Court Opinion

ID: 9807720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:14:13.347025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:52:33.378221
License: Public Domain

"Pcieohes, C. J., dissenting.
Tbe case on appeal states that one Williams was tbe overseer of a public road in Sampson County, and tbe defendant is an adjacent landowner to said road; that said road has been located where it now runs for at least sixty years; that by long use tbe bed of tbe road bad become worn, so that in wet weather tbe water would stand in *739tbe bed of the road from four to six inch.es deep, for a distance of forty yards; and in cold weather this sheet of water would freeze, so as to bear the weight of a horse or wagon, and was dangerous.
The evidence showed (and that question was submitted to the jury) that the natural flow of the surface water at this point was on the defendant’s land, and when the bed of the road was' full of water, it flowed off on the defendant’s land; that at one time there had been a small ditch cut on the defendant’s land to aid in draining this worn and sunken place in the road, but this was while the land was in the woods and before the defendant bought it.
I thought it settled law of this State that you could accelerate, but not divert surface water. Mizzell v. Gowan, 129 N. C., 93.
The country being flat, it would take a ditch some seventy yards long to drain, and keep drained, this depression in the road. And for the purpose of so draining the road, Williams, the overseer, with the hands working the road under him, got over the defendant’s fence for the purpose of digging the ditch, when the defendant forbade their doing so; and upon the overseer insisting on cutting the ditch, the defendant said if he did “it would be over his dead body,” and, to avoid a personal difficulty with the defendant the overseer desisted and did not cut the ditch. And the defendant is indicted for obstructing a public officer in the discharge of a public duty.
It was admitted that the overseer was a public officer, and that working the public road was a public duty. But the defendant contends that the overseer had no right to cut a ditch on his land, if it was done in the discharge of a public duty and for the public good; that this would be a taking and appropriating his land without any authority to do so, and without any compensation, which would be in violation of *740his constitutional rights. As the natural drainage of the water from this depression in the road was over the defendant’s land, it was servient to the road, and the defendant could not obstruct and prevent the water from flowing over the same, although there had been no condemnation of his land. State v. Wilson, 107 N. C., 865 — very much in point. But the road having been established for sixty years or more, worked and kept up all this time as a public road, it must be presumed to have been established according to law, and the defendant (or those under whom he holds) to have been compensated' — paid for the right to locate the road and the damage it might do to the servient tenants. This is so in contemplation of law, if not in fact.
I am not in favor of taking private property for public uses without paying a just compensation, but I do not think that doctrine applies in this case, as the defendant, or those under whom he holds, have been paid.
The overseer, then, having the right, he was the judge as to how it should be done. Brodnax v. Groom, 64 N. C., 190, and many other cases. This Court can not become the overseer of a road, nor can it direct or say how the overseer shall do his work. It can not say it Avould have been better to cut a ditch on the other side of the road. If there was no necessity for draining the road at this point, and the overseer had gone on the defendant’s land to cut the ditch out of bad motives or for any other reason than to drain the road, then I think he would have been a trespasser, and the defendant would not be guilty. But these very questions were submitted to the jury by the Judge in his charge, and they must have found that he was not influenced by any other motive than to drain and improve the road. I see no error, and think the judgment should be affirmed.
Clark, J-, concurs in the dissenting opinion.