American Cent. City, Inc. v. Joint Antelope Valley Auth.
| Decision Date | 17 June 2011 |
| Docket Number | S–10–647.,No. S–10–646,S–10–646 |
| Citation | 281 Neb. 742,807 N.W.2d 170 |
| Parties | AMERICAN CENTRAL CITY, INC., a Nebraska corporation, appellant, v. JOINT ANTELOPE VALLEY AUTHORITY (JAVA), a joint administrative entity, and City of Lincoln, Nebraska, a municipal corporation, appellees.American Central City, Inc., a Nebraska corporation, appellant, v. Joint Antelope Valley Authority (JAVA), a joint administrative entity, appellee. |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
281 Neb. 742
807 N.W.2d 170
AMERICAN CENTRAL CITY, INC., a Nebraska corporation, appellant,
v.
JOINT ANTELOPE VALLEY AUTHORITY (JAVA), a joint administrative entity, and City of Lincoln, Nebraska, a municipal corporation, appellees.American Central City, Inc., a Nebraska corporation, appellant,
v.
Joint Antelope Valley Authority (JAVA), a joint administrative entity, appellee.
No. S–10–646
S–10–647.
Supreme Court of Nebraska.
June 17, 2011.
[807 N.W.2d 173]
[281 Neb. 742] 1. Summary Judgment: Appeal and Error. An appellate court will affirm a lower court's granting of summary judgment if the pleadings and admitted evidence show that there is no genuine issue as to any material facts or as to the ultimate inferences that may be drawn from those facts and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
2. Directed Verdict: Evidence. A directed verdict is proper at the close of all the evidence only when reasonable minds cannot differ and can draw but one conclusion from the evidence, that is, when an issue should be decided as a matter of law.
3. Rules of Evidence. In proceedings where the Nebraska Evidence Rules apply, the admissibility of evidence is controlled by the Nebraska Evidence Rules; judicial discretion is involved only when the rules make discretion a factor in determining admissibility.
4. Summary Judgment: Appeal and Error. In reviewing a summary judgment, an appellate court views the evidence in a light most favorable to the party against whom the judgment is granted and gives such party the benefit of all reasonable inferences deducible from the evidence.
5. Zoning. The mere issuance of a permit to use land gives no vested rights to the permittee, nor does he or she acquire a property right in the permit.
6. Contracts: Specific Performance: Fraud. An oral contract to buy land falls under the statute of frauds. Despite the statute of frauds, an oral contract may be specifically enforced in cases of part performance.
7. Contracts: Specific Performance: Real Estate: Proof. A party seeking specific performance of an oral contract for the sale of real estate upon the basis of part performance must prove an oral contract, the terms of which are clear, satisfactory, and unequivocal, and that the acts done in part performance were referable solely to the contract sought to be enforced, and not such as might be referable to some other or different contract, and further that nonperformance by the other party would amount to a fraud upon the party seeking specific performance.
8. Trial: Expert Witnesses. It is within the trial court's discretion to determine whether there is sufficient foundation for an expert witness to give his or her opinion about an issue in question.
[281 Neb. 743] 9. Trial: Expert Witnesses: Appeal and Error. A trial court's ruling in receiving or excluding an expert's opinion which is otherwise relevant will be reversed only when there has been an abuse of discretion.
10. Eminent Domain: Witnesses. An owner who is shown to be familiar with the value of his or her land shall be qualified to estimate the value of such land for the use to which it is then being put, without additional foundation. Such owner
[807 N.W.2d 174]
is not qualified by virtue of ownership alone to testify as to its value for other purposes unless such owner possesses, as must any other witness as to value, an acquaintance with the property and is informed as to the state of the market.
11. Damages: Proof. A plaintiff's burden to prove the nature and amount of its damages cannot be sustained by evidence which is speculative and conjectural.
12. Eminent Domain: Real Estate: Valuation. There are three generally accepted approaches used for the purpose of valuing real property in eminent domain cases: (1) the market data approach, or comparable sales method, which establishes value on the basis of recent comparable sales of similar properties; (2) the income, or capitalization of income, approach, which establishes value on the basis of what the property is producing or is capable of producing in income; and (3) the replacement or reproduction cost method, which establishes value upon what it would cost to acquire the land and erect equivalent structures, reduced by depreciation. Each of these approaches is but a method of analyzing data to arrive at the fair market value of the real property as a whole.
13. Eminent Domain: Evidence: Damages. Evidence of the price at which other lands have been sold is admissible in evidence in condemnation proceedings on the question of damages where such evidence is predicated upon sufficient foundation to furnish a criterion for market or going value of the land condemned. Such land must be similar or similarly situated to the land condemned and to have been sold at about the same time as the taking in the condemnation action, especially when the price paid depends upon the market or going value rather than other considerations.
14. Trial: Evidence: Appeal and Error. The admission of demonstrative evidence is within the discretion of the trial court, and a judgment will not be reversed on account of the admission or rejection of such evidence unless there has been a clear abuse of discretion.
15. Constitutional Law: Due Process: Property. Under Neb. Const. art. I, § 3, the state cannot deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The protections of this procedural due process right attach when there has been a deprivation of a significant property interest.
16. Constitutional Law: Due Process: Property: Notice. If a significant property interest is shown, due process requires notice and an opportunity to be heard that is appropriate to the case.
17. Motions to Dismiss: Directed Verdict. A motion to dismiss at the close of all the evidence has the same legal effect as a motion for directed verdict.
18. Motions to Dismiss. A party against whom a motion to dismiss is directed is entitled to have all relevant evidence accepted or treated as true, every controverted fact as favorably resolved, and every beneficial inference reasonably deducible from the evidence.
[281 Neb. 744] 19. Trial: Evidence: Directed Verdict: Motions to Dismiss: Words and Phrases. A “prima facie case” means that evidence sufficiently establishes elements of a cause of action and, notwithstanding a motion for a directed verdict in a jury trial or a motion to dismiss in a nonjury trial, allows submission of the case to the fact finder for disposition.
Barbara J. Morley for appellant.
Rodney Confer, Lincoln City Attorney, and Christopher J. Connolly, Wayne, for appellees.
[807 N.W.2d 175]
HEAVICAN, C.J., CONNOLLY, GERRARD, STEPHAN, McCORMACK, and MILLER–LERMAN, JJ.
HEAVICAN, C.J.
American Central City, Inc. (ACC), appeals from two separate decisions of the Lancaster County District Court. The cases were consolidated before this court for oral argument and disposition, and both cases involve complaints regarding the condemnation of three properties located in Lincoln, Nebraska. In case No. S–10–646, a civil suit for damages apart from the condemnation award, ACC claims that it had compensable property interests for which it was not paid when the Joint Antelope Valley Authority (JAVA) and the City of Lincoln (the City) took its land through condemnation. In case No. S–10–647, an appeal from the condemnation award, ACC alleges that it did not receive adequate compensation for its land. We affirm the decision of the district court granting JAVA's motion for summary judgment in the civil suit and granting JAVA's motion to dismiss in ACC's appeal from the condemnation award.
Edward H. Patterson is the owner and sole shareholder of ACC, and for simplicity, we will hereinafter refer to the appellant as “Patterson” rather than “ACC.” The current cases involve three properties in Lincoln owned by Patterson: 2041 and 2047 S Street and 2100 Q Street. In addition, Patterson claims that [281 Neb. 745] he held a compensable property interest in properties owned by Edward and Dorothy Schwartzkopf (Schwartzkopf properties), which properties were located in the same neighborhood. The properties on Q and S Streets and the Schwartzkopf properties are all near the city campus of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL), between 19th and 22nd Streets east and west, and between Q and S Streets north and south. Patterson's properties and the Schwartzkopf properties were eventually condemned as part of the Antelope Valley project. The project was designed and implemented to provide Lincoln with flood control, transportation improvement, and community revitalization. The two cases before us originally involved three separate cases filed in the district court, the first of which we discuss only briefly to give the reader a complete procedural history of the proceedings in the district court.
Patterson and other parties filed an action for an injunction in the Lancaster County District Court under case No. CI04–4604 in December 2004. They requested an injunction against JAVA and the City to prevent the condemnation of their properties, but it was denied. In that same case, the parties also claimed that their properties were taken for an improper nonpublic purpose and that there was no proper neighborhood redevelopment plan. This action was earlier consolidated with the two cases currently on appeal, but it has not been appealed and is not now before us.
After the injunction was denied, JAVA filed a condemnation petition with the Lancaster County Court seeking to acquire Patterson's properties on Q and S Streets. The Lancaster County Board of Appraisers returned to Patterson an award totaling $128,750 for all the properties. Patterson appealed to the district court from that award, claiming inaccurate valuation, failure to negotiate in good faith on the part of...
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...Cast Iron Pipe Co. v. Williams , 591 So.2d 854 (Ala. 1991), §22.428 American Cent. City, Inc. v. Joint Antelope Valley Authority , 281 Neb. 742, 807 N.W.2d 170 (2011), §42.200 American Civil Liberties Union v. Brown , 619 F.2d 1170 (7th Cir. 1980), §9.511 American Exp. Centurion Bank v. Str......
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...Cast Iron Pipe Co. v. Williams , 591 So.2d 854 (Ala. 1991), §22.428 American Cent. City, Inc. v. Joint Antelope Valley Authority , 281 Neb. 742, 807 N.W.2d 170 (2011), §42.200 American Civil Liberties Union v. Brown , 619 F.2d 1170 (7th Cir. 1980), §9.511 American Exp. Centurion Bank v. Str......
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Table of Cases
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