Court Opinion

ID: 9830595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:18:53.305371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:24.679358
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The appellant asserts in this cause, on motion for rehearing, that the court erred in holding that, when the townsite company filed its map, and recorded its deed of dedication to the public, the dedication was subject to article 1231, authorizing a telephone company to construct its telephone line along or across the highways of the state, insisting that, under the Oonstitution, the company would be required to condemn and pay the value of the fee in the street. Irrespective of the statute granting the privilege to such a public utility, the courts are in irreconcilable conflict as to the right of re: Covery by abutting owners for the use of the street, as exhibited by the cases of Hobbs v. Long-Distance Telephone & Telegraph Co., 147 Ala. 393, 41 South. 1003, 7 L. R. A. (N. S.) 90, 11 Ann. Cas. 461, and Frazier v. East Tennessee Telephone Co., 115 Tenn. 416, 90 S. W. 620, 3 L. R. A. (N. S.) 325, 112 Am. St. Rep. 856, 5 Ann. Cas. 838, with the annotated notes; quite a responsible array of authorities holding that the erection of a telephone or telegraph line is not inconsistent with the purpose for which a street is dedicated, and is consistent with its use as a means of intercommunication, (as much so as the use of the streets by vehicles or any other accustomed mode of conveyance upon the highways, that this method of transmission is an economical substitute for actual travel, reducing time, minimizing energy, and lessening the cost of intercommunication, and is not an additional burden upon the property, but is wholly consistent with one of the principal purposes for which the street was dedicated.
However, as to the statutory feature of this question, we find, in the case of Suburban Light and Power Co. v. Board of Aldermen of the City of Boston, 153 Mass. 200, 26 N. E. 447, 10 L. R. A. 497, by the Supreme Court of• Massachusetts, a statute of Massa chusetts which “permits telegraph companies to erect lines of electric telegraph upon and along highways and public roads in such manner as not to incommode their use by the public” — to that extent the same as our statute. The question here was not involved in that case, but referred to for the provisions of the law. However, in the case of Pierce v. Drew, 136 Mass. 75, 49 Am. Rep. 7, the same article of the státute was construed, the syllabus of which we quote as fairly reflecting the opinion upon the feature material here: “No compensation is provided by the public statutes to the owner of the fee of a highway for the use of the same by a telegraph company. An additional servitude is not imposed by the appropriation of a public highway under Pub. St. c. 109, §§ 4, 12, for the use of a line of electric telegraph by the erection of poles and wires above the surface of the ground, and the statute is constitutional, although it makes no provision for compensation to the owner of the fee in the highway.” It is true that in that case there is a minority decision by two of the judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, as against the majority opinion of the other five members of the court; however, the holding of the majority opinion accords with our views, and is followed. The public street involved in that case had been obtained and paid for by condemnation, and the court further observed that: “The discovery of the telegraph developed a new and valuable mode of communicating intelligence. Its use is certainly similar to, if not identical with, that public use of transmitting information for which the highway was originally taken, even if the means adopted are quite different from the post boy or the mail coach. It is a newly discovered method of exercising the old public easement, and all appropriate methods must have been deemed to have been paid for when the road was laid out.”
When the owner of land plats his property for the purpose of creating a new town, and dedicates the streets, they are as much public highways as if condemned and paid for by the public; the right of public use is as much enlarged as to the streets in this character of case as if condemned and paid for.
In addition to the reasons given in that opinion, we believe that, when the townsite company dedicated its streets to the use of the public, the statute mentioned became a part of its dedication, and the owner of the land, in placing the plat upon the record, has not the right to make a reservation, as in this case, inconsistent with the statute — the dedication must be of a public street with the burden which the statute placed upon the same. If the owner has the right to limit his dedication as to the use of the street attempted to be dedicated to the public, the streets are- not public highways of the state within the contemplation of the statute, which would be anomalous.
We think there were ample reasons for suggesting in the original opinion that the reservation was void on account of the statute. We have attempted to carefully consider the motion for rehearing on all questions, and it is in all things overruled.