Evergreen Cemetery Ass'n v. Beecher
| Decision Date | 02 February 1886 |
| Citation | 53 Conn. 551,5 A. 353 |
| Parties | EVERGREEN CEMETERY ASS'N v. BEECHER and others. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Demurrer to complaint asking to take land for cemetery purposes by right of eminent domain.
S. E. Baldwin, for defendants.
Ailing & Webb, for plaintiff.
This is a complaint asking leave to take land for cemetery purposes by right of eminent domain. The case has been reserved for our advice. The plaintiff is the owner of a cemetery, and desires to enlarge it by taking several adjoining pieces of land, each owned by a different person, and has made these owners joint defendants. Because of this joinder they demur. But we think that it is in harmony with our practice in analogous proceedings, and with the spirit of the practice act; that it promotes speedy, complete, and inexpensive justice, without placing any obstruction in the way of any defendant in protecting his rights. Each carries his own burden only. He is not made to carry that of any of his associates. Therefore the complaint, so far forth as this objection is concerned, is sufficient.
The safety of the living requires the burial of the dead in proper time and place; and, inasmuch as it may so happen that no individual may be willing to sell land for such use, of necessity there must remain to the public the right to acquire and use it under such regulations as a proper respect for the memory of the dead and the feelings of survivors demand.
In order to secure for burial-places, during a period extending indefinitely into the future, that degree of care universally demanded, the legislature permits associations to exist, with power to discharge, in behalf and for the benefit of the public, the duty of providing, maintaining, and protecting them. The use of land by them for this purpose does not cease to be a public use because they require varying sums for rights to bury in different localities; not even if the cost of the right is the practical exclusion of some. Corporations take land by right of eminent domain primarily for the benefit of the public; incidentally for the benefit of themselves. As a rule, men are not allowed to ride in cars, or pass along turnpikes, or cross toll-bridges, or have grain ground at the mill, without making compensation. One man asks and pays for a single seat in a car, and another for a special train. All have rights. Each pays in proportion to his use. And some are excluded because of their inability to pay for any...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Carofano v. City of Bridgeport
...be available to the general public. Connecticut College v. Calvert, 87 Conn. 421, 427-28, 88 A. 633 (1913); cf. Evergreen Cemetery Assn. v. Beecher, 53 Conn. 551, 5 A. 353 (1886); Todd v. Austin, 34 Conn. 78, 89-91 (1867); New York, N.H. & H.R. Co. v. Long, 69 Conn. 424, 435, 37 A. 1070 (18......
-
Kelo v. City of New London
...by the courts in accordance with the facts of the particular case in hand." Id., 428. The court relied on Evergreen Cemetery Assn. v. Beecher, 53 Conn. 551, 552-53, 5 A. 353 (1886), in which this court refused to permit a private cemetery association to take land by eminent domain for cemet......
-
The Great Western Natural Gas And Oil Co. v. Hawkins
... ... 761; Sadler v. Langham, 34 ... Ala. 311; In re Deansville Cemetery Assn., 66 N.Y ... 569, 23 Am. Rep. 86; Bankhead v. Brown, 25 ... v. Redd, 33 ... W.Va. 262, 10 S.E. 405; Evergreen Cem. Assn. v ... Beecher, 53 Conn. 551, 5 A. 353; Wisconsin Water ... ...
-
Gohld Realty Co. v. City of Hartford
...College for Women v. Calvert, 87 Conn. 421, 88 A. 633, 48 L.R.A.,N.S., 485, and to a lesser extent upon Evergreen Cemetery Ass'n of New Haven v. Beecher, 53 Conn. 551, 5 A. 353. Neither of these cases is in point. In the former, it was held that the power of eminent domain could not be gran......