13 Ga. App. 600 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1913
On July 23, 1901, Forrest Adair, as executor of the last will of George W. Adair, filed in the recorder’s court of the City of Atlanta a petition against Spellman Seminary, a corporation conducting an educational institution in said city, to abate certain alleged nuisances which the plaintiff averred the defendant had erected and maintained in certain streets over which the plaintiff had an easement. The petition avers, that at the time of his death George W. Adair was the owner of two city lots known as numbers 10 and 11, according to a plat of what was formerly known as the James property, and consisting of about fifty acres of land, bounded on the north and east by Greensferry avenue, south by Chapel street, and west by Chapel and Lee streets; that on this plat the tract of land was subdivided into 140 lots, including lots 10 and 11, which were owned by George W. Adair and are in the control of the plaintiff as executor; that upon this plat, in addition to the streets bounding the land, there appeared the following streets running north and south, to wit: Henry, Culver, Reynolds, Leonard, and Lizzie; and running east and west: Ella, Keith, Bhelps, Broom-head, and Leonard. It is alleged that each and all of these streets are public streets of the City of Atlanta, and were such from the time they were laid out and during the period hereinafter mentioned. The plaintiff complains that the defendant has erected a fence across Leonard, Reynolds, Keith, Phelps, and Broomhead streets, so as to obstruct the free use and enjoyment of these highways by the plaintiff and the public; that the effect of the erection of this fence is to enclose parts of Leonard and Broomhead streets, and the whole of Reynolds, Keith, and Phelps streets within one enclosure, and completely to stop the use of all of said streets and parts of said streets. It is further averred that the defendant has erected certain buildings upon the tract, which buildings extend over and into and across certain of the streets above mentioned, so as to prevent the use of these streets by the plaintiff and the public. The plaintiff avers that he is entitled to use these streets as a citizen of Atlanta, and that he has sustained special injury not common to the public by reason of the fact that all of the lots embraced
The defendant filed a special plea to the jurisdiction of the court, setting up that the streets which the plaintiff alleged had been obstructed by the defendant never were public streets- of the City of Atlanta and never were open streets or ways; that the plaintiff’s right, if he had any, is a mere contractual easement in land, and that the question sought to be raised by said proceeding is one involving title to land, being brought for the purpose of testing the question as to whether the defendant has such right and title to the land covered by the streets mentioned as would authorize it to close these streets, and such a proceeding is, under the constitution and laws, cognizable only in the superior court of Fulton county. Subject to the plea to the jurisdiction, the defendant demurred and answered. The demurrer was overruled and an order was passed reciting that the special plea would not be considered as a plea to the jurisdiction, but the defendant could file the same as a part of its defense. The defendant answered and set up the following defenses: (1) that the alleged streets obstructed by it were never opened or traveled or used and accepted by the public as streets; (2) that neither the plaintiff nor his testator ever had acquired the right to use any of the alleged streets, except that the public had occasionally used a part of Leonard and Broomhead streets for a passageway through the defendant’s property; that in closing the Leonard-Broomhead way the defendant acted with the consent of the public and every person interested therein, and at the same time opened a better and shorter way through its property and around it from the same point on Ella street northward to Greensferry avenue; (3) that the entire tract occupied by the defendant has been for a number of years openly and notoriously in its possession and held by it- as one piece of property, with no streets through it except the LeonardBroomhead way, which has been straightened as above mentioned; that more than a year before the filing of the petition the defendant entered upon an extensive scheme of building and improvement,
The ease came on to be heard before the recorder in 1901, and, after the evidence was introduced, -he rendered a judgment in favor of the defendant, upon the ground that under the evidence no nuisance existed. The plaintiff sued out a writ of certiorari in the latter part of 1902. The case was continued from time to time in the superior court, and finally on January 1, 1913, a judgment was entered overruling the certiorari. The plaintiff excepted. The evidence before the recorder was voluminous and somewhat conflicting. From the evidence it appeared that about the year 1879, John H. James caused a plat to be made of the fifty-acre tract described in the plaintiff’s petition, divided it into 140 lots, and laid out, as a part of the plat, Lizzie, Ella, Leonard, Henry, Keith, Phelps, and Broomhead streets. The tract was bounded by Chapel and Lee streets and Greensferry avenue, all of which were original highways, were no part of the plat, and have not been obstructed in any way by the defendant. The property occupied by the defendant was acquired by it as an educational institution, at different times, either from James or from various persons holding under' him. The conveyances to the Seminary covered a period beginning in 1883 and extending down to 1899. In each deed the property
Most of the language thus used by Judge McCay was obiter, because-the ruling made in the case was that the railroad, having been legally authorized to be constructed, could not be abated as a nuisance. However, in Ruff v. Phillips, 50 Ga. 130, it was decided that'a private nuisance may be abated under the provisions of the act of 1833. The decision in this case was also delivered by Judge McCay, and the conclusion that a private nuisance could summarily be abated was based upon the language of section 4027 of the Code of 1868 and 4098 of the Code of 1873, to the effect that “a public nuisance may be abated on the application of any citizen of the district, and a private nuisance on the application of the party injured.” The law as thus stated appears in section 4908 of the Code of 1882 and 4766 of the Code of 1895 and 5338 of the Code of 1910. In Salter v. Taylor, 55 Ga. 311, it was held that the stopping or impeding of a private way is a private nuisance, and may be abated by a summary proceeding before two justices of the peace and a jury under the code. In Powell v. Foster, 59 Ga. 790, it was held that the code furnished a summary remedy for the abatement of nuisances, public and private. See, also, Hart v. Taylor, 61 Ga. 156; Holmes v. Jones, 80 Ga. 659 (7 S. E. 168); Broomhead v. Grant, 83 Ga. 451 (10 S. E. 116); Savannah Ry. Co. v. Gill, 118 Ga. 737 (45 S. E. 623). In the case last cited it was held that “while section 4760 in terms provides only for the abatement of a public nuisance in the manner therein specified, it has been several times held that a private nuisance may be abated under that section.” It must therefore be accepted as the settled law of this State that a private nuisance may summarily be abated by the same procedure as that provided for the abatement of a public nuisance.
Counsel for the defendant in error insists that all of the decisions of the Supreme Court from Ruff v. Phillips, supra, to Broomhead
In Patton v. City of Rome, 124 Ga. 525 (52 S. E. 742), it was held: “Under legislative authority granted to 'a municipality in its charter to ‘open, lay out, to widen, straighten, or to otherwise change streets, alleys, and squares in said city,’ the city may vacate and sell to an abutting-land owner, a private individual, 'a strip or part of a street, which strip will be thereafter closed to the use of the public, where it appears that the selling and closing of the strip or tract will have the effect to straighten and make more uniform in width the street from which the tract is taken and sold, without having' the effect to close or prevent the free use by the public of said street.” This decision is direct authority for the proposition that the power granted to the City of Atlanta to “widen, straighten, or otherwise change streets” is broad enough to author