DEMETER LAND COMPANY, a Corporation, Plaintiff in ERROR, v. FLORIDA PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY, a Corporation, Defendant in Error, 99 Fla. 954

Summary

The utility filed a petition praying that upon the payment of the compensation allowed by a jury the utility could take that land and use it for the use of the public. The property owner denied that the purpose for which the utility sought to condemn the property was a public use or purpose. The court determined that the use for which the property was being condemned was a public or private use. A use to be public had to be fixed and definite. It must be one in which the public, as such, had an interest, and the terms and manner of its enjoyment had to be within control of the state, independent of the rights of the private owner of the property appropriated to the use. Because the service rendered by a utility was such that every individual or corporation within the radius of its operations had a right to it, independently of the will or caprice of the corporation, then the property was for a public use. The furnishing of electricity to the public was a public use for which the power ...