Court Opinion

ID: 9671200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:32:43.097155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:08.615103
License: Public Domain

LAWSON, Justice
(concurring specially).
The case of Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co. v. O’Rear, 200 Ala. 291, 76 So. 57, contains language which is subject to the construction that legislation of the kind here under consideration would not be violative of § 23 of the Constitution.
The Legislature, in enacting the subject legislation, may well have relied upon that language in the Sloss-Sheffield case.
Many years have elapsed since the subject legislation was enacted and no doubt many rights-of-way have been acquired thereunder.
The opinion of Mr. Justice Bloodworth is brilliantly written. It demonstrates laborious and penetrating research. It is most persuasive. But the conclusion reached therein would, in my opinion, jeopardize all such previously acquired rights-of-way.
In view of the language in the Sloss-Sheffield case, supra; the legislation thereafter enacted; the length of time which has elapsed since the enactment of that legislation; and the rule that courts must indulge all presumptions and intendments in favor of the constitutionality of a statute *423(Opinion of the Justices, 281 Ala. 50, 198 So.2d 778; Central of Georgia R. Co. v. Groesbeck & Armstrong, 175 Ala. 189, 57 So. 380) ; I am constrained to concur in the Per Curiam opinion.