Northern Railroad v. Earhardt
Northern Railroad v. Earhardt
Opinion of the Court
In a proceeding instituted by appellant as plaintiff in the Clinton Circuit Court for the condemnation of a strip of land one hundred feet wide, for a .right of way on and across the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 15, township 55, range 33, in said county, in which Flora Earhardt, Albert Earhardt, William R. Guinn, Lottie Bledsoe, William Bledsoe, Cora Ford, Francis Ford, Alvin T. Guinn, Lulu Cunningham, J. M. Cunningham, Jessie Guinn, Theodosia Guinn, Milo Guinn, Mary Guinn, Albert Guinn, William Elliott, and the Kansas City & Atlantic Railroad Company, were defendants. Commissioners were duly appointed to assess the damages of the defendants who in due course made their report, assessing the damages at the sum of $250, and thereupon the appellant deposited said sum so assessed with the clerk of said court.
Afterwards, on October 22, 1898, the said defendants, other than the said Kansas City'& Atlantic Railroad Company, filed their exceptions to the commissioners’ report, and on October 27, 1898, the Kansas City & Atlantic Railroad Company filed its exceptions to said report. -
Afterwards on January 11, 1899, the Kansas City & Atlantic Railroad Company withdrew its exceptions to the report and filed an intervening petition, which, omitting formal parts, is as follows: “Now comes the Kansas City & Atlantic Railroad Company, one of the defendants in the above entitled cause, and states and shows to the court that it is the owner of the land hereinafter, and in plaintiff’s petition, and in the
“This defendant further shows to the court that heretofore and to-wit., on or about December 16, 1890, Mary J. Guinn and Ethan A. Guinn, being then the owners of and in possession of the land hereinbefore described, did by their certain deed, dated December 16, 1890, and filed for record in the office of the recorder of deeds in and for Clinton county, Missouri, on December 19, 1890, and recorded in said office in book 54, at page 191, convey to the Chicago, Kansas City & Texas Railway Company, a railroad corporation duly created, organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Missouri, the real estate hereinbefore described, reference to which said deed and to the record thereof for a more particular description of the premises therein and thereby conveyed is hereby made, and said deed is made a part thereof. And this defendant, the Kansas City & Atlantic Railroad Company, further shows to the court that said Chicago, Kansas
To this petition no answer was filed, and the same remains pending in said court.
Afterwards on September 14, 1899, a trial before a jury was had “upon the exceptions of the defendant as to the award of the commissioners for damages,” as the record recites, in which, a verdict was rendered assessing the damages at $500. Thereupon the circuit court after entering the usual decree vesting title, etc., rendered judgment as follows: “It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed by the court that the defendants herein recover of and from the plaintiff the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, that being the difference in the amounts of the award of the commissioners, which said commissioners’ award has been paid herein, and it is further ordered and adjudged that the plaintiff pay all the costs of this proceeding.”
From this judgment the plaintiff appeals.
The leading instructions upon which the issue was submitted to the jury are as follows:
“1. The court instructs the jury that this is a proceeding on the part of the plaintiff, the Northern Railroad Company, to condemn certain lands described in the petition, for the use of the said railroad company for a right of way, and in which*618 the damages which may be sustained by the defendants, Flora Earhardt, Albert Earhardt, William R. Guinn, Lottie Bledsoe, William Bledsoe, Cora Ford, Francis Ford, Alvin T. Guinn, Lulu Cunningham, Jesse Guinn, Theodore Guinn, Lulu Cunningham, J. M. Cunningham, Jesse Guinn, Theodosia Guinn, Milo Guinn, Mary Guinn and Albert Guinn, in consequence of the establishment, erection and maintenance of such railroad, are to be ascertained and assessed by the jury. You are, therefore, instructed that in estimating such damages you may take into consideration the value of the land taken at the time it was so taken, the size of the cuts and fills on such railroad, the size and shape into which the remaining tracts of said lands are left by reason of the taking of the land for the right of way, the inconvenience in the use of the remaining lands in going from one tract to another and the depreciation in value, if any, of the remaining parts of such lands so traversed by such railroad, and all other facts and circumstances in evidence, estimating the damages 'to the farm as a whole, and assess such an amount as will fully compensate the said defendants for all damages occasioned by the establishment, erection and maintenance of 'such railroad over and through the said lands.
“2. The court instructs the jury, that if they find from the evidence that a roadbed or cut was constructed through the land in controversy about the year 1890 and that the same was abandoned by the company which constructed said roadbed or cut, and that the plaintiff has appropriated said roadbed, yet the plaintiff will not be held liable for any damage done by said roadbed or cut except in so far as the plaintiff has added to the same, and increased the obstruction, if any, caused thereby.”
The first was given at the request of the defendants therein named, and the second at the request of the plaintiff. It will thus be seen that, although the exceptions of the Nansas City & Atlantic Railroad Company to the commissioners’
We do not see any ground upon which tbe judgment can be sustained. Tbe undisputed facts are that prior to tbe institution of this proceeding, a railroad bad been located and partially constructed on tbe strip of ground in question, tbe roadbed therefor having been prepared by making a cut from eight feet to ten feet deep extending tbe whole length of the strip through tbe tract, rendering tbe right of way practically impassable from one to tbe other side thereof. Tbe effect of tbe taking of this strip of land for tbe purposes of plaintiff’s railroad is not to impose thereon any new servitude, but to subject it to tbe use for which it bad already been by its owners expropriated from tbe tract of which it originally formed a part. Tbe effect of such expropriation was to make tbe strip an entity separate and distinct from tbe tract from which it bad been taken. Tbe owner of tbe strip, whoever be may be, is entitled to damages from tbe plaintiff for the taking thereof, and as the whole of it is taken there is no remaining land tbe value of which could be affected by tbe taking, and tbe measure of tbe owners’ damage for tbe taking is the value of the whole strip in tbe condition it was at tbe time of its appropriation by tbe plaintiff. Tbe owner of tbe tract from which it was originally taken has not, by reason of such ownership, any claim to damages. Whatever claim be may have had in' tbe first place on that score was presumably settled when tbe strip was.originally dedicated to tbe use to which it is being subjected by this proceeding. Hence, tbe court committed error in admitting as evidence, over tbe plaintiff’s objections, tbe estimates of witnesses of tbe damages to tbe tract or farm as a whole by tbe taking of this strip, and in giving tbe first instruction set out, predicated on such evidence.
As tbe highest value placed by any of tbe witnesses upon
Reference
- Full Case Name
- NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY v. EARHARDT
- Status
- Published