Belworth, Inc. v. City of Baltimore

• Decision Date: 07 January 1970
• Docket Number: No. 140,140
• Citation: 260 A.2d 284,256 Md. 369
• Parties: BELWORTH, INC. v. Mayor and CITY Council OF BALTIMORE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 369

256 Md. 369

260 A.2d 284

BELWORTH, INC. v.Mayor and CITY Council OF BALTIMORE.

No. 140.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 7, 1970.

Edwin T. Steffy, Jr., Baltimore, for appellant.

Roger C. Duncan, Asst. City Sol., (George L. Russell, Jr., City Sol., and Clayton A. Dietrich, Chief Asst. Sol., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before HAMMOND, C. J., and BARNES, McWILLIAMS, SMITH and DIGGES, JJ.

DIGGES, Judge.

This appeal is from a judgment entered in condemnation proceedings instituted by the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore against commercial land owned by appellantBelworth, Inc. and Shell Oil Company(Shell), mortgagee.¹The subject property is a tract of land located at Kirk Avenue and 22nd Street in Baltimore City.It is improved by a single story building, with a basement that formerly was used for offices, cafeteria and storage.

The City seeks to acquire the property for use as a neighborhood recreation center.It presented two appraisers as expert witnesses.John F. Conroy testified that in his opinion the highest and best use of the building was for commercial purposes with a small percentage of office area.He stated his belief the fair market value of the property to be $42,500.William K. Ferguson stated that in his opinion the property had a fair market value of $45,000.Appellant also presented two expert appraisers.Both agreed that the highest and best use was for industrial or commercial use requiring large office spaces.Based on this use, C. Gordon Gilbert found the fair market value to be $110,000, and B. H. Waterbury, Jr. estimated $102,500.

The building in question was formerly owned by the Shell Oil Corporation(now Shell Oil Company) and used by it as offices until 1961.At that time it moved from the building and sold the property to the appellant but retains a mortgage on it.Since the date of the sale the building has stood vacant.It has been subjected to extensive deterioration caused by vandalism and exposure to the weather.All parties agree that substantial sums would have to be expended for repairs before the building would be tenantable.The jury by its inquisition awarded the appellant and Shell the sum of $50,000 for the property.

AppellantBelworth, Inc. appeals from the judgment entered on the inquisition and claims error causing substantial injustice to it by the trial judge in two instances.The first instance is that one of the appellee's expert witnesses, John F. Conroy, was permitted to state that 'Shell Oil Company' told him in 1961 that the reason the company moved was 'because the neighborhood was getting too rough, and causing them problems with their female help.'

Appellant claims error in the admission of this statement because it is hearsay evidence and has the prejudicial effect of undermining appellant's experts' testimony that the highest and best use of the property would be to devote it largely to office use, employing many clerical workers.It argues that 1961 is too remote in time to have any relevance to the highest and best use as of the time of taking in 1969.

Appellant indicates in its brief it is properly mindful of this Court's reluctance to set aside condemnation awards for erros in the admission of evidence unless these errors are found to have caused 'substantial injustice.'State Roads Comm. v. Adams, 238 Md. 371, 209 A.2d 247(1965);Hance v. State Roads Comm., 221 Md. 164, 156 A.2d 644(1959).But assuming without deciding that admission of Conroy's statement was error, ²we are unable to say it caused substantial injustice to the appellant.Conroy testified to a report of conditions in 1961.The date of taking was March 7, 1969.On that date the jury viewed the property, saw for itself the vandalized condition of the building and was able to make its own independent observation of the character of the neighborhood.In fact appellant's own expert witness, Gilbert, stated '* * * due to the trend of industry toward suburban industrial parks, and the declining character of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, this area has been declining in value in recent years.'Thus all parties seem to now concede that the neighborhood at the time of the taking was a depressed area.The statement made in 1961 was in the nature of a prophecy which, unfortunately for the appellant, has come true.We think appellant is similarly situated to the condemnee in Bergeman v. State Roads Comm., 218 Md. 137, 146 A.2d 48(1958), where an expert witness was permitted to testify to a comparable sale with knowledge of the sale price being gained solely from tax stamps on a deed.We held there was no reversible error in that case because the purchaser of the property later took the stand and admitted he paid the price testified to by the witness in question.'The declining character of the inhabitants of the neighborhood' was the stated reason for...