71 Ky. 31 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1871
delivered the opinion oe the court.
This action was instituted in September, 1869, by the appellants, claiming to have been the owners of the rights and privileges pertaining to a ferry across the Ohio River between
The appellee, in its defense, controverted the alleged ownership by the plaintiffs of any part of the land, and claiming to have been incorporated, 'both by the laws of Ohio and Kentucky, for the purpose of erecting and using the bridge, which was also sanctioned and authorized as a lawful structure, and made a post-road or highway by the Congress of the United States; denied its liability to the plaintiffs for any loss or injury to their property or business which might have incidentally resulted from the erection of the bridge, and the conveniences and facilities which were thereby furnished to the public for travel and transportation across the river.
In the case of the Richmond and Lexington Turnpike Road Company v. Rodgers (1 Duvall, 135) this court held, in substantial conformity with the controlling principle decided in the ease of the Charles River Bridge v. The Warren Bridge et al. (11 Peters, 420), that where the construction of a bridge will interpose no physical obstruction to the enjoyment of a ferry franchise across the same river, the owners of the ferry are not entitled to compensation for any incidental impairment of the profits of their ferry resulting merely from the use of the bridge instead of the ferry by the public.
It can not be pretended that the laws of this state for establishing and regulating ferries contain any express provision prohibiting the erection of bridges across our rivers, however near may be the site of a bridge to the landings of a ferry; and for obvious reasons of policy and necessity no such prohibition should be raised by implication. In the case of the Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge et al., supra, it was truly said by the Supreme Court of the United States that “the object and end of all government is to promote the happiness and prosperity of the community by which it is established; and it can never be assumed that the government intended to dimmish its power for accomplishing the end for which it was created. And in a country like ours, free, active, and enterprising, continually advancing in numbers and wealth, new channels of communication are daily found necessary, both for travel and trade, and are essential to the comfort, conven
It is a familiar principle, alike applicable to the establishment of ferries and bridges under legislative sanction, that they are not authorized for remunerative purposes to the owners only, but for the benefit of the public, whose interest is their first and paramount object; and in the absence of express law the legislature should not be presumed to have intended to deprive itself of the power of promoting that object.
The importance of this doctrine is fully illustrated by various systems of internal improvements in this state, such as turnpikes and railroads, which have successively superseded each other as objects of value to their owners. If in such cases the principle were established that corporations or individuals who may incidentally impair the value of public roads and other conveniences owned by others for the use of the community incurred responsibility to them by more efficiently subserving the convenience and welfare of the public, it would, for obvious reasons, tend to impede the progress of the state, and prove to be most disastrous to its prosperity.
It does not appear that the ferry-landing of the appellants was necessarily affected or obstructed by the erection of the bridge; but it seems, on the contrary, that they had a convenient and accessible landing, improved at the joint expense of themselves and the city of Covington, some distance below the structure of the bridge on the Kentucky shore, and which they used when the bridge was commenced and during its construction.
"We have not deemed it necessary to extend this opinion by reviewing the elaborate and plausible argument of counsel for the appellants, or commenting upon the numerous authorities cited by them, which have received our careful consideration.
Wherefore the judgment is affirmed.