Court Opinion

ID: 9679519
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:54:37.513659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:14.263391
License: Public Domain

Roberds, P. J.,
dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority opinion except that I do not think the county has any right to collect rent, or compensation, for use of the easement. Section 2780 does not, by its terms, contemplate such payment in my opinion. It imposes upon public utilities the obligation to pay “damages for any injury caused by such construction or úse thereof.” Only “damages” can be collected and damage is not a word applicable to liability for rent. It has reference to destruction of, or injury to, fences, houses, improvements, etc., occasioned by construction of lines by public utilities. Indeed, if annual rent is to be paid, then the easement is converted into a tenancy from year to year.
Section 95, Mississippi Constitution of 1890, prohibiting donations of public lands by the legislature, does not require money payment consideration to comply with that section. Inducement to enterprises, serving the public, to locate within this State is sufficient considera*635tion. Hodges, City Tax Collector, v. Western Union Telegraph Company, 72 Miss. 910; City of Canton v. Canton Cotton Warehouse Company, 84 Miss. 268. Making available to the people of the State telephone, telegraph, electric power and natural gas service is a consideration more valuable than mere pittance for rent of the right-of-way, or easement. The legislature, the guardian of the public policy of the State, so considered in my opinion. At least that branch of the government thought the availability of these forces to the people, and the consequent tax revenues which such utilities have to pay the State and the various taxing subdivisions thereof, constituted sufficient consideration for grant of the power conferred by said Section 2780 and other like statutes.
An important practical question is involved here. Such a question, I realize, cannot change legal rights, but it is proper to weigh results in trying to determine the intent of the legislature and the effect of its enactments. That question is this: The result of this decision, in my view, will create chaos and utter confusion in this State. All of these utilities acted upon Section 2780 and like statutes in construction of railroads, telegraph, telephone and power lines and in the laying of gas and oil lines. None of the statutes expressly require payment of rent to the State for an easement over public lands. Indeed, Section 5525, Mississippi Code 1942, conferring power upon REA to construct electric power lines across public lands, expressly provides this may be done “without payment to the State for said easement.” The other statutes, in effect, do the same thing by not expressly requiring money payment for such right. No utility paid such money rent. The records disclose that the State now owns approximately 710,000 acres of school and lieu lands and 950,000 acres of other public lands, a total of over one and a half million acres of public lands. When many of the utility lines were constructed the State owned considerably more than the stated amount of non-*636school lands. These public service lines, both above and under ground, now traverse these public lands in thousands of instances. A number of the municipalities of the State, such as Natchez and Columbus, for illustration, are located upon sixteenth section lands. The utility lines are constructed on the streets and across parks throughout these municipalities. If appellant must pay annual rent in the case at bar, it is not seen why such rent cannot be collected from all of these utilities for easements over public lands back to 1890. Suits to do just that will be innumerable, unless the legislature has the power, and exercises it, to prevent such suits from being prosecuted.