Breidert v. Southern Pac. Co.

• Citation: 39 Cal.Rptr. 903,61 Cal.2d 659,394 P.2d 719
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Decision Date: 20 August 1964
• Parties: , 394 P.2d 719 George M. BREIDERT, as Executor, etc., et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. SOUTHERN PACIFIC COMPANY et al., Defendants and Respondents. L. A. 27222.

Page 903

39 Cal.Rptr. 903

61 Cal.2d 659, 394 P.2d 719

George M. BREIDERT, as Executor, etc., et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. SOUTHERN PACIFIC COMPANY et al., Defendants and Respondents.

L. A. 27222.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Aug. 20, 1964.

William Katz, Los Angeles, for plaintiffs and appellants.

Roger Arnebergh, City Atty., Bourke Jones and Ralph J. Eubank, Asst. City Attys., Charles W. Sullivan and Arthur Karma, Deputy City Attys., E. D. Yeomans and Walt A. Steiger, Los Angeles, for defendants and respondents.

TOBRINER, Justice.

In this case of inverse condemnation we must decide whether a property owner who loses the use of the next intersecting street which affords him access to the general system of public streets should be compensated. As we point out, although the bare allegation of a cul-de-sac does not in itself suffice to establish a compensable right, a showing of a substantial impairment of the property owner's right of access to the system of public streets does so. Since the complaint in this case alleges such substantial impairment, it withstands a general demurrer.

Plaintiffs are, respectively, the owners, lessors and lessee of a parcel of improved real property located in the City of Los Angeles. Fronting on Vaughn Street, which runs in an easterly and westerly direction, the property is situated at the soughteast corner of Vaughn and the right-of-way of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which runs north and south. Immediately to the west of the right-of-way and parallel to it, lies San Fernando Road. The property has been improved by a one-story factory building used for the manufacture of air-conditioning equipment.

At the time the plaintiffs acquired the property in 1953, and until 1959, Vaughn Street crossed the Sourthern Pacific right-of-way and intersected San Fernando Road. Plaintiffs and the public used this Vaughn Street crossing as a means of access to and from San Fernando Road. In April 1959 defendant placed barricades across Vaughn Street along the easterly and westerly lines of the right-of-way and closed the crossing.

We take judicial notice of the following facts, not pleaded in plaintiffs' amended complaint, but set forth in In re G. C. Breidert, Decision No. 61775 (1961) 58 Cal.P.U.C. 624 (unreported). By Decision Number 56398, March 25, 1958, the Public Utilities Commission authorized the City of Los Angeles to construct a grade crossing over the Southern Pacific right-of-way at Paxton Street, 1360 feet south of Vaughn Street, and ordered the Vaughn Street crossing closed. On November 17, 1959, the present plaintiffs requested the Public Utilities Commission to reopen the crossing, alleging that the closing resulted in hardship to the plaintiff company by depriving the company and its customers of access over the right-of-way at Vaughn Street.

After a hearing on plaintiffs' application the commission found that the Vaughn Street crossing ranked as 357th most hazardous of the approximately 4,500 crossings in Southern California. The commission concluded that 'it is in the public interest, considering both safety factors and the needs of the (defendants) to have Vaughn Street closed and we now find that there is insufficient need for a crossing at Vaughn Street to justify the risk involved.' On August 9, 1961, we denied plaintiffs' petition for writ of review of the Public Utilities Commission order. On March 30, 1962, plaintiffs initiated the present action for damages arising out of the closing of the crossing. The trial court sustained defendants' general demurrer to plaintiffs' amended complaint and entered judgments of dismissal as to both defendants. Plaintiffs appeal these judgments.

We initially dispose of two preliminary matters. First, defendants fail to sustain the contention that, since the Public Utilities Commission exercises exclusive jurisdiction to order the closing of railroad grade crossings, this court cannot adjudicate the present action. Plaintiffs do not seek an order to reopen the crossing; rather they demand damages for an invasion of a property right. The power to determine whether the plaintiffs have suffered a compensable invasion of their rights resides with the courts. (S. H. Chase Lumber Co. v. Railroad Com. (1931) 212 Cal. 691, 706, 300 P. 12; Bacich v. Board of Control (1943) 23 Cal.2d 343, 349, 144 P.2d 818.)

Second, defendant railroad erroneously urges that it is not a proper party defendant to the present action. Since defendant railroad was an active joint participant in closing the crossing, it is a proper party to the present litigation. (See Talbott v. Turlock Irr. Dist. (1933) 217 Cal. 504, 506, 19 P.2d 980; Eachus v. Los Angeles etc. Ry. Co. (1894) 103 Cal. 614, 621, 37 P. 750.)

The principal issue of the case resolves into whether the closing of the Vaughn Street crossing so impaired plaintiffs' right of access in that street as to constitute a taking or damaging of property entitling them to compensation. Plaintiffs' claim rests upon the provision of the California Constitution that private property may not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation (Cal.Const., art. I, § 14). Plaintiffs thus purport to state a cause of action in inverse condemnation. ¹

We have long recognized that the urban landowner enjoys property rights, additional to those which he exercises as a member of the public, in the street upon which his land abuts. Chief among these is an easement of access in such street. (People ex rel. Department of Public Works v. Symons (1960) 54 Cal.2d 855, 860, 9 Cal.Rptr. 363, 357 P.2d 451; People ex rel. Department of Public Works v. Russell (1957) 48 Cal.2d 189, 195, 309 P.2d 10; Bacich v. Board of Control, supra, 23 Cal.2d 343, 349-350, 144 P.2d 818; People v. Ricciardi (1943) 23 Cal.2d 390, 397, 144 P.2d 799; Rose v. State of California (1942) 19 Cal.2d 713, 727-728, 123 P.2d 505; Eachus v. Los Angeles etc. Ry. Co., supra, 103 Cal. 614, 617-618, 37 P. 750.) ² This easement consists of the right to get into the street upon which the landowner's property abuts and from there, in a reasonable manner, to the general system of public streets. (See Bacich v. Board of Control, supra, 23 Cal.2d 343, 351, 355, 144 P.2d 818; People ex rel. Department of Public Works v. Ayon (1960) 54 Cal.2d 217, 223, 5 Cal.Rptr. 151, 352 P.2d 519; Wolff v. City of Los Angeles (1920) 49 Cal.App. 400, 405, 193 P. 862; Warren v. Iowa State Highway Commission (1958) 250 Iowa 473, 93 N.W.2d 60, 67; Wilson v. Kansas City (Mo.1942) 162 S.W.2d 802, 804; State ex rel. State Highway Commission v. Silva (1963) 71 N.M. 350, 378 P.2d 595, 599; see generally Freeways and the Rights of Abutting Owners (1951) 3 Stan.L.Rev. 298, 302.)

To designate the right, however, is not to delineate its precise scope. Not every interference with the property owner's access to the street upon which his property abuts and not every impairmant of access, as such, to the general system of public streets constitutes a taking which entitles him to compensation. Such compensation must rest upon the property owner's showing of a substantial impairment of his right of access to the general system of public streets.

The determination of whether such substantial impairment has been established must be reached as a matter of law. The extent of such impairment must be fixed as a matter of fact. The cases have consistently held that the trial court must rule, as a matter of law, whether the interference with access constitutes a substantial or unreasonable impairment. ³ Thus in People v. Ricciardi, supra, 23 Cal.2d 390, 402-403, 144 P.2d 799, 805-806, we said: 'It was * * * within the province of the trial court and not the jury to pass upon the question whether under the facts presented, the defendants' right of access will be substantially impaired. If it will be so impaired the extent of the impairment is for the jury to determine. This is but another way of saying that the trial court and not the jury must decide whether in the particular case there will be an actionable interference with the defendants' right of access.' ⁴

Substantial impairment cannot be fixed by abstract definition; it must be found in each case upon the basis of the factual situation. ⁵ 'While certain general rules have been set forth in the various decisions which have considered the nature and scope of this right, each case must be considered upon its own facts.' (People v. Russell, supra, 48 Cal.2d at p. 195, 309 P.2d at p. 14).

Plaintiffs contend, however, that Bacich v. Board of Control, supra, 23 Cal.2d 343, 144 P.2d 818, compels a holding that owners, such as plaintiffs in the instant case, whose access to the next intersecting street in one direction is severed, suffer substantial impairment as a matter of law. The holding in Bacich is not so broad. Bacich arose upon a demurrer to the plaintiff's complaint alleging that plaintiff should recover damages bacause a street improvement deprived him of access to the next intersecting street in one direction. The court decided only that a complaint which alleges impairment of access to the next intersecting street in one direction does not succumb to a demurrer by reason of that allegation. The court recognized that although the right of access consists essentially of a right to get into the street upon which one's property abuts, and to travel in a reasonable manner from there to the general system of public streets (23 Cal.2d at pp. 351, 355, 144 P.2d 818), it also includes a 'right to pass to the next intersecting streets.' (Id. 23 Cal.2d at p. 352, 144 P.2d at p. 824.) The court declared, 'It would seem clear that the reasonable modes of egress and ingress embrace access to the next intersecting street in both directions.' (Id. 23 Cal.2d at p. 352, 144 P.2d at p. 832.)

The recognition that the easement of access includes a right not only to reach the general system of public streets, but to do...