Moody v. Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railroad

Citations

• 20 Fla. 597

Syllabus

<p>1. Tlie State has the right to make a compulsory purchase of, or to condemn the property of the citizen for a public use or purpose, just compensation being made to the citizen for it.</p> <p>2. Such right the State through the legislative department of the government may grant to an incorporated railway company having the usual franchises and duties attaching to such companies, to the extent that the property is necessary for the use of the corporation in accomplishing the purposes of its creation. The statute, however, must provide just compensation to the citizen for his property so authorized to be taken.</p> <p>3. Neither an award of damages, nor a judgment against a corporation for damages ascertained, or to be ascertained by commissioners, is a just compensation to the citizen for the appropriation of his property by the corporation to its use in the construction of its-road.</p> <p>4. The designation of the corporation in whom such right to condemn for public use is to be vested, the method of condemnation and the fixing the nature and extent of the compensation to be made for the property, are powers vested exclusively in the legislative department of the government.</p> <p>5. In this case an entry for the purpose of continuin j an unlawful appropriation or taking was enjoined. Subsequently the injunction was dissolved upon the corporation obtaining a bond approved by the Judge under which the value of the property to be taken' was secured to be paid after appraisement to the landowner : Held, In the absence of legislation giving such right to the coi’7 poration, that the court had no power to authorize a compulsory purchase by it or to prescribe a method of condemnation, or fif: a compensation, just or unjust; that these were legislative “functions,” which no part of the judicial department of the government could exercise unless the power so to do was “expressly provided for by the Constitution.” The last clause of section 8 of the Declaration of Right