Court Opinion

ID: 9868239
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:25:57.136997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:48.583608
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Fraser.
I dissent. In a case between these same parties, reported in 105 S. C. 187, 89 S. E. 669, it was *62decided that in grants of the power of eminent domain, the grant must be strictly construed. There are two distinct classes of majorities: (1) A majority of those who vote. (2) A majority of those entitled to vote. It seems to me that a substitution of class No. 1 for class No. 2 would require not merely a very liberal construction, but an amendment, and this Court has no power to amend. It seems to me, further, that a grant of the power to construct or purchase is intended to restrict the power of construction and purchase. To construct is to create a new use. To purchase is to transfer the exercise of a power by mutual consent of all the parties. To condemn an already existing plant creates no new use, but simply transfers the property, franchises and profits from a quasi public corporation to a public corporation. If this can be done without a change of the use, then I see no reason why one quasi public corporation could not be given the right to condemn the property of another. Could the Southern Railway be empowered to condemn the property, rights and franchise of the Atlantic Coast Tine Railroad Company ? It is not suggested that the plaintiff has failed in its duty to serve the public, or that the city of Greenville can supply a more efficient service. R. C. L., vol. X, sec. 157:
“Property devoted to the public use may be taken by authority of the legislature for a different public use, even if the earlier enterprise is thereby wholly destroyed; but property of a private corporation devoted to one public use cannot be taken for the same use, because.no public use or public necessity can be served by such a taking.”
Mr. Lewis, in his work on Eminent Domain, says:
Section 276: “General principles deduced from the foregoing decisions in respect to taking of property already devoted to public use.
“Eirst. All property held for public use is still subject to the eminent domain power of the State, with this exception, *63that it cannot be taken to be used for the same purpose in the same manner.” (Italics his.)
For these reasons I dissent.