Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co. v. Pan American Airways, Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 May 1939
• Citation: 137 Fla. 808,188 So. 820
• Parties: CENTRAL HANOVER BANK & TRUST CO. et al. v. PAN AMERICAN AIRWAYS, Inc.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

188 So. 820

137 Fla. 808

CENTRAL HANOVER BANK & TRUST CO. et al. v. PAN AMERICAN AIRWAYS, Inc.

Florida Supreme Court

May 2, 1939

Rehearing Denied May 31, 1939.

Error to Circuit Court, Dade County; Paul D. Barns, Judge.

Condemnation proceeding by the Pan American Airways, Incorporated, against the Central Hanover Bank & Trust Company, a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of New York, Hamlin F. Andrus, as trustee, and William H. Taylor, as successor trustee. To review a judgment for the plaintiff defendants bring error.

Affirmed.

WHITFIELD and CHAPMAN, JJ., dissenting in part.

COUNSEL

Shutts & Bowen and L. S. Julian, all of Miami, and L'Engle & Shands and E. McCarthy, Jr., both of Jacksonville (Crate D. Bowen, of Miami, of counsel), for plaintiffs in error.

J. E Yonge and S. P. Robineau, both of Miami, and H. J. Friendly of New York City, for defendant in error.

OPINION

THOMAS Justice.

In March, 1927, and defendant in error, Pan American Airways, Incorporated, filed in the office of the Secretary of State of the State of New York its certificate of incorporation pursuant to the provisions of the Stock Corporation Law N.Y. Consol. Laws, c. 59.

Among the purposes given for the formation of the Corporation were the conduct of a general aviation business; the development of air transportation; the instruction of pilots; the promotion of test flights, aerial photography, mapping and dusting 'and all other pursuits in which aircraft can be lawfully used'; the dealing in airplanes and accessories; and the purchase, lease or other acquisition of property of all kinds. August 20, 1928, the defendant in error qualified to do business in the State of Florida by presenting to the Secretary of State an authenticated copy of its charter and paying the required fees.

From September 15, 1927, until October 29, 1928, defendant in error maintained its business of transporting passengers, mail and cargo between Key West and Havana and then transferred its Florida terminus to Thirty-Sixth Street in the city of Miami. During this period land airports were used.

In 1930 the Florida terminus was again moved, this time to its present location on Dinner Key, the site of which is involved in this litigation. Meanwhile the activities of the defendant in error had greatly expanded from a few ships flying between Key West and Havana to a fleet of large seaplanes operating between Miami, the sole terminus in the United States, and points in the British West Indies, Central and South America.

The apparent reason for a change in the type of planes used by defendant in error was the superiority of seaplanes over land planes in negotiating vast distances over water between the various termini and the employment of such equipment made it imperative to substitute a landing place on water for the airport at Thirty-Sixth Street. To that end defendant in error sent its chief airport engineer to make a survey of available locations suitable to future needs.

According to the statement in the brief filed by counsel for defendant in error, the engineer reported 'several available sites', but that the one on Dinner Key was most practical. Therefore, efforts to purchase having failed, a lease was executed in January, 1931, by the parties to this suit.

Briefly, the lease was for a period of five years at $1 per annum and the payment of taxes by lessee. It was stipulated that it could be renewed by successive extensions, at the rentals to be computed as provided therein, until September 30, 1980, or fifty years after its original execution.

The lessee has since its occupancy improved the property to meet the requirements of a growing transportation business. It is said that tremandous increase of traffic made additional facilities, including a terminal building, imperative, and that:

'There were obvious objections to the construction of an improvement of this character on real estate on which the company had only a leasehold tenure. Accordingly, on August 16, 1933, by resolution of the Executive Committee of its Board of Directors, * * * it determined to acquire title to the Dinner Key property through eminent domain, thereby adjudging and declaring the acquisition of such property to be necessary.' (Italics supplied.)

When the above lease became effective a part of the tract was subleased to the city of Miami and county of Dade. Later the county and city subleased a portion of the tract held by them to the United States for the use of the Coast Guard. The sublessees are not made parties to this suit.

The petition to condemn the fee simple title of the entire tract, including the land which the city of Miami and county of Dade held by virtue of the sublease, was filed January 3, 1935, and therein it was alleged:

'4. That the purpose of the taking of said property is to hold, occupy and develop the same as an air terminal and seaplane base for use in the operations of your petitioner as a common carrier in its international air commerce in the transportation for hire between fixed terminii and on fixed schedules, of mail, passengers and express between Miami, Florida, the West Indies, Central America and South America, and that all of said above described property is necessary to your petitioner for that purpose.

'5. That the right, title or estate sought by your Petitioner to be acquired in said property is the fee simple title therein.'

After the pleadings had been settled an inquiry was conducted by the Circuit Judge, without the aid of a jury, to determine the right of petitioner to condemn. Upon careful analysis of the evidence the able Circuit Judge found that the process of eminent domain was available in Florida to the petitioner, a corporation of New York, and that expropriation was necessary for a public use. He adjudged the petitioner entitled to the appropriation upon paying full compensation to be fixed by a jury of twelve men.

At this point we reach the consideration of what appear to be two vital questions, that is, the right of this particular corporation, organized as it is, to condemn, and its authority to take by eminent domain the specific property involved in this controversy.

Plaintiffs in error challenge the constitutionality of Chapter 15928 of the Laws of Florida, Acts of 1933, because the subject is not disclosed by the title and would not put a reader upon notice of its true contents. Section 5102, C.G.L.1927, which was attempted to be amended by the above Section 15928, reads:

'The right obtained [in condemnation] by the petitioner under the provisions of this Article shall be a right only to use the property taken for the purposes specified, and shall be held to create an easement, and not a fee simple in the property taken.'

The title to the amendatory act follows:

'An Act to Amend Section 3294, Revised General Statutes of Florida, 1920, Relating to the Rights Obtained by the Petitioner in Condemnation Proceedings, the Same Being Section 5102, Compiled General Laws of Florida, 1927'.

The Section referred to in the title is amended to read:

"3294. (2026) Rights of Petitioner.--The petitioner shall state in the prayer of the petition what right, title or estate is sought in the property to be condemned, whether an easement, an estate for years, or the fee simple title, and the verdict and judgment of condemnation shall vest in the petitioner the right, title or estate prayed for in the petition, except that in condemnation of rights-of-way only an easement shall be prayed for or condemned."

We believe that the criticism of the title to the act is not well founded and not supported by the decision in State ex rel. Bonsteel v. Allen, 83 Fla. 214, 91 So. 104, 105, 26 A.L.R. 735, where it was said:

'The contention that the act violates section 16, article 3 of the Constitution we decided adversely to the petitioner. Where the title of an act amendatory of the Revised General Statutes gives the numbers of the sections of the law designed to be amended, and also briefly expresses the general subject embraced in such sections, if they have a common connection with the general subject, it is sufficient notice to the Legislature and to the public as reasonably to lead to an inquiry into the body of the bill to ascertain what changes are proposed in the existing law, and anything germane to the general subject expressed in the title may be included in the act. Stockes v. Galloway, 61 Fla. 437, 54 So. 799.' 91 So. text 105.

It will be recalled that the caption complained of refers to the number the statute bears in the Compiled General Laws of 1927 as well as the Revised General Statutes of 1920, and that, too, it directs attention to the fact that the section pertains to rights obtained in condemnation. This seems to be sufficiently definite to lead the public and the legislature to inquiry as to what, by judgment in eminent domain, a petitioner might procure.

It cannot be successfully maintained that the title shrouded the real subject dealt with in the act, nor that it would deceive a reader of it.

We approach the matter of the authority of defendant in error, a corporation organized under the general Stock Corporation Law of New York, to acquire any property in Florida by eminent domain. The Circuit Judge found that they could not have exercised such power in the State of origin, but that such right was given them here.

In 1933, after the defendant in error had entered upon the property under the lease and after the execution of the subleases, the legislature, by statute, Chapter 15862 delegated, to 'All * * * corporations engaged in air commerce in the transportation of mail, freight, express and/or passengers by aircraft between fixed...