State ex rel. Herman v. Electrical Dist. No. 2 of Pinal County
| Decision Date | 24 September 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 10092,10092 |
| Citation | 106 Ariz. 242,474 P.2d 833 |
| Parties | STATE of Arizona, ex rel., Justin HERMAN, Director, Arizona Highway Department, Appellant, v. ELECTRICAL DISTRICT NO. 2 OF PINAL COUNTY, Arizona, a body corporate, Appellee. |
| Court | Arizona Supreme Court |
Gary K. Nelson, Atty. Gen., Phoenix, by Stanley Z. Goodfarb and Robert V. Kerrick, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellant.
Lewis, Roca, Beauchamp & Linton, by John P. Frank and John A. Miller, Phoenix, for appellee.
This case is before us on a petition to review a decision of the Court of Appeals (12 Ariz.App. 222, 469 P.2d 114) reversing a decision of the superior court. Decision of the Court of Appeals vacated, and judgment of the superior court affirmed.
The matter was heard by the court without a jury. The complaint was in eminent domain praying for title to the land needed to widen a public road. Defendant, Electrical District #2 of Pinal County, hereinafter referred to as ED, claimed a vested interest in part of the land to be condemned. It was stipulated that the cost of moving the power lines and poles was approximately $16,000; that ED would move them; and that the sole issue in the case would be whether the state should reimburse ED for the moving costs.
In 1913 the Pinal County Board of Supervisors declared all section lines in the county to be public roads. However there is no evidence to show that the Board further complied with the requirements of the Code to establish roads on these section lines at that time. The road involved in this lawsuit has been in existence since 1920 or earlier, at which time it was an unimproved dirt road. It runs along the section lines from Casa Grande, east to Interstate Highway #10 a distance of about two and one-half miles. In 1919 Pinal County approved a bond issue which included over $172,000 to improve this road. In 1920 the County Engineer had a map of the county roads recorded with the County Recorder and the map included the road in question. In the same year the road was rebuilt by raising the grade and adding gravel topping. At that time the right of way was shown to be sixty feet (thirty feet on each side of the section lines).
On November 1, 1921 a petition to establish the Florence-Casa Grande Road was signed and filed with the county board of supervisors, and on the following December 1, road viewers were appointed and rendered their report which appears in the minutes of the county board of supervisors, and contains the statement that '* * * this right of way is procured.' On January 22, 1922 the board declared the road a public highway and this declaration appears in its minutes. In November and December 1922 a signed petition was submitted to the board, road viewers were appointed, a report was made, and the road was declared to be a public highway. The road also appears upon a U.S.G.S. quadrangle map of the area, for 1922.
In 1923, pursuant to A.R.S. §§ 30--501 et seq., ED was organized. Later that year, and in 1924, ED erected its power lines on the shoulder of the road, off of the traveled portion, but within its sixty foot right of way. ED, in erecting its lines, thought that it had the right to do so under A.R.S. § 30-- 549 which gives electrical districts the right to use rights of way of public highways, subject to limitations imposed by boards of supervisors. When the lines were strung in 1923--24 everyone thought that all of the requirements of § 5057 of the laws of 1913 had been met when the Pinal County Board of Supervisors in 1922 declared the road to be a public highway.
It appears to be undisputed and the trial court found, that the acts required of the board by that statute were not followed in several particulars, including failing to record the map with the county recorder. The technical defects in the procedure were remedied by a...
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Sussex Rural Elec. Co-op. v. Wantage Tp.
...city acquired its intersecting easement, the city had to pay the relocation expenses. 405 F.2d at 1146. State ex rel. Herman v. Electric Dist. No. 2, 106 Ariz. 242, 474 P.2d 833 (1970) used the same reasoning to reach the same result. There the utility erected power lines along the shoulder......
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City Of Chandler v. Ariz. Dep't Of Transp.
...exercising control over public roads, counties or municipalities are “acting as mere agents of the state”); State v. Elec. Dist. No. 2, 106 Ariz. 242, 244, 474 P.2d 833, 835 (1970) (stating that when the State takes county roads into the state road system, it acquires whatever property righ......
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City of Chandler v. Arizona Dot
...be deemed superior and ADOT would be obliged to pay for the relocation of the utility lines. State ex rel. Herman v. Elec. Dist. No. 2 of Pinal County, 106 Ariz. 242, 244, 474 P.2d 833, 835 (1970). ADOT, however, contested Chandler's claim, arguing that because Chandler had not placed the u......
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