United States v. 5.00 Acres of Land
Opinion of the Court
In 1974 the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to acquire approximately 570,000 acres of land in Monroe and Collier Coun
Appellants claim that by the time their case came to trial in February 1980 the Commission had become prejudiced by hearing 39 pro se proceedings in which landowners did not effectively present evidence of land values. They request that a new commission be appointed, and their case be retried.
The courts have recognized that under certain circumstances a commission is a useful and proper device for setting compensation. Fed.R.Civ.P. 71A(h). Use of the device is appropriate in a case such as this one, which involves “large areas held by many small landowners, or property too distant for a jury to view the premises.” United States v. Buhler, 254 F.2d 876, 880 (5th Cir. 1958); accord, Georgia Power Co. v. 138.80 Acres of Land, 596 F.2d 644, 648 (5th Cir. 1979), vacated in part on other grounds sub nom. Georgia Power Co. v. Saunders, 617 F.2d 1112 (5th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 936, 101 S.Ct. 1403, 67 L.Ed.2d 372 (1981).
AFFIRMED.
. Although trial by jury is the customary method of fixing the value of land taken in eminent domain proceedings, there is no constitutional right to a jury determination of compensation. See Georgia Power Co. v. 138.30 Acres of Land, 596 F.2d 644, 647 (5th Cir. 1979), vacated in part on other grounds sub nom. Georgia Power Co. v. Saunders, 617 F.2d 1112 (5th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 936, 101 S.Ct. 1403, 67 L.Ed.2d 372 (1981).
. The sum and substance of the case is that the Commission must be biased because it has heard 39 pro se cases in which the awards were not as favorable to the landowners as in three or four prior trials conducted by lawyers. This recitation of numbers proves nothing. The purpose of a commission is to hear all cases for an entire project, see Georgia Power Co., 596 F.2d at 648, and achieve some uniformity of result, see United States v. Merz, 376 U.S. 192, 197, 84 S.Ct. 639, 642, 11 L.Ed.2d 629 (1964).
Reference
- Full Case Name
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