Wilkinson County v. State Highway Commission

• Decision Date: 27 October 1941
• Docket Number: 34697.
• Citation: 191 Miss. 750,4 So.2d 298
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: WILKINSON COUNTY v. STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION.

4 So.2d 298

191 Miss. 750

WILKINSON COUNTY v. STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION.

No. 34697.

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 27, 1941

W F. Tucker, of Woodville, for appellant.

Greek L. Rice, Atty. Gen., by Russell Wright, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

GRIFFITH Justice.

During the years 1918 to 1921, Wilkinson County improved and graveled the highway, then known as the Upper Natchez Road from Woodville north to the Adams County line, a distance of eighteen miles. In May, 1922, so the bill alleges, the State Highway Commission demanded, in writing, that this road be released by the County so that it should come under the jurisdiction of the State Highway Commission as a part of the highway thence to be known as State Highway No. 61. The County acquiesced in this demand, but, as it is alleged, with an agreement between the County and the Highway Commission that the road aforesaid would thenceforth be maintained by the State Highway Commission.

In September, 1939, the State Highway Commission notified the County that the commission had relocated the road from the Adams County line south, and that eleven miles of the old road which had theretofore served as part of State Highway No. 61 had, by the relocation, been abandoned by the Commission and was being surrendered to the County. The bill avers that the location of the new paved state highway is at some points as much as eight to twelve miles from the original graveled highway.

The County, by its bill alleging as aforesaid, sought a mandatory injunction to compel the Highway Commission to continue the maintenance of the eleven miles of the old road abandoned by the Commission. The Commission did not appear at the rules day when appearance was due, and a decree pro confesso was taken. At the succeeding term of court, being the first term at which a final decree could be rendered, the Highway Commission appeared, moved to set aside the decree pro confesso and for leave to file a demurrer of no cause of action. The motion and the demurrer were sustained and the bill was dismissed. We are of the opinion that the bill states no cause of action, and that the court was correct in its term-time decrees.

In Trahan v. State Highway Commission, 169 Miss. 732 151 So. 178, the Court held that the highway commission was and is fully empowered to relocate the line of a state highway between the points designated by the legislature, and thereby to abandon the original line, whereupon the latter would revert to the jurisdiction of the board of supervisors; and we will not further elaborate upon what was there said except that we now add that in the relocations by the commission in eliminating curves and shortening distances and in otherwise finding a better location, the new line may depart from the old as much as eight to twelve miles, as was done in the case now before us. So long as done for any good reason in the interest of through traffic, the authority in that respect is wholly at the discretion of the State Highway Commission.

But the County says that to allow the Highway Commission to abandon this eleven miles and to cast back upon the county the...