Court Opinion

ID: 9761523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:44:34.144571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:32.030116
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge,
dissenting.
If rural electric cooperatives desire that a landowner’s rights be subject to their opening his land to their survey teams whenever the utility sees fit, sans leave from anyone, the utility should obtain this right from the general assembly, by express provision, as has been done by the highway commission, the railroads and the water companies. This court has no mandate to give rural electric utilities a license to enter upon people’s land.
I agree with the view of the court of appeals, southern district, that under the Missouri authorities and the applicable principles of statutory construction, it must be concluded that thus far the legislature has not expressly or impliedly granted the power in question to a rural electric cooperative. I, therefore, respectfully dissent for the reasons stated below, many of which I have taken from the opinion adopted in that court written by Maus, J., but without using quotation marks. Judge Maus reasoned as follows: This matter of a public utility entering upon a man’s property to make a survey is akin to the power of eminent domain and is vested in the state. As he points out, this proposition and the authority of the legislature to delegate the power to enter for purposes of a survey was recognized in Walther v. Warner, 25 Mo. 277, 289 (1857), in which the court stated that it did not wish to be “understood ... as denying to the legislature the power of authorizing an entry upon private property without compensation for the purpose of making the preliminary examinations and surveys before the location of the road”. Such a survey power, however, is not inherent in the corporate existence of KAMO. The power is vested in KAMO only if it has been expressly or impliedly granted to it by the statutes of this state.
In considering this issue, it is necessary to keep in mind that by its position KAMO seeks to establish a power to enter private property in the absence of a court order and without judicial supervision. It argues that such a power is necessary to the exercise of the right of eminent domain. While this power could make the exercise of that right more convenient, its absence does not make the exercise of that right impossible. It simply is not correct to argue that without the right to pre-condemnation survey, the rural electric utility is hamstrung. By making use of what can be seen and measured from transits set up in the public streets, highways, roads, alleys and walks, or by resorting to the air space, aerial photography, already established markers and monuments, government surveys, charts and maps, as well as recorded plats and ab*50stracts of title, the civil engineers, surveyors, and mathematicians available to any rural electric utility can readily plot and describe with great accuracy the location and boundary of the land sought to be acquired, all without invading the owner’s property prior to condemnation.1 Knowledge that rural electric utilities can get along nicely without the right to pre-con-demnation entry may be one reason among many why the general assembly has not given them such a right.
After an action in condemnation has been commenced, if there is doubt about the description, a survey may be had under the supervision of the court as authorized by Rule 58.01. Rule 86 in requiring that the petition “shall contain a description of the property or right which plaintiff desires to acquire, use or extinguish” does not mean that only a description based on a survey will satisfy the rule or that a description cannot be amended. Otherwise, the court in State ex rel. Morton v. Allison, 365 S.W.2d 563 (Mo. banc 1963), cited in the principal opinion, would not have discussed the extent to which a condemnation petition can be amended. The court declared that it was in agreement with the court of appeals that “generally, amendments should be liberally allowed” and pointed out instances where errors in description or change in plan may be taken care of by amendment. State ex rel. Morton v. Allison, supra, at 565.
This court cannot decide this case upon the basis of whether it believes it is desirable that the power in question be vested in KAMO. “Provisions not plainly written in the law, or necessarily implied from what is written, should not be added by a court under the guise of construction to accomplish an end that the court deems beneficial.” Wilson v. McNeal, 575 S.W.2d 802, 809 (Mo.App.1978). It must be decided upon the basis of whether it was the intention of the legislature to grant that power to KAMO. State ex rel. Zoological Park Subdistrict v. Jordan, 521 S.W.2d 369, 372 (Mo.1975).
That intention is ascertained by the application of familiar principles of statutory construction. While such an entry may not be a “taking” in the constitutional sense, it is nevertheless an invasion of the right of private property. For this reason, the principles applicable to the construction of a grant of the right of eminent domain are applicable to the problem of construction present in this case. One of those principles is:
“There is no rule more familiar or better settled than this: that the grants of corporate power, being in derogation of common right, are to be strictly construed; and this is especially the case where the power claimed is a delegation of the right of eminent domain, one of the highest powers of sovereignty pertaining to the state itself, and interfering most seriously, and often vexatiously, with the ordinary rights of property.”
Chicago, M. & St.P.R.Co. v. Randolph Town-Site Co., 103 Mo. 451, 462, 15 S.W. 437, 439 (1891) (quoting Cooley, Const. Lim. 656). See also State ex rel. Schwab v. Riley, 417 S.W.2d 1 (Mo. banc 1967); Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. v. Newingham, 386 S.W.2d 663 (Mo.App.1965).
The grant of such a power is also clearly in derogation of the common law. That fact mandates the consideration of the well established principle of construction that ‘[statutes are generally subject to a strict construction where they interfere with pri*51vate property rights or are in derogation of rights of individual ownership.” 73 Am. Jur.2d Statutes § 285, at 447-448 (1974). See also Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. v. Newingham, supra, 386 S.W.2d at 665.
When Chapter 523, RSMo 1978, in particular § 523.010, is considered in relation to the other statutes providing for the right of eminent domain, the absence from that chapter of a provision expressly granting the power in question to the condemnor bears a special significance. By § 393.020, that power is expressly granted to companies installing underground water mains. By § 388.210, it has been granted to railroads and by § 227.120(13), it has been granted to the state highway commission. When the general assembly has intended to grant the power in question, it has done so in terms, and not by implication.
While the principal opinion states that pre-condemnation surveying is a part of eminent domain and that eminent domain is virtually useless without it, this has not been true of rural electric cooperatives, which until this date, have never had such a right. We are undertaking to do for rural electric cooperatives what the legislature has done for railroads, the state highway commission and those installing underground water mains. The trouble with this is that we are not elected to enact statutes.
Additionally, I do not believe that the case cited in the principal opinion, State ex rel. Morton v. Allison, supra, is authority for the proposition that KAMO has any right to enter upon relator’s premises to make a survey without permission of rela-tors. The Allison case deals with condemnation by the state highway commission and, as pointed out by Judge Maus in his opinion, the highway commission, by statute, is expressly given the right to enter and make a pre-condemnation survey.
Finally, it is settled law that the condemnation petition must contain the allegation that no agreement could be reached with the owner on the price to be paid for the land to be acquired. If the condemnor knows enough about what it is after to be able to state truthfully that it and the owner cannot agree on the price, then it necessarily has sufficient information to be able to prepare and file its petition, without the additional right of invading the owner’s property in advance with a survey team.
I would make the preliminary writ in prohibition absolute.

. The United States Department of Agriculture has made aerial photographs of every county in Missouri. The general public, including utility companies, can purchase these photographs and enlargements thereof through either the state or local Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service offices. By applying standardized surveying techniques to these scale photographs, a utility company can obtain accurate land descriptions and measurements. The Department of Agriculture has lists of available aerial photographs. See, e. g., U.S. Dep’t of Agriculture, Aerial Photography Status Maps, ASCS (1981); U.S. Dep’t of Agriculture, Aerial Photography Status Maps, SCS (1980); U.S. Dep’t of Agriculture, Comprehensive Listing of Aerial Photography, ASCS (1975); U.S. General Services Administration, Aerial Photographs in the National Archives (1973).