United State v. Reed

• Citation: 56 Mo. 565
• Parties: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent, v. SILAS REED, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 31 March 1874
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

56 Mo. 565

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent,

v.SILAS REED, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1874.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court.

S. Simmons, for Appellant.

Wm. Patrick, U. S. Dist. Att'y, for Respondent.

VORIES, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This proceeding was commenced in the St. Louis Circuit Court in pursuance of an act passed by the Congress of the United States, entitled “An Act appropriating money for the purchase of a suitable site and erecting a building thereon in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, to be used for the purpose of a Custom House, Post Office and other Federal Offices.” Approved March 27th, 1872; and also, in pursuance of an act passed by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, entitled, “An act giving the consent of the State of Missouri to the acquisition by the United States of so much land in the City of St. Louis as may be needed for public use.” Approved March 16th, 1872 for the purpose of condemning or appropriating a certain lot of defendant in the city of St. Louis to the use of the United States for purposes set forth in the petition.

The particular section of the above named statute of this State under which this proceeding was commenced, is the 3d section of the Act of 1872 (Adj. Sess. Acts 1872, page 471), which reads as follows: “That if it shall come to pass, that the title to the parcel of land needed by the United States for public use in the city of St. Louis, shall be held in whole or in part by persons unable or unwilling to convey the same, then the United States may proceed in the same manner that is provided by Chapter Sixty-six of the General Statutes of Missouri, to acquire the title of the persons so unable or unwilling to convey the same.

There is no question made in this case in reference to the sufficiency of the petition filed in the Circuit Court, praying for the appointment of commissioners to assess the value of the defendant's land; provided that it sufficiently appears therein that defendant was unable or unwilling to convey his lot or land as is provided in the above recited statute. The allegations of the petition in this respect are as follows: “The said United States represent further, that they have been unable to agree with the respective owners aforesaid of said various lots hereinbefore described, upon the proper compensation to be paid on the appropriation of said premises for the uses aforesaid, and that said Silas Reed is a non-resident of the State of Missouri.”

It may be proper here to remark, that the petition joined in the same proceeding all of the several owners of separate lots situated in and forming part of the block of ground sought to be appropriated to public use, and that the defendant, Reed, is proceeding separately to set aside the award of damages awarded to him for a small lot situate in the block aforesaid.

Notice was given to the parties in conformity with the statute of this State applicable to such cases; to the resident defendants by personal service, and the non-residents by publication; and at the time fixed by the notice for the hearing of the petition, only one of the defendants appeared. Publication was made as to defendant, Reed, but he made no appearance. The petition was heard by the court and the facts therein stated deemed sufficient, and the court, after considering the matter, proceeded to appoint three commissioners to assess the damages done to the respective parties by the appropriation of their respective parcels of land, as set forth in the petition. The commissioners, after being duly sworn, as the law directs, proceeded to view the respective portions of land belonging to the respective parties, after which they made a report of their proceedings and the amount assessed to the respective parties for their respective portions of the block of land to be appropriated, separately. The damages assessed to defendant, Reed, for the damages done him by the appropriation of his lot, were twenty thousand dollars. This report was made in conformity with the 3rd section of Article 5, Wagn. Stat., 327. By the fourth section of the same act it is provided that “the report of said commissioners may be reviewed by the court in which the proceedings are held on written exceptions filed by either party in the Clerk's office within ten days after the filing of such report, and the court shall make such order therein as right and justice may require, and may order a new appraisement upon good cause shown, &c.”

In this case the report of the commissioners was filed on the 19th of August, 1872. No exceptions were filed to the report by any of the defendants thereafter within ten days, and none were pretended to have been filed by defendant, Reed, in that time. But on the seventh day of September, 1872, the defendant appeared and filed with the clerk of the court in vacation his exceptions to the report of the commissioners. The clerk, it seems, received the exceptions and marked the same filed subject to all legal objections.

These exceptions so filed with the clerk stated as grounds of objection to the report, among a great many other things, the following: that “the damages assessed by said commissioners in their said report in favor of this respondent, Silas Reed, are grossly inadequate to compensate him for the loss by him sustained by reason of the appropriation of his said property in the petition described for the public uses therein mentioned, said property being worth at least the sum of thirty-five thousand dollars; that the said commissioners acted arbitrarily in assessing damages, in this, that they refused to allow respondent to prove the value of his said property, and refused to take any evidence of the value of the land and the improvements thereon; that said petition does not state facts sufficient to authorize the granting or the relief therein prayed; that no effort was made by said petitioners to...