Court Opinion

ID: 9653994
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:01:02.145863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:57.615083
License: Public Domain

NORTHCUTT, Justice
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with the majority opinion herein where it is stated: “Thus, it appears that Gray in this case would not have a cause of action against the city under our constitution unless a private individual would have been absolutely liable under the same set of facts and the same type [of] submission. Of course, a natural person would have been liable only under the com.mon law of Texas for negligence in the causing of the damage. The case having been submitted on a different theory will .have to be reversed, but in view of another trial we feel other questions raised should .be passed on.”
I probably would have submitted the case to the jury in a different manner than was submitted; but under the state of this 'record, if appellee’s property was damaged it-was damaged by the cave-in, and naturally there would have been no cave-in if the ditch had not been dug. Since the jury found the damage to appellee’s building was proximately caused by the loss of such lateral support, I think that could only be construed as finding that the damage was caused by the digging of the ditch.
The question here involved, as presented by the two parties, is whether it was necessary for appellee to plead and prove negligence on the part of the city. The appellee contends that regardless of the question of negligence, where the property of appellee was damaged as found by the jury, the city would be liable under Article 1, Section 17 *752of the Texas Constitution. The appellant contends that appellee was under the legal obligation of proving, submitting and securing findings of negligence on the part of the city.
That part of the provision of the constitution involved herein provides:
“No person’s property shall be taken, damaged or destroyed for or applied to public use without adequate compensation being made, unless by the consent of such person; * * * ”
Surely it cannot be successfully contended that the city could take appellee’s property without adequate compensation without showing the city was guilty of negligence in the taking of said property. This damage was not such as to be considered common to the community in general but was special to the appellee. There is nothing in the constitution making any distinctions between the words taken, damaged or destroyed so as to require negligence for damaging and not negligence in taking. There can be.no question but what the city intentionally dug, or had dug, the ditch in question in the exercise of its lawful authority, and I do not think there could be any reasonablfi conclusion reached under the finding of the jury other than that the city damaged appellee’s property by the digging of the ditch.
I think the Supreme Court correctly settled this point in the case of State v. Hale, 136 Tex. 29, 146 S.W.2d 731, 736, where Judge Sharp speaking for the court said:
“The language used in Section 17 of Article 1 'of the Constitution, supra, which says that no person’s property shall be taken or damaged for public use without adequate compensation' being made, has no exceptions or limitations attached thereto. It is a clear, definite statement of the rule which prevails in this State, which controls all the departments of the State government; and the liability for adequate compensation for private property taken or damaged for public use is not based upon the ground that the act of taking or damaging such property was done negligently or intentionally. The true test is, did the State intentionally perform certain acts in the exercise of its lawful authority to construct such highway for public use which resulted in the taking or damaging of plaintiffs’ property, and which acts were the proximate cause of the taking or damaging of such property.”
I think the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.