Patterson v. City of Duluth
| Decision Date | 30 April 1875 |
| Citation | 21 Minn. 493 |
| Parties | Orville K. Patterson & another v. City of Duluth and others |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal by plaintiffs from an order of the district court for St Louis county, McKelvey, J., presiding, sustaining a demurrer to the complaint.
The order appealed from affirmed.
Setzer & Thompson, for appellants.
Robt. G. Terry and Geo. Gray, for respondents.
The city of Duluth, by its charter, is authorized "to construct, or authorize any individual or corporation to construct, canals connecting Lake Superior with Superior Bay," etc. Under this authority, the defendants constructed a canal across Minnesota Point, between Lake Superior and Superior Bay, and within the corporate limits of the city, which canal cuts Lake avenue and Minnesota avenue two streets which run along the point. The plaintiffs own lots abutting on these streets, outside of the canal, and near to it. The canal obstructs the passage along these streets, from the main part of the city of Duluth to that part of it which lies on the point outside of the canal. The two causes of action set out in the complaint, the demurrer to which was sustained by the order appealed from, allege injury to the value of plaintiffs' lots, and to their business conducted on and by means of the lots, as a consequence of the obstruction to passage along the streets mentioned, between plaintiffs' lots and the main part of the city.
The canal having been constructed under authority from the sovereign, it is not, unless improperly constructed or maintained, -- and there is no allegation in these two causes of action that it was, -- a public nuisance. The question, therefore, does not arise, when an individual may recover for injuries sustained by reason of an act which amounts to a public wrong.
The plaintiffs claim, in their argument here, that they have, as appurtenant to their lots, an easement or right of way, distinct from that of the public, over and along these streets, and that the construction of the canal across them, because it interrupts their enjoyment of the easement, amounts to an appropriation of it to public use, and that this cannot be done until compensation is made.
The only assertion of an easement in the complaint is to be gathered from the allegations, "that these plaintiffs purchased the said lots in the year 1869, according to the original plat of the town of Upper Duluth, as the said town is surveyed and platted, and the plat thereof recorded in the office of the register of deeds for St. Louis county; that the said lots or parcels of land are bounded on the north by Lake avenue, and on the south by Minnesota avenue; that the said Lake avenue and...
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Bowers v. Mississippi & Rum River Boom Company
...respondent to place this piling in the Mississippi river, and that which the law authorized cannot be a nuisance. Patterson v. City of Duluth, 21 Minn. 493; Miller v. Mayor of New York, 109 U.S. 385; v. Turck, 95 U.S. 459; Transportation Co. v. Chicago, 99 U.S. 635. The piling was placed in......