Schnider v. State
| Decision Date | 21 February 1952 |
| Citation | 241 P.2d 1,38 Cal.2d 439,43 A.L.R.2d 1068 |
| Parties | , 43 A.L.R.2d 1068 SCHNIDER et ux. v. STATE. L. A. 21672. |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
Reuben Rosensweig and Irl D. Brett, Los Angeles, for appellants.
Robert E. Reed, Sacramento, George C. Hadley, John N. McLaurin, Herbert J. Williams, Los Angeles, Harry S. Fenton, Sacramento, and Albert J. Day, Los Angeles, for respondent.
This inverse condemnation proceeding was brought by plaintiffs to recover damages for the taking of claimed rights of access to Olympic Boulevard, a state highway in the city of Santa Monica. In 1945 the California Highway Commission adopted a resolution authorizing the reconstruction of a portion of the boulevard as a limited freeway. The ares here involved as it appeared at that time is shown by the accompanying map.
In 1947 plaintiffs purchased lots 127 and 130, which did not abut on the boulevard until it was subsequently widened for use as a freeway. Prior to that time lots 128 and 129, which were acquired by the state from other persons for highway purposes, intervened between plaintiffs' property and the boulevard. The construction of the freeway was commenced about March 1, 1948, and some time thereafter the state erected a fence along the common boundary line between plaintiffs' property and the freeway, thereby barring direct access from one to the other.
Plaintiffs obtained a judgment for damages due to changes in the grade, which included compensation for loss of access to Olympic Boulevard by way of cross streets bordering upon plaintiffs' lots. The trial court, however, refused to allow plaintiffs compensation for the loss of an asserted right of direct access, and they have appealed from the portion of the judgment which denied them such recovery.
It is clear from the record that there was no right of direct access to Olympic Boulevard from lots 127 and 130 when the resolution of the California Highway Commission was adopted. It is also clear that such a right did not arise upon the acquisition of the intervening property by the state for highway purposes. Accordingly, we are not concerned with a situation in which the owner of property abutting upon a conventional highway is deprived of direct access when it is rebuilt as a freeway. Nor does this case involve the question of what rights of access plaintiffs would have acquired if the boulevard had been widened and rebuilt as a conventional highway. The sole issue before us is whether plaintiffs acquired a right of direct access as a result of the construction of the freeway.
Freeways are designed to provide rapid transit for through traffic, uninterrupted by vehicles or pedestrians from private roads and intersecting streets, and the word 'freeway,' as used in the Streets and Highways Code, means a highway with respect to which owners of abutting lands have no rights of access or only limited rights of access. Sts. & Hy.Code, § 23.5. The Streets and Highways Code furnishes ample authorization for the construction of a freeway on land where no public way existed before without creating rights of direct access in favor of other property which, prior to the new construction, had no such rights of access. Sts. & Hy.Code, §§ 100.1, 100.2, 100.3. The provision of section 100.3 that a declaration creating a freeway 'shall not affect private property rights of access, and any such rights taken or damaged within the meaning of Article I, section 14, of the State Constitution * * * shall be acquired in a manner provided by law', plainly refers to rights of access which exist prior to the establishment of the freeway and not to claimed rights which have had no previous existence and which could come into being, it at all, only by virtue of the new construction.
Where a property owner has no right of direct access to a highway before it is converted...
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Brock v. State Highway Commission
...existed, there is no taking of a right of access since such right of access never in fact existed. See Schnider v. State of California, 38 Cal.2d 439, 241 P.2d 1, 43 A.L.R.2d 1068; State ex rel. State Highway Comm. v. Clevenger, 365 Mo. 970, 291 S.W.2d 57; State Highway Comm. v. Burk et al.......
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