Court Opinion

ID: 9677372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:50:20.955649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:55.506891
License: Public Domain

Snell, J.
-I respectfully dissent from that part of the majority opinion approving the receipt in evidence of the city ordinance restricting access to the highway.
As in many condemnation eases the damage incident to restricted access was a crucial issue.
Prior to condemnation plaintiffs had access to the highway and were using access in two places on each side of the road. There is no claim that prior to establishment of control by defendant-commission or the city that plaintiffs were limited as to access or limited in the right to cross from one side of the road to the other. After condemnation plaintiffs were limited to two field entrances with the provision for future substitution of two subdivision entrances. Where, if at all, traffic would be permitted to cross over and have a choice of direction for travel or get to the other side of the road does not appear from the condemnation records.
Chapter 306A, Code of Iowa, authorizes the establishment and designation of controlled-aecess highways. The declaration of policy contained in section 306A.1 is a necessary declaration of police power.
“The general rule is that no compensation is due a citizen by reason of damage to property from the lawful exercise of the police power. Compensation must, however, be made for what is taken by eminent domain.” Lehman v. Iowa State Highway *1242Commission, 251 Iowa 77, 82, 99 N.W.2d 404, and cases cited therein.
Section 306A.5 authorizes acquisition of access control by gift, devise, purchase or condemnation. In the case before us acquisition was by eminent domain and is compensable.
It is well settled that an owner is not entitled, as against the public, to access to his land at all points. If he has free and convenient access and his means of ingress and egress are not substantially interfered with he has no cause for complaint. Increased circuity of travel does not constitute a taking of access. The question whether an owner has been denied reasonable access is usually one of fact. Iowa State Highway Commission v. Smith, 248 Iowa 869, 82 N.W.2d 755, 73 A. L. R.2d 680, Warren v. Iowa State Highway Commission, 250 Iowa 473, 93 N.W.2d 60, and Lehman v. Iowa State Highway Commission, supra.
Denial of access where none previously existed as in the condemnation for a new right-of-way is not compensable. There can be no compensation for something not taken and there can be no taking of something that did not exist. This rule should not be confused with the right to damage resulting from severance. Lehman v. Iowa State Highway Commission, supra, loe. eit. 83, 84 of 251 Iowa.
Section 306A.3, Code of Iowa, authorizes the designation of controlled-access facilities by cities, towns and highway authorities, acting alone or in cooperation with each other or any federal agency.
Over plaintiffs’ vigorous objection there was received in evidence Cedar Rapids City Ordinance No. 13-62. This is an ordinance fixing and establishing controlled-access facilities on several highways including highway No. 149 within the city. I quote significant parts of the ordinance not set out in the majority opinion:
“Whereas, primary roads Iowa 64, Iowa ^149 and U. S. +¡fl51 within the corporate limits of the City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as described above were improved; the cost of such improvement was borne by the Bureau of Public Roads and The State Highway Commission, and the participation in the costs *1243thereof is dependent on the establishment of the eontrolled-access facilities by the City of Cedar Rapids along said highway improvements and said eontrolled-access facilities are necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health; and safety and the promotion of the general welfare and
“Whereas, the council agreed under Resolutions D-2165 and D-2166, signed July 11, 1957, to pass ordinances for access control and traffic control, now therefore
“Be it ordained by the city council of the City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, * #
Sections 6 and 7 are set out in the majority opinion.
It is apparent from this ordinance that it was passed by the city council as a part of the improvement project by the highway commission. It is also apparent that the granting of access rights was subject to veto by the commission. It also appears from the testimony of the director of public works for the City of Cedar Rapids that except for the adoption of the ordinance the city had done nothing relative to controlling access to plaintiffs’ property.
The city ordinance was not an independent action by the city council. It was a procedure to shift the cost of highway improvement away from the city and it says that it was pursuant to agreement.
The ordinance was a recognition of legislative-created police power to control access but there was no actual taking until the highway commission proceeded by eminent domain. It was the highway commission that conceived, directed and controlled the procedure and finally took by condemnation.
The only purpose for which the ordinance could have logically been offered in evidence was to show that it was the city and not defendant-commission that restricted plaintiffs’ access. The almost inevitable result was a conclusion that defendant was condemning nothing that plaintiffs had at the time. The procedure was ingenious but I think the receipt of the ordinance into evidence was prejudical error in that it aided defendant in hiding behind a strawman of its own creation.
Plaintiffs were unfairly handicapped in' not having their claim for damages considered free from extraneous matters. As *1244we said in the concluding paragraph in Crawford v. City of Des Moines, 255 Iowa 861, 124 N.W.2d 868, “The result of the defendant’s position here, on the facts pleaded, if upheld, would be illegal confiscation of a substantial part of plaintiffs’ property, only faintly disguised, if at all, by a mask of technicalities.”
While the objections to the receipt of the ordinance were not as complete as they might have been I think they were sufficient to alert the trial court to the problem.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial.
Larson and Becker, JJ., join in this dissent.