Court Opinion

ID: 9606061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:46:12.978146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:30.265023
License: Public Domain

Duckworth, Chief Justice,
dissenting. If this dissent would serve no more worthy purpose than merely to- criticise my honorable associates, I certainly would not enter it, but I think it my duty to state my reasons for dissenting. Courts have a higher and more worthy mission than engaging in juggling or acrobatic stunts. When a litigant plainly presents the cause of his complaint, this court should devote its intelligence and energies to a decision of that cause rather than finding synthetic excuses for avoiding a decision on the merits which will be of help and guidance to the parties. Stripped of irrelevancies, the entire pleadings here present forthrightly for our decision the constitutionality of Code § 95-1712. The petition of the Highway Department shows the pendency in the city court of three cases and the impending threat of numerous other suits which involve Code (Ann.) §§ 95-1710 and 95-1712, and it contends that, under these sections, it ought not to be required to defend at considerable cost to the State any of these suits, nor should it be held ultimately liable for any recoveries therein. It prays for a declaration of its rights thereunder, and that the parties in the. *8city-court cases be enjoined from taking default judgments therein until such rights are declared herein. The county, being vitally concerned both as to the obligation to defend and ultimate liability, responds by challenging the constitutionality of Code § 95-1712, alleging that if construed as contended it would, offend Code §§ 2-103 and 2-301 of the Constitution. These pleadings alone present the question of constitutionality of Code § 95-1712, and the trial court ruled that it was unconstitutional, the writ of error assigns this ruling as error, and we ought to rule thereon. But ignoring all this attack by the county as the majority has done, we still have the attack upon Code § 95-1712 based upon the same grounds as those asserted by the county, made by the plaintiffs in the city-court cases, which was sufficient to present the constitutional question and which was not attacked as being insufficient in the trial court. The Highway Department having sought a declaration that it could not be held ultimately liable in those suits, the plaintiffs in such suits would be adversely affected by such a ruling since they were made defendants in this suit. Therefore, in common fairness, they were authorized to resist such a ruling, and by their constitutional attack they made such resistance, and hence the judgment on the constitutional question should be reviewed on its merits, which the majority refuses to do. I shall here list the decisions of this court relating to Code § 95-1712 that I think are unsound: Taylor v. Richmond County, 185 Ga. 610 (196 S. E. 37); Hardin v. State Highway Board of Ga., 185 Ga. 614 (196 S. E. 40); State Highway Board v. Perkerson, 185 Ga. 617 (196 S. E. 42); State Highway Board v. Hall, 193 Ga. 717 (20 S. E. 2d 21); Waters v. DeKalb County, 208 Ga. 741 (69 S. E. 2d 274). These decisions attribute to Code § 95-1712 a meaning which is neither expressed nor implied therein, and which is simply an addition to what is said therein. The statute expressly restricts the damages therein stated to those only which accrue on the highways. The above decisions expand it so as to cause it to embrace damages to property not on the highway. They thus cause it to apply to property damaged or taken for the purpose of a right-of-way. Thus the decisions cause the statute to mean that damaging property for public purposes can not be collected until and if the highway is opened for traffic, while the Constitution demands that such damages be first paid. *9Obviously, the statute, if it means what the decisions say it means, is unconstitutional. The rule by which this court was bound when rendering each of these decisions was and still is that, if a statute is susceptible to more than one construction, the court’s duty is to give it the construction that will render it constitutional rather than the construction that would render it unconstitutional. DeWitt v. Richmond County, 192 Ga. 770, 773 (16 S. E. 2d 579); Evans v. Evans, 190 Ga. 364 (9 S. E. 2d 254); Pacolet Manufacturing Co. v. Weiss, 185 Ga. 287, 295 (194 S. E. 568); Cutsinger v. City of Atlanta, 142 Ga. 555 (3) (83 S. E. 263, L. R. A. 1915B 1097, Ann. Cas. 1916C 280); Fordham v. Sikes, 141 Ga. 469 (81 S. E. 208); Smith & Co. v. Evans, 125 Ga. 109, 112 (53 S. E. 589). Here the statute expressly restricted itself to damages accruing on the highway. If left as written, it would be constitutional. It contemplates no damage to private property for public purposes, but simply means, and so states in unmistakable terms, such damages as might accrue on the highways by users thereof. It shields the department against liability for such damages except those occurring after it opens the highway for traffic, thereby signifying that it is safe for travel.
Should there linger a glimmer of doubt that the foregoing is the true meaning of the statute, a simple observance of the fact that by Code (Ann.) § 95-1721 (Ga. L. 1935, p. 160) the law requires the counties to pay for rights-of-way which includes damage to private property for public purposes, and yet Code (Ann.) § 95-1710 (Ga. L. 1957, pp. 593, 594) imposes upon the Highway Department ultimate liability for recoveries referred to in Code § 95-1712. The legislature would thus contradict itself and express contradictory intentions as to who must pay for the right-of-way. They did not do any such, and this court can not justify its distortion of what the legislature did do* plainly to make it mean something different and thereby become contradictory and ridiculous. Since Code (Ann.) § 95-1721 makes it the duty of the county to pay direct and consequential damages for the rights-of-way, how can it do this if by Code (Ann.) § 95-1710 the Highway Department is required to do it?
This court has the duty to face the record and decide the question plainly made, which is, whether or not Code § 95-1712 is *10violative of the Constitution (Code § 2-301) and therefore void. There are two plain courses open to us, to wit: Admit this court was wrong in the decisions cited and overrule them, and then hold that Code § 95-1712, which refers only to damages sustained by users of the highway or negligence in its maintenance, is perfectly constitutional; or adhere to our errors, which are too glaring to be missed, and hold that Code § 95-1712 as thus construed offends the first-payment requirement of the Constitution (Code § 2-301) and is void. While I am convinced that the first alternative is the right and proper course, yet without the concurrence of my associates that course is legally impossible, and therefore we should follow the second alternative and hold Code § 95-1712 void.
Since the majority refuse to adopt either of the foregoing alternatives, I must express my reasons for refusing to concur in their opinion. This record simply defies the conclusion that the defendants in error had no right to challenge the constitutionality of Code § 95-1712. The petition of the plaintiff in error left them no intelligent alternative. This court I believe should never do as the majority has done in the first division, to wit, rule on the merits of the cases in the city court to the extent of saying that they do not merit having the plaintiff therein raise the constitutional question, and turn around in the same division and declare that they are not doing precisely what they have just done, rule on the merit of these cases. Would the petitioner in the city-court cases be bound by an unreversed judgment in this case to which they are parties, construing the Code sections as requested by the Highway Department? What will be their rights after a judgment in this case declaring that the Highway Department could not be held ultimately liable in the city-court cases because of Code § 95-1712, under which the petition claims immunity, not because the alleged damages are not such as are covered by Code § 2-301, but because, as the Highway Department contends, the damages accrued before the highway was opened for traffic? I am convinced that the case has not been soundly decided until positive answers are made to both of these questions. I therefore want to make clear my opinion on both of them, since the majority avoid them by basing their decision on *11something that is not in the case. Their decision settles nothing, but on the contrary, their obiter dicta confuse and confound the pending suits for damages, leaving the parties as well as that court in the situation of deciding whether or not the ruling by the majority — -that the plaintiffs in those suits have no case of damaged private property for public purposes, hence the parties are not protected by the Constitution (Code § 2-301), and consequently can not attack Code § 95-1712, which, as construed by this court clearly offends that clause of the Constitution — is an adjudication of that question. Any attempt to decide that question encounters at the outset the further statement in the opinion that it does not rule upon the merits of those cases. This court should not create such confusion. It is indefensible for two sound reasons, to wit: (1) The merits of those cases were not before the trial court, nor are they before this court for decision. This case sought simply a declaration of rights under Code (Ann.) §§ 95-1710’ and 95-1712 to enable the Highway Department to know if it must defend and could be liable. If so, for all that appears in this case, it intended to go into the city court and defend by challenging the merits for the first time. What would the majority have the county and those plaintiffs do when made parties defendant to a case wherein the Highway Department was seeking a judgment relieving it of the duty to defend and of any ultimate liability? I say they did what they had a perfect right as well as a plain duty to do — they attacked the constitutionality of Code § 95-1712. Such an attack was the only manner in which they could resist the claim of the petitioner that this section relieved the department of both a duty to defend and liability for any recovery, such claim being based, not upon whether the plaintiffs’ damages were covered by the Constitution (Code § 2-301), but solely because such damages accrued before the highway was opened for traffic. (2) The merits of the city-court cases have not been argued by counsel, and this court has not considered that matter sufficiently to enable it to decide that question. Indeed, there is a strong likelihood that those plaintiffs are protected by the Constitution since their property, located upon a public roád, is denied egress and ingress upon the public road because the Highway Department in constructing an*12other road neither bridged nor tunneled across this highway but simply blocked it with an impassable fill 17 feet in height. I do not know enough about those cases to now rule on their merits by saying they are not protected by Code § 2-301, and I am confident the majority does not either, for that is not presented by this record for a decision.
There is even another sound reason why the majority decision of reversal is erroneous. The judgment excepted to makes numerous rulings, including overruling all demurrers and motions to strike. The exception is to the entire judgment with the exception of one paragraph and is upon the grounds simply that it is contrary to law. The county cites Rodgers v. Black, 99 Ga. 142 (25 S. E. 20); Newberry v. Tenant, 121 Ga. 561 (49 S. E. 621); Lyndon v. Georgia Ry. &c. Co., 129 Ga. 353 (2) (58 S. E. 1047) ; Mayor &c. of Gainesville v. Jaudon, 145 Ga. 299 (5) (89 S. E. 210); holding that the writ of error should be dismissed. I agree that it should be dismissed for this reason. The majority ignore the entire matter and reverse. I would go further and say that, even if the assignment is valid, since it attacks the judgment as a whole, if any part of the judgment is correct, an affirmance is demanded. Furthermore, since the demurrers are not brought up, we can not decide if it was error to overrule them, and hence should either affirm or order them sent up and then rule upon them. I regret to see this case disposed of as has been done by the majority, and the foregoing dissent states my reasons fully.