Court Opinion

ID: 9778837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:22:24.501647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:13.953045
License: Public Domain

Jim Johnson, Associate Justice, dissenting. On November 22, 1954, the appellee, Sallie Harvey Bingham, purchased 5.6 acres having a frontage of 823 feet on Highway 67-70, which served both east and west bound traffic between Little Rock and Benton. She leased the property to appellee, Ark-La-Tex Oil Company, at a monthly rental of $100 for a primary term of ten years commencing October 1, 1955, with an option on the part of the lessee to renew for two additional periods of five years each. Ark-La-Tex secured a permit from appellant to construct a service station on 1 % acres of the leased land and completed such construction on October 5, 1955, at a cost of $17,171.52. Construction of a restaurant or motel was contemplated by the lessee on the remainder of the leased premises. The service station of Ark-La-Tex sold an average of 37,000 gallons of gasoline a month. On April 11, 1958, under the power of eminent domain, appellant took a strip of land 50 feet wide and 823 feet long across the front of appellees’ property where it bordered on Highway 67-70, and also took the access the remainder of such property had enjoyed to the highway. The taking of the land is authorized by Act 419 of 1953, and the taking of the right of access or ingress and egress to, from or across the highway to and from the remainder of the appellees’ land is authorized by Act 383 of 1953. Witnesses called by the appellee, Sallie Harvey Bingham, testified that she, as the owner of the fee, was entitled to recover damages in a sum varying between $10,-000 and $17,250, and witnesses called by the appellee, Ark-La-Tex, testified that it, as the holder of the leasehold, was entitled to recover damages from $55,000 to $77,700. On the other hand, the witnesses called by the appellant estimated that the damages to the interest of appellee, Sallie Harvey Bingham, ranged from a low of $2,300 to a high of $6,159, and the damages to the interest of the appellee, Ark-La-Tex ranged from a minimum of $5,200 to a maximum of $8,790. A jury question therefore was presented and the jury returned a verdict in the sum of $9,000 for the appellee, Sallie Harvey Bingham, and in the sum of $30,000 for the appellee, Ark-La-Tex. At the time of taking the appellant deposited $6,500 for the benefit of appellee, Sallie Harvey Bingham. The disparity between the estimates of damages to which the witnesses for the respective parties testified springs from the fact that the witnesses for appellant specifically excluded from their estimate any amount of damage attributable to the deprivation of the access which the property of the appellees possessed to and from the existing highway prior to the taking. The question posed is: Is the taking from property abutting a highway the right of access to such highway compensable? Section 22, Article II of the Constitution of this State specifically and unequivocally states that private property shall not be taken, appropriated or damaged for public use without just compensation therefor. An easement of access is a valuable property right and when such easement is destroyed or damaged for public use, the Constitution directs that payment be made therefor. The easement of access which the owner of property has is not the mere right of going out from his place of business onto the highway and returning therefrom to his own land, but is the convenience in the use of his property with respect to the rest of the world. If the landowner is a merchant, a hotel keeper or a restaurant owner, his easement of access is commensurate with the uses to which his property is devoted. The right of access includes the opportunity for a man’s customers to come to his place of business without unreasonable hindrance or interruption. A property devoted to business is of little value when business is turned away by obstructions or barriers or denial of ingress and egress. Reining v. New York, L. & W. Ry. Co., 13 N. Y. S. 238, 240; 10 McQuillin Municipal Corporations 671, Third Edition. In Campbell v. Arkansas State Highway Commission, 183 Ark. 780, 38 S. W. 2d 753, this Court readily held: “Under our decisions, the owner of property abutting upon a street or highway has an easement in such street or highivay for the purpose of ingress and egress which attaches to his property, and in which he has a right of property as fully as in the lot itself; and any subsequent act by which that easement is substantially impaired for the benefit of the public is a damage to the lot itself within the meaning of the constitutional provision for which the owner is entitled to compensation. The reason is that its easement in the street or highway is incident to the lot itself, and any damage, whether by destruction, or impairment, is a damage to the property owner and independent of any damage sustained by the public generally.” (Emphasis supplied). That decision has never been overturned; indeed, it cannot be cast aside without emasculating one of the most important, inviolate and fundamental provisions of the Constitution. The logic of the Campbell decision, supra, was approved by the Court in Arkansas State Highway Commission v. Kincannon, 193 Ark. 450, 100 S. W. 2d 969, when it said: “When property is damaged, its value is reduced, and this reduction in value is, to the extent thereof, the taking of the property. So that the owner whose property has been damaged, but not physically taken, has the same right to demand compensation for his damages as has the owner whose property has been occupied and taken from his possession.” (Emphasis supplied). This Court in various eminent domain cases has approved damages for the tailing of the fee simple title to property, Arkansas State Highway Comm. v. Carder, 228 Ark. 8, 305 S. W. 2d 330; has endorsed compensation for severance damages, Arkansas State Highway Comm. v. Dupree, 228 Ark. 1032, 311 S. W. 2d 791; has affirmed awards for diminution in value due to a change in grade of a highway, Hot Spring County v. Bowman, The Law Reporter, Vol. 104, No. 12, page 400; and has approved as an element of damage “the added inconvenience and hazard, if any, of occupying and using said lands or any part thereof caused by the construction of the new highway”, Herndon v. Pulaski County, 196 Ark. 284, 117 S. W. 2d 1051. (Emphasis supplied). It is hardly debatable that the right of access, which we have held to be a property right, can he taken by eminent domain without the payment of damages. It has always been the rule that the measure of damages, if any, is the difference between the fair market value of the lands immediately before the construction of the highway and the fair market value thereof immediately after such construction. Herndon v. Pulaski County, supra. Further, every element that can fairly enter into the question of market value and which a business man of ordinary prudence would consider before purchasing the property should be considered by the jury in arriving at the difference between the value of the property before and after the taking or damage to it. Kirk v. Pulaski Road Imp. Dist. No. 10, 172 Ark. 1031, 291 S. W. 793; Arkansas State Highway Comm. v. Speck, The Law Reporter, Yol. 105, No. 7, page 272, 281. No one could say that a private individual would ignore the right of access or lack of it in reaching a decision as to whether or not he would buy or would pay a certain sum for the property of the appellees. The kind and extent of access or the lack of it is always considered by a man of ordinary prudence in deciding whether or not he will purchase residential, commercial or rural real estate. The appellant erred in directing its witnesses to exclude right of access or lack of it as an element in valuing appellees ’ property immediately before and immediately after the taking, and in such regard attempted to take property of the appellees without compensation in violation of the Constitution. That flagrant abuse cannot and will not be tolerated. If in the construction of the interstate highway system grades are changed, property is severed, inconvenience is imposed, hazard is created, or access is diminished or destroyed, the owner of the property so affected is entitled to compensation. To do less would undermine the right of ownership of property and destroy the very foundation of our government. To say that the cost of compensating for such property right would be an excessive burden on the appellant is beside the point. If this property right can be taken without compensation, then all property rights can be taken without compensation, and private property rights no longer exist. The appellant without any reservation or condition whatever definitely took all right of access which the property of the appellees enjoyed to the public way. Appellant stated in its brief and in oral argument that the appellees had access to the public way by a circuitous route over a surface road, but the record does not substantiate these statements, and we must be guided by what the appellant actually did and how such action affected the property rights of the appellees. The Declaration of Taking reads: . . the estate to be taken for public use is the full fee simple absolute title together with any and all rights or easements of existing, future, or potential common law or statutory rights of access, or ingress and egress to, from or across this facility to or from abutting and adjoining land.” Since the Declaration of Taking sets forth that all rights of ingress and egress are taken, and since this Court has consistently held that the right of ingress and egress is a property right, and since the Constitution directs that private property shall not be taken or damaged without the payment of compensation therefor, the judgment of the court below should be affirmed. Numerous cases from various foreign jurisdictions were cited in the respective briefs of opposing counsel. I have carefully examined these decisions but in view of our own Constitution and our own prior holdings I deem it unnecessary to extend this opinion further by commenting upon them. For the reasons stated above, I respectfully dissent.