OKMULGEE PRODUCERS & MFRS. GAS CO. v. FRANKS

OKMULGEE PRODUCERS & MFRS. GAS CO. v. FRANKS
1936 OK 515
60 P.2d 771
177 Okla. 456
Case Number: 25872
Decided: 09/15/1936
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

OKMULGEE PRODUCERS & MANUFACTURERS GAS CO.
v.
FRANKS

Syllabus

¶0 EMINENT DOMAIN - Pipe Line Along and Under Highway Held not Additional Servitude Entitling Landowners to Compensation Therefor.
The construction and maintenance of a pipe line along and under a state highway, constructed and maintained in the manner authorized and provided by law, is not an additional servitude for which compensation must be paid to the owner of abutting land, or to the owner of the land over which the highway was laid.

Appeal from District Court, Okfuskee County; John L. Norman, Judge.

Action by Charles Franks against Okmulgee Producers and Manufacturers Gas Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Judgment reversed, and cause remanded with directions.

C.B. McCrory and R.M. Cavanaugh, for plaintiff in error.
T.H. Ottesen and Dick Jones, for defendant in error.

WELCH, J.

¶1 This action was commenced by defendant in error, as plaintiff, to recover from the plaintiff in error, defendant in the court below, the sum of $80 and costs, for and on account of the alleged taking and appropriating, without his consent, of a strip of land about 1,300 feet long and of sufficient width in which to lay a pipe line along and under the state highway, and along and under the east side of plaintiff's land.

¶2 The facts here are similar to, but not identical with, the facts in Nazworthy v. Illinois Oil Co., 176 Okla. 37, 54 P.2d 642. A portion of the pipe line here considered lies under and along the highway, while a portion thereof lies, not under the highway, but off the highway and across plaintiff's land.

¶3 As to that portion of the pipe line laid under the highway, no recovery may be had under the rule of the Nazworthy Case, supra, while as to that portion laid, not under the highway, but off the highway and under plaintiff's land, the plaintiff is entitled to recover under the rule announced by this court in Stanolind Pipe Line Co. v. Winford, 176 Okla. 47, 54 P.2d 646.

¶4 In the court below the case was determined upon the erroneous theory that the plaintiff was entitled to recover as to the entire length of the pipe line under consideration, and the record does not disclose in exact detail the amount of the pipe line laid under plaintiff's land for which he is entitled to recover under the rules heretofore stated.

¶5 Upon the authority of Nazworthy v. Illinois Oil Co. and Stanolind Pipe Line Co. v. Winford, supra, the judgment appealed from is reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to grant a new trial permitting plaintiff to recover only as to that portion of the pipe line which is laid, not under the highway, but off the highway and under and across plaintiff's land.