Court Opinion

ID: 9809855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:30:10.457748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:32.987328
License: Public Domain

CoNÑOR, J.,
dissenting:
It is provided by statute tbat “Tbe State Highway Commission is vested with power to acquire such rights of way and title to such lands, gravel, gravel beds or bars, sand, sand beds or *223bars, rock, stone, boulders, quarries, or quarry beds, lime or other earth, or mineral deposits or formations, and such standing timber as it may deem necessary and suitable for road construction, maintenance, and repair, and the necessary approaches and ways through, and a sufficient amount of-land surrounding and adjacent thereto,' as it may determine, to enable it to properly prosecute the work, either by purchase, donation, or condemnation in the manner hereinafter set out.” N. C. Code of 1935, sec. 3846 (bb).
This statute, which authorizes the State Highway Commission, as an agency for the State, to take private property for public use, by the exercise of the power of eminent domain, should be construed strictly. The words “and other earth,” used in the statute, should be construed in accordance with the doctrine of ejusdem generis, which is fully discussed in 59 C. J., at page 981.
Thus construed, the words do not, in my opinion, include “top soil,” which is valuable for growing crops. I cannot think that it was the intention of the General Assembly that the State Highway Commission should have the power under the statute to enter upon cultivated land and to remove therefrom the “top soil” to be used in the construction of a highway at last three miles distant from the land.
I think there is error in the judgment for which it should be reversed.