Johnson v. Alameda County

Decided July 1, 1859

California Supreme Court · decided 1859-07-01

The Board of Supervisors of Alameda County located and ■opened a road over plaintiff’s land. Plaintiff presented to the Board his claim for damages in the sum of seven hundred and ■sixty-five dollars. The Board allowed one hundred and fifty dollars. Plaintiff sues, and the Court below finds his damages to be one hundred and fifty dollars, and gives judgment accordingly. Plaintiff appeals.

Relies on Bensley v. Mountain Lake Water Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1859-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently May 1926

4 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Cope, J.

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court—Baldwin, J. concurring.

¶2This action was brought to recover the sum of seven hundred and sixty-five dollars and two cents, claimed by the plaintiff as damages consequent upon the opening and laying out of a highway across his lands. The plaintiff has proceeded upon the supposition that the highway was properly opened, and 1ns land lawfully taken from him, and that he has a valid, legal claim against the county for the compensation secured to him by the Constitution. This view is manifestly erroneous. The compensation should have preceded or accompanied the taking, and without it, every act of the Board of Supervisors was illegal and void. The opening of the road was, so far as appears, a simple trespass, for which the plaintiff was entitled to his action against the parties.

¶3Judgment affirmed.

¶4See Bensley v. Mountain Lake Water Co. (13 Cal. 306.)