Court Opinion

ID: 9809539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:17:05.965571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:27.004080
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.,
dissenting. No provision of the Constitution •can be found that forbids or even makes doubtful-the right of the people of this State, speaking through their representatives in the General Assembly, to authorize the Aldermen or ■Commissioners of any town or city to forbid the swinging of -.signs across the sidewalks. Certainly none has been cited. The charter provides in sec. 34: “That among the powers conferred on the Board of Aldermen are these, * * * •ascertain the location, increase, reduce and establish the width and grade, regulate the repairs and keep clear the •streets, sidewalks and alleys of the city; extend, lay out, open, establish the width and grade, keep clean and maintain ■others; establish and regulate the public grounds, including Moore Square, Nash Square, and Pullen Park,have charge of, improve, adorn and maintain the same, and protect the shade trees of the city.” The title to the streets of a city are in the city for the use of the public. The defendant, an abutting owner upon a street, has no more rights therein than anyone else. TTe has the right of ingress and egress to and from his •store, but so has the public unless he closes it. Tie has no right to obstruct the view of the street by á sign unless permitted by the city authorities. He has no more right to hang a sign in the street than the city has to suspend anything .above his'premises. ' He owns to the line of his lot, but.i%o *1028farther. His easement in the street is simply that it shall not be closed up or perverted to other uses. Moose v. Carson, 104 N. C., 431; White v. Railroad, 113 N. C., 610. Whatever has been done in the way of hanging signs across the sidewalks in the past, has been by the tacit assent of the city authorities, revocable at will whenever they deem such mode of swinging signs injurious to the appearance of the city. It would be strange if it were otherwise, seeing that in England, whence we derive our common law, for hundreds of years signs have not been allowed to project over tire sidewalks, but are placed hat against the wall of each place of business. There is probably no town in the United Kingdom, however small, in which signs are allowed to hang across the sidewalk, and the same is true of the countries of western Europe generally. The same ordinance has been adopted by many cities in this country, and in a few years will doubtless become the general, if not the universal rule. After most diligent research by counsel and the Court, no decision has been found from any court in any country, till now, which denies the power’ of the town council to' pass an ordinance like that now called in question. The powers of a city government are not restricted to suppressing what is dangerous, but extend to adorning and beautifying the city (when they possess the funds), and to' removing from the public streets that which mars their appearance, and equally that which is unpleasant to the eye as that which is disagreeable to the nose. This particular sign may be ornamental, and so may others, but if the Board of Aldermen think the custom of hanging signs over the sidewalk injurious to the appearance of the streets, they could pass this ordinance impartially ordering the removal of all signs hung across the sidewalks. Now that there is a spirit springing up in favor of beautifying our cities and toArns, it. is to be regretted that tire cold shadow *1029of a- judicial inhibition should fall upon the movement in this State to chill it.
Were a single act, like the hanging out of the defendant’s sign, seized upon for its removal as dangerous, or because otherwise a nuisance, then an issue of fact would be raised for a jury. But when it is an ordinance, impartially ordering the removal of all swinging signs above the street or sidewalk, and the .defendant’s sign admittedly comes within the words of the ordinance;, then it is not an issue of fact for the jury, but a question of the power to pass the ordinance. The people of Raleigh, acting through their duly elected Board of Aldermen, should certainly be able to decide whether they wished these signs removed or not, and if the Aldermen do not correctly express public opinion, the next Board of Aider-men will permit the swinging signs to go back. Local self-government demands that much. The people of any town can decide such questions for themselves better than the courts. It is hardly to be conceived that any part of the functions of the Supreme Court of a State is to act as a supervisory board of public works to pass upon, restrict or veto the action of the Board of Aldermen of any town upon such matters as the present.
Chief Justice Pearson, in Brodnax v. Groom, 64 N. C., at p. 250, expressed much common sense and a sound knowledge of the true functions of the Court when he said: “This Court is not capable of controlling the exercise of power on the part of the General Assembly or of the county authorities, and it can not assume to do so without putting itself in antagonism as well to the General Assembly as to the county authorities, and erecting a despotism of five men (italics in original), which is opposed to the fundamental principles of our government and the usages of all times past.” What the learned Chief Justice said as to “county authorities” has, of *1030course, the same application to city authorities. In that ease the Court held itself incompetent to control the action of the county authorities in building a bridge or in supervising its location or cost or passing upon the necessity for it, because building bridges is a function of the County Commissioners, and not of the Courts. Here, the regulation of the streets, and the removing of what therein impedes their use or impairs their appearance is for the town authorities to decide, and they ought, to decide it, subject to correction only by the people of the town at the ballot box, who are the best judges of what is proper and meet as to such matters for their own municipality. The defendant has no property rights in the streets more than anyone else, who uses them. His land ends where his deed calls for, i. e., at the edge of the sidewalk next to his store. Whatever privileges he is allowed on the sidewalk or in the air above it, more than belongs to all alike, is a mere tacit license from the town, revocable at its will.
Moose v. Carson, 104 N. C., 431, holds that where a town conveys land bounded by a street, it can not afterwards convey away the street itself. White v. Railroad, 113 N. C., 610, holds that the abutting proprietor has an, equitable easement in the street to the extent that it shall not be perverted to other uses. Goldstraw v. Duchworth, 5 Q. B. Div., 215, is a very short opinion construing that the language of a local statute to prevent nuisances upon the pavements of streets was not intended to prohibit projections, like balconies and the like, above the pavements. But neither these decisions, which are. tire reliance of the defendant, nor any others yet found from any court, sustain the contention that the town authorities do not possess the power to pass the plain unequivocal ordinance (which is here called in question) that “all signs suspended over the sidewalks of the city of Raleigh shall be removed by August 15, 1899.” No Court till now *1031has ever questioned such power, though it has been exercised for centuries in the home of the common law.
On the contrary, in Tate v. Greensboro, 114 N. C., 392, it is held: “The courts will not interfere with the exercise of a discretion reposed in the municipal authorities of a city as to when, and to what extent, its streets shall be improved, except in cases of fraud and oppression constituting manifest abuse of such discretion.” In that case it was held that the discretionary power over the streets authorized the town council to remove shade trees, against the protest of the owner of the abutting lot. That case cites with approval the following from the United States Supreme Court in Barnes v. District of Columbia, 91 U. S., 540: “The authorities state, and our own knowledge is to the effect, that the care and superintendence of streets, alleys and highways, the regulation of grades and the opening of new and the closing of old streets are peculiar! v municipal duties. No other power cam so wisely and judiciously control this subject as the authority of the immediate locality where the work is to be done.” The right to open new and close old streets is certainly greater than the power of removing signs that obstruct the view and impede the circulation of air and light. The right of “superintendence of the streets” thus fully recognized by both courts, extends, like the defendant’s ownership of his own lot, usque ad coelum. The city authorities are mot chained down to surface improvements, but can rise to> the level of the occasion.
The ordinance is in the discretion of the city authorities. It is reasonable and impartial. It applies alike to all, and there is no reason why the defendant should be exempted from it. “Equal rights to all, special privileges to none.”