Fairchild v. City of St. Paul

• Decision Date: 17 July 1891
• Citation: 46 Minn. 540,49 N.W. 325
• Parties: FAIRCHILD ET AL. v CITY OF ST. PAUL.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

46 Minn. 540

49 N.W. 325

FAIRCHILD ET AL.vCITY OF ST. PAUL.¹

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 17, 1891.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. Where the use is a public one, the legislature is the exclusive judge of the amount of land, and of the estate therein, which the public end to be subserved requires to be taken. Hence it was competent for it to authorize the city of St. Paul to condemn the title in fee-simple of land for public streets.

2. But the title which the city acquires in such cases is what may be termed a “qualified or terminable fee” for street purposes only, and which it holds, not as proprietor, but as an agency of the state, in trust for the public for street purposes, and which it can neither sell nor devote to a private use.

3. The city charter contemplates that the measure of compensation shall be commensurate with the nature and extent of the estate taken, and hence is not repugnant to the constitutional prohibition against taking private property for a public use without compensation.

4. Where the fee of land is taken for street purposes, the compensation paid is a part of the cost of a “local improvement,” for which “assessments” may be levied upon the property to be benefited.

5. The description of the land proposed to be condemned in this case held sufficient.

6. The time specified for the publication of any notice under the city charter commences with the first publication. Sp. Laws 1885, c. 7, § 20.

7. If full 15 days' notice of the time and place of the meeting of the board of public works to make the assessment and award of benefits and damages is given before the meeting, and near enough to the date thereof to reasonably answer the purpose designed, it is sufficient, although the date of the first publication is more than 15 days before the meeting. Orders of the city council to the board of public works are merely directions to an executive department of the city government, and do not come within the provision of the charter requiring ordinances, resolutions, and by-laws to be published in the city paper before they shall take effect.

8. Where the “benefits” assesses are equal to the damages awarded, so that nothing is payable to the land-owner for the land taken for a local improvement, it is not necessary that the notice required by Mun. Code 1884, § 154, should be given before the city takes possession of the property condemned.

9. Held, also, that in this case there was a sufficient designation of St. Paul Daily Globe as the official paper of the city.

Appeal from district court, Ramsey county; KELLY, Judge.

C. H. Benedict, (S. Duffield Mitchell, of counsel,) for appellants.

Daniel W. Lawler and Herman W. Phillips, for respondent.

MITCHELL, J.

This was an action to recover damages for certain alleged acts of trespass in removing stone from the premises of the plaintiffs. The defendant justified the acts on the ground that it had acquired the title to the land for the purposes of a public street. The case was tried upon the theory that its decision depended on the question whether or not the city of St. Paul had acquired a title in fee, and by stipulation it was agreed that the court should determine two questions, viz.: First, had the defendant the power and right to condemn the fee of land for street purposes? and, if so, second, had the defendant duly condemned, for such purposes, the fee of the land in question?

The main contention of the plaintiffs upon the argument was, to use their own language, “that the public exigencies do not demand the taking and condemnation of the absolute fee-simple title to land for the purpose of highways and streets; that the public wants are supplied by the enjoyment of an easement; and that any act of the legislature which assumes and attempts to authorize a municipality to take and condemn the absolute fee-simple title to land for such purposes is unconstitutional and void.” More briefly stated, the proposition is that the legislature cannot authorize the taking of any greater estate in land for a public use than is necessary; that an estate in fee is not necessary for the purposes of a street; therefore the legislature cannot authorize the taking of such an estate for such purposes. While we have given the question the careful examination due to the elaborate brief and very earnest argument of the learned counsel, yet it has never seemed to us that there was anything in his contention. In this case it must be conceded that the legislature, if it had the power to do so, has given the city of St. Paul authority to condemn an estate in fee for street purposes; the language of the charter being: “In all cases the land taken and condemned in the manner aforesaid [for streets] shall be vested absolutely in the city of St. Paul in fee-simple.” Mun. Code 1884, § 153. There is nothing better settled than that, the power of eminent domain being an incident of sovereignty, the time, manner, and occasion of its exercise are wholly in the control and discretion of the legislature, except as restrained by the constitution. It rests in the wisdom of the legislature to determine when and in what manner the public necessities require its exercise; and with the reasonableness of the exercise of that discretion the courts will not interfere. Wilkin v. Railway Co., 16 Minn. 271, (Gil. 244;) Weir v. Railway Co., 18 Minn. 155, (Gil. 139.) As the legislature is the sole judge of the public necessity which requires or renders expedient the exercise of the power of eminent domain, so it is the exclusive judge of the amount of land, and of the estate in land, which the public end to be subserved requires shall be taken. The only limitation-at least, the only one applicable to a case like the present-which the constitution imposes upon the exercise of the right of eminent domain by the legislature is that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation therefor first paid or secured. Of course, there is the further limitation, necessarily implied, that the use shall be a public one; upon which question the determination of the legislature is not conclusive upon the courts. But, when the use is public, the necessity or expediency of appropriating any particular property is not a subject of judicial cognizance. Consequently, if in the legislative judgment it is expedient to do so, it has the power expressly to authorize a municipal corporation compulsorily to acquire the absolute fee-simple to lands of private persons condemned for street or any other public purpose. The authorities are so numerous and uniform to this effect that an extended citation of them is unnecessary. See, however, 2 Dill. Mun. Corp. § 589; Cooley, Const. Lim. 688; Lewis, Em. Dom. § 277; Elliott, Roads & S. 172; Mills, Em. Dom. §§ 50, 51; Boom Co. v. Patterson, 98 U. S. 403-406;Sweet v. Railway Co., 79 N. Y. 293-299.

It is often laid down as the law that the taking of property must always be limited to the necessity of the case, and, consequently, no more can be appropriated in any instance than is needed for the particular use for which the appropriation is made. But it will be found that this is almost invariably said, not in discussing the extent of the power of the...