In New Orleans Gaslight Co. v. Drainage Comm'n of New Orleans, 197 U.S. 453, 25 S. Ct. 471, 49 L. Ed. 831 (1905), the United States Supreme Court cited authorities supporting this common-law rule going back as far as 1876. 197 U.S. at 461-62. The Court applied this principle in New Orleans Gaslight to a franchise granted in 1835. Id. at 453. In that case, after granting a gas company an exclusive franchise to place pipes in the streets of New Orleans, the state created a drainage plan that required the relocation of some of the pipes. Id. at 453-54. Like Qwest, the gas company contended that it had a vested property right in maintaining the pipes and the city was required to cover the relocation expenses. Id. at 453. The Court disagreed and explained: The gas company did not acquire any specific location in the streets; it was content with the general right to use them; and when it located its pipes it was at the risk that they might be, at some future time, disturbed, when the state might require for a necessary public use that changes in location be made . . . . Whatever right the gas company acquired was subject, in so far as the location of its pipes was concerned, to such future regulations as might be required in the interest of the public health and welfare. Id. at 461. In New Orleans Gaslight, the United States Supreme Court expressly rejected a taking claim when the reasonable exercise of municipal power required a utility to relocate its facilities. 197 U.S. at 462. The Court explained: The gas company, by its grant from the city, acquired no exclusive right to the location of its pipes in the streets, as chosen by it, under a general grant of authority to use the streets. The city made no contract that the gas company should not be disturbed in the location chosen. In the exercise of the police power of the state, for a purpose highly necessary in the promotion of the public health, it has become necessary to change the location of the pipes of the gas company so as to accommodate them to the new public work. In complying with this requirement at its own expense, none of the property of the gas company has been taken, and the injury sustained is damnum absque injuria damage without the invasion of legal right. Id.