Court Opinion

ID: 9811785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:28:37.294531+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:26.594558
License: Public Domain

'Walkee, J.,
dissenting: I cannot agree with the majority of my brethren who concur in the opinion of the Court, as much as I would like to do so, because my opinion is that the decision of this case is contrary to the law as established by a long -line of our cases.
As my views were set forth in the dissenting opinion filed in Mason v. Durham, 175 N. C., at p. 643, it-is not necessary that I should fortify my position by any elaborate discussion of the matter or by calling to my aid the numerous cases which have held that when a right is given *6by statute, with a particular and adequate remedy to enforce it, any party who claims the right must pursue the remedy of the statute for its enforcement. The right which is claimed here for the assessment of damages resulting from a change of the street grade is a new one given by this statute and peculiar to the city of Asheville, and a specific remedy is also prescribed for its prosecution. If the city failed to proceed, the remedy was by compelling it to do so, and the courts have sufficient process for commanding a speedy compliance with such duty. The plaintiff is allowed to recover damages, as if in an action of trespass, and to ignore the sole remedy given to him with the right by the statute. This is entirely contrary to McIntyre v. R. R., 67 N. C., 278, which until just recently has stood for many years as the law of this State. I said of it in the Mason case, supra, at p. 643: “I am unable to concur in the opinion of the Court as I think it overrules a long line of cases holding, upon the authority of McIntyre v. R. R., 67 N. C., 278, that where there has been a condemnation of property for public use, the recovery of compensation by the owner for taking his property must be obtained through the particular remedy given by the statute, as the latter takes away by clear implication the common-law remedy, which was an action of trespass on the case and is a substitute for it. The opinion of Justice Bodman in that case also states that the landowner is by the statute impliedly ‘deprived of his common-law remedy,’ that being wholly superseded by the one given in its stead, which is a substantial and adequate one, and not merely illusory. It has been held ever since our Mill Act of 1809 that such is the law, and that the specific remedy for damages must be pursued.”
The remedy provided by the statute is not administrative, but “judicial, and has been so regarded in all the cases by this Court. But if it can be called administrative, the rule even then requires that the specified remedy should be first resorted to and exhausted. Wilson v. Green, 135 N. C., 343.
I will not extend the argument as the subject is fully treated in the Mason case, beginning at p. 643, and will content myself with what is there said.
I am authorized to say that Justice Brown concurs in this dissenting opinion.