Baetjer v. United States

• Decision Date: 26 June 1944
• Docket Number: No. 3933.,3933.
• Citation: 143 F.2d 391
• Parties: BAETJER et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

143 F.2d 391 (1944)

BAETJER et al. v. UNITED STATES.

No. 3933.

Circuit Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

June 26, 1944.

E. T. Fiddler, of San Juan, P. R., for appellants.

Vernon L. Wilkinson, Atty., Department of Justice, of Washington, D. C., Norman M. Littell, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Joseph F. McPherson, Sp. Asst. to the Atty. Gen., of San Juan, Puerto Rico, for appellee.

Before MAGRUDER, MAHONEY, and WOODBURY, Circuit Judges.

WOODBURY, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court of the United States for Puerto Rico awarding the appellants, who are the trustees of Eastern Sugar Associates, a trust, $361,500 as compensation for two tracts of land on the island of Vieques¹ condemned and taken possession of by the United States for war purposes under 40 U.S.C.A. § 258a.

The land condemned consists of two non-contiguous parcels, denominated in the petition as "A" and "B", aggregating 7,936.6 acres. Parcel "B", known as "Cabeza del Este", consisting of about 1700 acres, constitutes the eastern tip of the island of Vieques and includes all lands owned by the appellants on that part of the island. Parcel "A", consisting of about 6,300 acres, lies in the central part of the island and is five or six miles distant from parcel "B". Parcel "A" in turn formed the eastern part of a larger tract, some 8,800 acres, owned by the appellants, so that, after the taking, there remained in the appellants' ownership in the central part of the island approximately 2,500 acres. On this latter 2,500 acre tract are located the docks, buildings and railroad which the appellants had formerly used in operating their entire property on the island and still use in operating the part that remains.

The appellants in their answer alleged that the lands condemned and taken constituted part of "a single integrated property" known as "Eastern Sugar Estates"; that this property consisted of approximately 30,000 acres of land, roughly two-thirds of which lay on the island of Puerto Rico itself and the remainder on the island of Vieques; that upon it "are located four sugar mills, an extensive railway system, docks, warehouses and other dependencies"; that it is "devoted as an integrated whole" to the raising of sugar cane, pasture for raising and feeding livestock for use in the business of growing sugar cane and transporting it to the mills, and to the processing of cane into raw sugar; and that "the part of said Eastern Sugar Estates located in the island of Vieques including the area taken in these proceedings is devoted to the raising of sugar cane and the raising and maintaining of cattle for the needs of the enterprise as a whole"— the proportion of the lands devoted to sugar cane and to cattle, respectively, varying from year to year depending upon conditions and the requirements of the business. They then alleged that the amount deposited in court as estimated just compensation ($235,459) was wholly inadequate to compensate them for the land condemned and taken.

As the answer just summarized indicates, the principal question raised on this appeal is the question of severance damages. At the trial below the appellants took the position that their entire holdings, including those on the island of Puerto Rico as well as those remaining in their ownership on the island of Vieques, had been depreciated in value by the severance of the property condemned and that they were entitled to compensation for this depreciation. Counsel for the United States, on the other hand, contended that no damages for severance can ever be allowed unless the property taken is physically contiguous to the property of the owner remaining after the taking, that is, that as a matter of law severance damages may be awarded only for the taking of the 6,300 acre tract from the larger 8,800 acre tract of which it had formed a part. After listening to arguments on the question whether the appellants were legally entitled to severance damages for properties not physically contiguous to those taken, the court below ruled that it would hear evidence tending to prove damages both to other properties on Vieques and to properties on the main island of Puerto Rico itself, but would later entertain a motion to strike. Such evidence was thereupon admitted and counsel for the United States, having reserved the right to cross examine thereon, moved at the close of the appellants' evidence in chief that it be stricken. The court below granted this motion ruling "that the lands of the defendant located in Puerto Rico proper have not been severed in the legal sense from the lands taken by the United States in this case. Consequently, all the evidence adduced by the defendant purporting to show that the lands of the defendant located in Puerto Rico proper have been damaged by virtue of the taking in this case is stricken." With respect to the lands of the defendant located in Vieques, the court ruled "that the taking of Cabeza del Este did not affect any of the remaining lands of the defendant in Vieques which were not taken." The court then ruled that it was "still not in a position to determine" whether the lands remaining in the defendants' ownership in the central part of the island had been "damaged in a compensable manner," by the taking of the lands adjacent thereto and consequently reserved its ruling on this question.

The appellants admit that the evidence on this reserved question of damages is in conflict and that in consequence the court below could have decided it either way, but they say that it was error for the court below to have neglected to make specific findings and rulings in accordance with Rule 52 (a), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c and that its general finding on the subject of damages left the question unanswered. We do not agree.

In the first place specific findings and rulings, although helpful to us on appeal, do not have to be made in cases of this nature. Rule 81 (a) (7) provides: "In proceedings for condemnation of property under the power of eminent domain, these rules govern appeals but are not otherwise applicable." In the second place the finding made "That just compensation for said property condemned amounts to $361,500 which said amount includes all damages, past, present and future depreciation, if any there might be, to the remainder of the tract from which said parcel A of the lands condemned was taken" indicates that the court below had the question reserved in mind when awarding compensation. It, and the judgment which is worded in much the same terms, are unhappily phrased in that neither indicates whether any severance damages at all were given and if given how much was awarded therefor. This, however, is not a fatal defect. It is enough that it clearly appears that the point was not overlooked. We do not need to know how it was decided any more than we would need to know how a jury might have decided the question had the case been tried before such a tribunal under instructions permitting a general verdict.

We come now to the appellants' contention that the court below erred in striking their evidence which they say tended to show that their entire holdings on Vieques and Puerto Rico, although not contiguous, constituted a single unit made up of interdependent, related parts, and that the taking of the parts on Vieques reduced the value of the parts remaining to them on the main island of Puerto Rico.

In United States v. Miller, 317 U.S. 369, 376, 63 S.Ct. 276, 281, 87 L.Ed. 336, 147 A.L.R. 55, the Supreme Court, citing cases, stated the basic rule with respect to severance damages as follows: "If only a portion of a single tract is taken, the owner's compensation for that taking includes any element of value arising out of the relation of the part taken to the entire tract. Such damage is often, though somewhat loosely, spoken of as severance damage." But "As respects other property of the owner consisting of separate tracts adjoining that affected by the taking, the Constitution has never been construed as requiring payment of consequential damages." The first question before us here, therefore, and the basic one in all severance damage cases, is what constitutes a "single" tract as distinguished from "separate" ones. The answer does not depend upon artificial things like boundaries between tracts as established in deeds in the owner's chain of title, (see United States v. Powelson, 4 Cir., 118 F.2d 79, 86, 87, reversed on other grounds, 319 U.S. 266, 63 S.Ct. 1047, 87 L.Ed. 1390), nor does it depend necessarily upon whether the owner acquired his land in one transaction or even at one time. Sharpe v. United States, 3 Cir., 112 F. 893, 57 L.R.A. 932.² Neither does it wholly depend upon whether holdings are physically contiguous. Contiguous tracts may be "separate" ones if used separately (Sharp v. United States, 191 U.S. 341, 24 S.Ct. 114, 48 L.Ed. 211) and tracts physically separated from one another may constitute a "single" tract if put to an integrated unitary use or even if the possibility of their being so combined in use "in the reasonably near future" (Powelson v. United States, 319 U.S. 266, 276, 63 S.Ct. 1047, 1053, 87 L.Ed. 1390) "is reasonably sufficient to affect market value." McCandless v. United States, 298 U.S. 342, 345, 56 S.Ct. 764, 765, 80 L.Ed. 1205. See also Stephenson Brick Co. v. United States, 5 Cir., 110 F.2d 360, 361; Grand River Dam Authority v. Thompson, 10 Cir., 118 F.2d 242, 244, 245; 18 Am.Jur., Eminent Domain, § 270.

The Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, in the Sharpe case, (112 F. at page 896) in language approved by the Supreme Court on writ of error (191 U.S. 341, 354, 24 S.Ct. 114, 48 S.Ct. 211), stated the rule as follows:

"It is not denied that in rendering the `just compensation' secured by the constitution of the United States to the citizen whose property is taken for public uses it is right and proper to...