Court Opinion

ID: 9520419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:39:33.370857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:13.997719
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
(concurring). I concur fully in the able opinion of the court by Mr. Justice Brown. The sole reason for attempting to write anything further on the matter is because of the conflict which exists in other jurisdictions on the question of whether a state, or instrumentality thereof, may constitutionally exercise the police power to extinguish all direct-access rights of an abutting landowner to an existing highway in a situation where he can reach such highway from his land by a more-circuitous route, such as by use of a frontage road or connecting highway.
Cases holding that the police power cannot be so exercised are State ex rel. Morrison v. Thelberg (1960), 87 Ariz. 318, 350 Pac. (2d) 988; People v. Ricciardi (1943), 23 Cal. (2d) 390, 144 Pac. (2d) 799;1 Florida State Turnpike Authority v. Anhoco Corp. (Fla. 1959), 116 So. (2d) 8; In re Easement for Highway Purposes (1952), 93 Ohio App. 179, 112 N. E. (2d) 411, appeal dismissed, 158 Ohio St. 285, 109 N. E. (2d) 3. See also Anno. 43 A. L. R. (2d) 1072, 1077. As far as decided cases go, the foregoing cited cases seem to express the weight of authority.
Cases which are in accord with our determination in the instant case are Gilmore v. State (1955), 208 Misc. 427, 143 N. Y. Supp. (2d) 873, 883; Stock v. Cox (1939), 125 Conn. 405, 6 Atl. (2d) 346 (by dictum); and Nichols v. *517Commonwealth (1954), 331 Mass. 581, 121 N. E. (2d) 56 (by way of implication).
In Stock v. Cox, supra, the state was required to pay compensation for the temporary taking of all access rights, but the Connecticut court went on to say that a permanent provision for alternate access would negate the requirement of compensation.
The court in Nichols v. Commonwealth, supra, construed the Massachusetts statute as requiring compensation to be paid for interfering with access rights under the state’s limited-access highway statute in a situation where the property had other access by means of another abutting highway. The court held that the legislature is not limited in providing compensation damages, which the landlord owner is entitled to receive as a matter of constitutional right, but may extend compensation to instances where the exercise of eminent domain would result in a real hardship if he were deprived of compensation. Thus, by implication the court held that in requiring compensation under the facts of that particular case it had gone beyond constitutional requirements.
The question, of whether access rights constitute property, so that a failure to pay for a substantial interference therewith as a result of the exercise of the police power would constitute a taking of property without due process of law, was before the United States supreme court in Martin v. Creasy (1959), 360 U. S. 219, 79 Sup. Ct. 1034, 3 L. Ed. (2d) 1186. However, over the objection of Mr. Justice Douglas that court decided the case on other grounds.
Courts which hold that compensation must be paid to the abutting landowner in all cases where all direct-access rights to an existing highway are barred by statute, even though indirect access exists by means of service roads or connecting-highways, consider that access rights constitute property distinct and apart from the land to which they appertain. The *518writer of this opinion believes this to be erroneous and that highway-access rights are but one of a bundle of rights which appertain to a parcel of real estate.2
Zoning legislation enacted in the interest of the general welfare may have the effect of extinguishing one or more of the rights embraced in the entire bundle without the necessity of the state or municipality paying compensation to the landowner. In case of zoning enactments the test employed is whether, viewing the property as a whole, there has in reality been a taking without compensation in that confiscation of the property has in effect occurred by depriving the owner of all beneficial use of his property. 101 C. J. S., Zoning, p. 748, sec. 37; Nardi v. Providence (R. I. 1959), 153 Atl. (2d) 136. Likewise, where all direct-access rights to a highway from a particular parcel have been barred by legislation enacted under the police power, the effect on the parcel as a whole should be considered in determining whether there has been a taking which requires the payment of compensation. If by reason of providing a frontage road, or the existence of a previously existing connecting highway, there is reasonable access to the controlled-access highway, no taking requiring compensation should be held to have occurred.3
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Dieterich concurs herein.

 This holding in People v. Ricciardi, supra, has been criticized in Freeways and the Rights of Abutting Owners, 3 Stanford Law Review (1951), 298, 306, and Clarke, The Limited-Access Highway, 27 Washington Law Review (1952), 111, 125.

 For an exposition of this view, see Limited-Access Highways: Public Interest v. Access Rights of Abutting Owners, 1959 Washington University Law Quarterly, 310, 315, 316.

 Frank M. Covey, Jr., in his article “Rights of Access and the Illinois Highway Program,” 47 Illinois Bar Journal (1959), 634, 645, 646, presents a convincing argument why no compensation should be paid in a situation where a frontage road has been provided which affords indirect access to the controlled-access highway. See also Robert R. Bowie, Limiting Highway Access, 4 Maryland Law Review (1940), 219, at pages 243 et seq.