Hale v. Sullivan
| Decision Date | 22 May 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 19749,19749 |
| Citation | 146 Colo. 512,362 P.2d 402 |
| Parties | L. R. HALE, County Clerk and Recorder of Montrose County, Plaintiff in Error, v. Fred SULLIVAN, Don E. Watson and Irwin Z. Corey, the Board of County Commissioners of the County of Montrose, Defendants in Error. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Bryant, Petrie, Waldeck & King, Montrose, for plaintiff in error.
J. A. Hughes, Montrose, for defendants in error.
Plaintiff in error, who was defendant in the trial court, seeks review of a judgment upholding a proposal authorizing the county commissioners of Montrose County to issue bonds in the amount of $100,000 for airport purposes at Nucla and Montrose, Colorado. A declaratory judgment suit was filed by the board of county commissioners against the plaintiff in error as County Clerk of Montrose County alleging that the above described proposal had been submitted in an election held November 8, 1960 and was passed by a vote of 2,235 in favor to 1,158 votes against; that thereafter plaintiffs adopted a resolution directing the defendant to publish and sign a notice of sale of the authorized bonds. Defendant refused to sign the notice, and in his answer, although admitting all of the facts alleged in the complaint, asserted existence of a question as to the validity of the authorizing statute, C.R.S. '53, 36-6-1.
Defendant contends that Article XI, Section 6 of the Constitution of Colorado prohibits contracting by a county of a debt except for the purpose of erecting necessary public buildings, making or repairing public roads and bridges. The answer further alleges that some of the funds were to be used for the acquisition and building of landing strips, airports and approaches thereto, and that it thus violates the cited constitutional provision.
Following trial to the court an opinion was rendered upholding the statute and concluding that the term 'road' is not restricted to automobile or other similar ways, but includes airport facilities as well. The undisputed facts found by the trial court furnish a concise summary of the important elements in the case:
'1. That the county owned the Montrose and Nucla airports;
'2. That such facilities were a necessary and integral part of the modern transportation system in the county;
'3. That such airports were not only dedicated to the public use, but they were used by the public indiscriminately;
'4. That there was an urgent and necessary need for the repairs and improvements to such airport facilities estimated to cost $209,076 (50% to be paid by the federal government), and
In support of his contention that the judgment should be reversed, plaintiff in error argues:
First, that the county, being a political subdivision of the state, has no inherent power to contract indebtedness and that bonds can be issued only in accordance with valid legislative authorization.
Secondly, that the constitutional provision restricting county authority to indebtedness contracted for roads, bridges and buildings is not susceptible to a construction authorizing the building of airports or airport facilities.
The commissioners contend that the framers of the constitution did not intend the terms used in the provision now before us to be limited to the transportation facilities then in existence; that even though they were unaware of the airplane and its necessary service facilities, they nevertheless intended to grant to counties the authority to build any type of way necessary to facilitate public transportation. They say the term 'road' is a broad generic term, not restricted to the animal drawn vehicle or even to the automobile.
The statutory provision in question, C.R.S. '53, 36-6-1, reads:
'When the county commissioners of any county shall deem it necessary to create an indebtedness for the purpose of erecting necessary public buildings, making or repairing public roads or bridges, acquiring or building or acquiring and building airports and landing strips, including the necessary land therefor, and approaches thereto, by an order entered of record specifying the amount required and the object for which such debt is created, they may submit the question to a vote of the people at a general election; * * *'
The exact terms of the constitutional provision, Article XI, Section 6, which is said to invalidate the above enactment as applied to the proposal now before us, are as follows:
'No county shall contract any debt by loan in any form except for the purpose of erecting necessary public buildings, making or repairing public roads and bridges; * * *.'
There is a dearth of authority in Colorado on the exact question which is whether a constitutional provision such as the quoted one prohibits the incurring of indebtedness for airport purposes. This Court has recognized that the acquiring of land for an airport is public in its nature and that a city has authority to build an airport outside its municipal boundaries. See City and County Denver v. Board of Commissioners of Arapahoe County, 113 Colo. 150, 156 P.2d 101. This recognition of the airport as a necessary public institution has been generally accepted.
In 1944 in his work on Airports and the Courts, (p. 18) Rhyne wrote:
'With the end of the war there will be expansion and development in the aviation field far beyond anything now within the imagination of many who are considered farsighted today. The 'air age' has arrived. A community which expects to keep up with the progress of mankind must be served by an adequate airport to meet the community's needs from this rapidly developing new means of transportation. The need for more airports and for larger and better airports is an accepted fact. Regardless of technical developments, the airport will continue as the keystone of aviation as all airplanes must take off and land on either land or water. Airports must therefore increase in size and number to meet the needs of the 'air age."
The Missouri Supreme Court in the case of Dysart v. City of St. Louis, 321 Mo. 514, 11 S.W.2d 1045, 62 A.L.R. 762, in...
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McIntyre v. BOARD OF COUNTY COM'RS, 02SC803.
...public had used for recreational access for the twenty year statutory period. Id. at 1300. Our previous decision in Hale v. Sullivan, 146 Colo. 512, 362 P.2d 402 (1961), provided for a broad definition of "road." In Simon we adopted a more restrictive definition. We held that the legislatur......
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Simon v. Pettit
...prohibiting counties from contracting debt "except for the purpose of ... making or repairing public roads." 3 Hale v. Sullivan, 146 Colo. 512, 362 P.2d 402 (1961). The word "road," we said, "is a generic term and includes overland ways of every character; the scope to be given it, dependin......
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Barker v. Bd. of Cty. Com'Rs of Cty. of La Plata, CIV.A. 97-B-1912.
...earlier decision "that the scope to be given the word [`road'] depends upon the context in which it appears," see Hale v. Sullivan, 146 Colo. 512, 518, 362 P.2d 402, 405 (1961), indicated that it did "not believe that the legislature intended an eighteen-inch footpath in a populated, reside......
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Board of County Com'rs for Garfield County, Colo. v. W.H.I., Inc., s. 92-1070
...an earlier decision "that the scope to be given the word ["road"] depends upon the context in which it appears," see Hale v. Sullivan, 146 Colo. 512, 362 P.2d 402 (1961), indicated that it did "not believe that the legislature intended an eighteen-inch footpath in a populated, residential, ......
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Chapter 32 - § 32.1 • INTRODUCTION
...v. Pettit, 687 P.2d 1299 (Colo. 1984); McIntyre v. Bd. of County Comm'rs, Gunnison County, 86 P.3d 402 (Colo. 2004). See Hale v. Sullivan, 362 P.2d 402 (Colo. 1961) (airport runways are public roads under Colo. Const. art. XI, § 6). But see Barker v. Bd. of County Comm'rs, 49 F. Supp. 2d 12......