City of Raleigh v. Durfey

‘BROWN, I. It is contended by the defendant, as a reason' why he should not be required to complete his purchase: 1. That the plaintiff has no valid title to part of the property purchased. *160 2. That the plaintiff has no right under the act of the Legislature to sell the sidewalks on the north and south sides of the market-house building. The property purchased by the defendant is the market-house property of plaintiff, situated in the center of Exchange Place. The records of Wake County were partially destroyed by fire some years ago, but it is admitted that the plaintiff has a perfect paper title to all of the property sold except to a portion of it now covered by a part of the market-house building. It is admitted that the plaintiff has been in undisputed actual adverse possession under known and visible lines and boundaries of the entire land and property for sixty years, occupying the same and collecting the rents. Upon these facts it would seem to be plain that plaintiff has acquired an absolute title to the property. One of the methods of acquiring tijtle to land is by adverse possession. Mobley v. Griffin, 104 N. C., 115. We know of no reason or authority by which a municipality is excluded from that rule and rendered incompetent to acquire title by thát method. The principal controversy seems to be as to whether plaintiff can legally convey the narrow 6-foot strip on north and south sides of the market house running from Fayetteville to Wilmington streets. From the facts statedi in the case agreed, it is manifest to us that these narrow strips bordering the north and south sides of the market house are not sidewalks, in the ordinary acceptance of that term, or parts of the public streets of the city. They were placed there and evidently elevated a few inches above the street, for the protection off the market house when it was built, and for the convenience of the butchers, hucksters, and other tradesmen who occupy the market-house stalls. The doors to a dozen of these stalls open on these strips on each side of the market house, and are used by the occupants and,their customers. If the market house itself is removed, these strips would be of no use to any one, but would be a dangerous obstruction in the center of Exchange Place. *161 It is admitted in the ease agreed tbat tbe public streets on both north and south sides o£ this market-house property are known as Exchange Place north, and Exchange Place south, each being about 50 feet in width. It is thus manifest that this was all an open space at one time, and that the market house was built in the center of it. These narrow strips bordering the market house are not. a part of the public street, but are used daily for the numberless carts and wagons to back up against to unload their produce into the stalls opening on the strips. They afford protection as abutments to the market-house building as well as a convenience to its occupants. It is contended that the abutting property owners on south and north sides of Exchange Place have 'an interest in the maintenance of these strips as sidewalks which cannot be lawfully taken from them. It is almost beyond the ken of mortal man to see what benefit these narrow borders to the market house can be to those landowners on the north and south sides of Exchange Place. There is a spacious sidewalk on each side in front of their property leading from Fayetteville to Wilmington streets. Their interest in these narrow strips is more imaginative than real. But as they are not in any sense public streets, they can have no interest in them. Assuming, for argument’s sake, that these strips are public streets, the power of the General Assembly to authorize. the sale of this property, including the so-called sidewalks, is undoubted, there being no constitutional restriction. Moore v. Meroney, 154 N. C., 158; Marietta v. Henderson, 121 Ga., 399; Williams v. Corey, 75 Ia., 194. As the landowners abutting on Exchange Place are not complaining, and can sustain no possible injury, their pecuniary rights need not be considered. As is said by the Supreme Court of Iowa in a somewhat similar case: “The owners of lots abutting on the west side of the narrowed street could not enjoin the council from carrying their proposed action into effect, on the ground that they *162 would be damaged thereby, inasmuch as the damages relied on by them and shown by their evidence were imaginary rather than actual.” Williams v. Corey, supra. In this case the court held that the taking of 12 feet from a street, thereby reducing it to 41 feet, was no injury to property owners on the other side of the street. No property is taken from these landowners, and they are not directly damaged, and as is said in Hyde Park v. Dunham, 85 Ill., 569, “Municipal authorities of cities and villages are vested with complete control over streets, and may contract or widen them when in their opinion the public good so requires them, and damages sustained in consequence of the exercise of such power when property is neither talcen nor directly damaged thereby are too remote and contingent to be allowed.” The cases of Moose v. Carson, 104 N. C., 431, and Southport v. Stanly, 125 N. C., 466, cited by defendant, have no application to the facts of this, case. The judgment is Affirmed.