Court Opinion

ID: 9672800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:00:34.416979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:18.432725
License: Public Domain

Swepston, Justice.
I concur in the result of the majority opinion for the following reasons.
The removal and relocation of the facilities of privately owned so-called public utilities is not a proper cost to the State as the construction of a highway, such as is the removal of natural objects consisting of rock, soil, trees, etc.; to the contrary, such facilities have all been placed there with full knowledge that the owners may be required at any time in the future to relocate them and at their own expense; such has uniformly been done up to the present.
*218The only reason suggested as a justification for the Legislative Act in question is the asserted impact of the so-called “crash program” for constructing an Interstate Highway with Federal and State funds.
Conceding that for the accomplishment of the final objective it will require the expenditure by some utilities extraordinarily large sums, nevertheless as I understand it, this will be done over a period of as much as thirteen years.
Whatever the time, however, the condition is ony a difference in degree of cost rather than a change in nature of the respective obligations of the State and the utility to each other. It is asserted that no benefit accrues to the utility from the removal and relocation. I am not prophetic enough either to agree or disagree with that statement; but the same assertion could have been made in the past with reference to any relocations. Again it is asserted that no benefit will accrue from reimbursement under the statute. With that I can not agree; it can hardly be said that being relieved of the cost of this legal obligation would not be a benefit.
For these reasons the statute does not serve a public purpose.
If by its fiat the Legislature can authorize the expenditure of these large sums on properties in which the State has no financial interest and no control other than the regulatory powers over any corporation “affected with a public interest”, then I see no way to restrain the Legislature within the limits of Art. II, Sec. 31 of our State Constitution, whenever it may decide to do equity according to its own conception.
*219Me. Justice BurNett requests that I state that he fully concurs herein.