, irrespective of franchises or permits under which these structures have been erected and are maintained.”
In my opinion, the town of Rockingham in the exercise of its police control has the power vested in it by N.C.G.S. § 160-222, and by the general law set forth in the quoted extract from McQuillin, over plaintiff’s operations, equipment, and property in its streets, alleys and public ways.
Mooee, J., joins in concurring opinion.