Cornell v. Commissioners
Cornell v. Commissioners
Opinion of the Court
This action is to enjoin the construction of a free turnpike laid out and established in Franklin county under the “one mile assessment law.” Among the grounds for the relief asked, the plaintiff alleged that the board of county commissioners had laid out and established such free turnpike, beginning at the east end of East Broad street free turnpike and running in a northeasterly direction along the center line of the Granville road to the county line, a distance of about five miles; that in 1817 there was laid out and established a county road, crossing the proposed improved road about one mile from the western terminus- thereof and extending over and across the proposed road about three hundred feet; that in 1893 another county road was established, commencing at the northern terminus of the road established in 1817, and extending thence in a northerly direction about two miles; that the board of county commissioners in determining whether a ma
It is contended here by the defendants in error, and it was so held by the courts below, that although the county roads established in 1817 and 1893, respectively, may constitute one continuous road in fact, yet they are separate and distinct roads in law; and that the road established in 1893 is “unconnected” with the proposed free turnpike, and therefore is within the exception in Section 4786, Revised Statutes, which reads as follows: “Extra taxes, when levied as hereinbefore provided, shall be on real and personal property within one mile on each side of the free turnpike road, except where any road improvement of free turnpike road, or any toll road, or unimproved state or county road, being unconnected with the same, runs upon either side of such proposed road, within less than two miles, then the extra taxes shall only be
The exception in section 4786 does not apply in case of a county road which is only unconnected with the proposed road, but to a county road, Avhich, “being-unconnected AA'ith the same, runs upon either side of such proposed road.” By the expression “runs upon either side,” the legislature clearly meant to designate roads which run along, and not across, the proposed road. It Avas intended to specify roads Avhich, in a general sense, run parallel with the proposed road. With such, and with such only, it is practicable that the “extra taxes shall only be levied upon such lands and personal property as lie Avithin one-half the distance of such roads,” that is, one-half the distance between such roads. The statute does not contemplate the division of territory betAveen the point of termination of one road and the line of the proposed road; nor between the line of the proposed road and the line of a road crossing it. The opposite construction would be putting something into the language of the statute which is not there. So that the meaning of the statute, as well as the meaning of this court, Avhen it uses the words of the statute in Lear v. Halstead, is that a road which runs in the same general direction as, or approximately parallel with, the proposed road, is a road which “runs upon the side of the proposed road,” and that a road located on either side of the proposed road, which runs perpendicularly, or practically so, to the proposed turnpike, is not a road which “runs upon the side” of the latter. If anything more is needed to make this construction clear, a reference to-
Reversed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.