Gale v. City of Jackson

• Decision Date: 09 May 1960
• Docket Number: No. 41500,41500
• Citation: 238 Miss. 826,120 So.2d 550
• Parties: Mrs. Freeland GALE et al. v. CITY OF JACKSON, Mississippi, et al.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 550

120 So.2d 550

238 Miss. 826

Mrs. Freeland GALE et al. v. CITY OF JACKSON, Mississippi, et al.

No. 41500.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

May 9, 1960.

Young, Daniel & Coker, Jackson, for appellants.

E. W. Stennett, W. T. Neely, Young, Daniel & Coker, Jackson, for appellees.

McGEHEE, Chief Justice.

On September 15, 1942 the Secretary of War of the United States, Henry L. Stimson, filed a petition for the condemnation of the fee simple title to 26.92 acres of land in the City of Jackson to provide for the expansion of a military airfield, and for other military uses pertaining thereto.

The petition for condemnation recited that the estate to be taken for said public uses 'is the full fee simple title thereto, subject, however, to existing easements for public roads and highways, for public utilities, for railroads and for pipe lines.'

The amount estimated to be fair compensation to the owner, Freeland Gale, for this particular tract of land was the sum of $5,325, which was paid into the registry of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, Jackson Division. The amount of the award had been submitted to a jury in the said Court. The landowner, Freeland Gale, filed no pleadings or other objections to the proposed condemnation of the land, but accepted the award of compensation in the said sum of $5,325.

The said Freeland Gale departed this life on March 28, 1945 and this suit is brought by his widow, Mrs. Freeland Gale, and by her two adult daughters, Mrs. Robert Joel and Mrs. Herbert Page, resident citizens of the State of New York, who were the sole heirs at law and devisees under the last will and testament of the said Freeland Gale, deceased.

The bill of complaint herein alleged that the complainants were entitled to have canceled as a cloud upon their title a deed of conveyance executed on January 11, 1949 by the United States of America to the City of Jackson, Mississippi, on the ground that the title of said 26.92 acres of land has reverted to them by reason of the fact that the same has ceased to be used for airport purposes or other military uses. The City of Jackson, pursuant to its authority so to do, appointed the Jackson Airport Commission and such Commission is also made a party to this suit.

The petition for the condemnation of the said parcel of land was filed under the provisions of the following Acts of Congress: Act approved August 1, 1888 (25 Stat. 357), 40 U.S.C.A. § 257, and acts supplementary thereto and amendatory thereof: Act approved August 18, 1890 (26 Stat. 316) as amended by the Acts of Congress approved July 2, 1917 (40 Stat. 241) and April 11, 1918 (40 Stat. 518, 50 U.S.C. § 171) ¹ and March 27, 1942 (Public Law 507, 77th Congress), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 631 et seq., the Act of Congress approved August 12, 1935 (49 Stat. 610, 611; 10 U.S.C. §§ 1343a- 1343c), ² and the Act of Congress approved December 17, 1941 (Public Law 353, 77th Congress), 55 Stat. 810.

The petition in condemnation expressly states that: 'The interest and title in and to the above described lands to be acquired by the United States of America in this proceeding is the full fee simple title, subject however to the existing easements for public roads and highways, for public utilities, for railroads, and for pipe lines.' It then asks that 'such other and further orders, judgments and decrees as may be necessary to divest each and every interest and estate in said lands out of all other persons and vest the fee simple title, subject to exceptions hereinbefore mentioned, in and to the above described lands in the United States of America, and that upon payment of said award into the Registry of the Court that same be disbursed to the parties entitled thereto, * * *.'

After accepting the award made by the jury in the sum of $5,325, the said Freeland Gale took no appeal from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, Jackson Division, rendered on May 8, 1943.

The cases of Wise v. Yazoo City, 96 Miss. 507, 51 So. 453, 26 L.R.A., N.S., 1130; Ferguson v. Board of Supervisors of Wilkinson County, 149 Miss. 623, 115 So. 779; Nicholson v. Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners, 203 Miss. 71, 33 So.2d 604; Whitworth v. Mississippi State Highway Commission, 203 Miss. 94, 33 So.2d 612; Berry v. Southern Pine Electric Power Association, 222 Miss. 260, 76 So.2d 212, 58 A.L.R.2d 508, all sustain the well settled rule in Mississippi that where a creature of the legislature such as a levee board, state highway commission and other governmental agencies and subdivisions are seeking to condemn land, they may acquire only such an estate as provided for by the statute and is needed for the purposes and uses for which the land is to be condemned, and the rule is that the petition of eminent domain in such cases should be construed favorably to the landowner and strictly against the condemnor.

But in the instant case, where the right of eminent domain was exercised by the sovereign government of the United States under the federal statutes hereinbefore mentioned, the federal government determines the estate needed for the purposes for which the land is condemned, and the decision of the federal government that the land to be condemned is needed for public purposes of the government cannot be questioned. When the Secretary of War selected the parcel of land involved in this suit for airport and other military uses, his decision that it was needed for that purpose is not subject to review, where the government makes an award of fair compensation to the landowner.

In the case of United States v. Carmack, 329 U.S. 230, 67 S.Ct. 252, 255, 91 L.Ed. 209, it is said: 'The power of eminent domain is essential to a sovereign government. It the United States has determined its need for certain land for a public use that is within its federal...