Court Opinion

ID: 9550679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:40:11.770038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:08.245287
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ANGSTMAN:
(concurring in the result).
I do not agree with the foregoing opinion but concur in the result announced by it for the following reason:
I think Chapter 51, Laws of 1949, so far as it authorizes expenditures of highway funds for the construction, reconstruction, maintenance, administration and engineering of a toll bridge owned by a private corporation and where the construction, repair and maintenance is controlled by the corporation, is invalid as an attempt to delegate governmental functions upon the owner of the toll bridge.
It is well settled that the construction, repair and maintenance of public highways is a governmental function which ordinarily may not be delegated to a private person or corporation. 40 C. J. S., Highways, sec. 177, page 25, et seq.; People ex rel. Healy v. Clean Street Co., 225 Ill. 470, 80 N. E. 298, 9 L. R. A., *570N. S., 455, 116 Am. St. Rep. 156; McCrowell v. City of Bristol, 89 Va. 652, 16 S. E. 867, 20 L. R. A. 653.
Of course it is proper for the governmental agency charged with the responsibility of constructing, repairing and maintaining highways to delegate ministerial functions to a private person or corporation, but the Act here as it is sought to apply it, attempts to place the whole responsibility as to means, methods and all the details of construction, repair and maintenance upon the owner of the bridge without any control whatsoever by the highway commission. That this may not be done, compare Dickey v. Board of Commissioners, 121 Mont. 223, 191 Pac. (2d) 315, and cases therein cited.