Bibb County, Georgia v. United States

• Decision Date: 01 November 1957
• Docket Number: No. 16669.,16669.
• Parties: BIBB COUNTY, GEORGIA, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

249 F.2d 228 (1957)

BIBB COUNTY, GEORGIA, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 16669.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

November 1, 1957.

Ellsworth Hall, Jr., Macon, Ga., Bloch, Hall, Groover, & Hawkins, Macon, Ga., of counsel, for appellant.

Perry W. Morton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Roger P. Marquis, Elizabeth Dudley, Washington, D. C., Frank O. Evans, U. S. Atty., Macon, Ga., for appellee.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and BORAH and CAMERON, Circuit Judges.

HUTCHESON, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal from a summary judgment fixing just compensation in a condemnation proceeding. The background for the proceeding may be summarized as follows. In 1941, under authority of the "Lanham Act, 42 U.S. C.A. § 1521 et seq.," the United States constructed improvements consisting of housing units, store buildings and a garage on the land in question, which adjoined another tract of land owned by the Government. Just prior to completion of the improvements, it was discovered that by mistake they had been constructed in part upon the land of the County of Bibb, and a lease for the land was negotiated. The term of the lease¹ was one year.

At the expiration of the lease, an amendment was entered into providing for the automatic renewal of the lease for additional periods of one year each at the same rental provided for the original term, but that it was not to be renewed without the consent of the parties for a total period, including the original term, of more than ten years. It further provided: that no holding over by the Government should operate to renew the lease, "except as specified herein"; that the premises were then being used to provide housing accommodations for veterans and their families; and that the parties "mutually desire to extend the date of expiration of said lease for the continued use of the premises as aforesaid." The original lease and amendment were executed by officials of the City of Macon of Bibb County and of the United States.

The suit was begun on December 31, 1954, to condemn the fee simple title to a tract of land comprising about 9.97 acres in Bibb County, Georgia, owned by the county, for the purpose of continuing in use, in the orderly demobilization of the war effort, the housing constructed thereon, of maintaining the said improvements and of protecting the investment of the United States therein. On the same day a declaration of taking was filed, and $5000 was deposited as estimated compensation for the land taken. On January 28, 1955, appellant filed an answer denying the jurisdiction of the district court and the authority of the government to condemn the property and alleging that it was the owner of the improvements and structures on the land for which compensation in the amount of $150,000 should be paid.

The government filed a motion for summary judgment awarding the condemnee $5000 on the ground that the pleadings, admissions and affidavits on file showed that it was entitled to judgment for that amount as a matter of law, and the district judge, on the basis of the decisions cited in his brief opinion,² agreeing with the plaintiff that there was no genuine issue as to any material fact and that a judgment for $5000, the agreed value of the land without the improvements, should be entered, so ordered.

Appellant recognizes that the cases cited by the district judge, and particularly United States v. Certain Parcels of Land, D.C., 131 F.Supp. 65, and our case of Anderson Tully v. U. S., 5 Cir., 189 F.2d 192, in the viewpoint taken in the opinions and in the results reached in the cases, if viewed apart from the precise language of the leases in those cases and in this, furnish strong support for the position of the government. Contending, however, that the two cases are distinguishable from this one in the terms of the leases and in the fact that this case is controlled by the law of Georgia, it earnestly urges upon us that it must be decided upon the language of the lease and upon the Georgia law of fixtures as between an ordinary landlord and tenant. Pointing out that the lease contains no provision for the restoration of the premises to their original condition as did the leases in some of the cases on which the government relies, and that, while it provides that "improvements placed on the land shall remain the property of the government", it goes on to provide as to the removal thereof, "and may be removed therefrom by the government prior to the termination of this lease", appellant insists that Bibb County owned the land with the improvements on it and not merely the land, and was, therefore, entitled to compensation for the full value of the land as improved and not, as the judgment provides, for the value merely of the land without the improvements.

In short, appellant insists that in the face of the provisions of the lease and of the fact that the improvements were not removed prior to its termination, the court has erroneously decided the case as though the United States, the condemner, and not Bibb County, the condemnee, was the owner of the improvements.

We cannot agree with this view. We think that in putting it forward, appellant takes too restricted a view of the facts as a whole and of the controlling equitable principles and, by a bare bones argument which presents the case as a mere controversy between a Georgia landlord and tenant over fixtures, strips it of its life giving, its flesh and blood, elements. These, as the authorities declare them to be, may be thus briefly summarized: (1) Under the facts of this case, in the absence of an intent on the part of the United States to give and of Bibb County to receive as a gift the valuable improvements which in the interest of the war effort and with the consent and approval of Bibb County the United States had placed and maintained upon the land, it would be a clear perversion of justice to permit the invocation of the dry as dust legal principles as to fixtures controlling the relation of an ordinary landlord and tenant; and (2) When the United States or other governmental body has constructed improvements upon land not owned by it but of which it is in possession under circumstances such as this case presents, and brings proceedings to condemn the fee of the land, the equitable principle which condemns unjust enrichment prevents the value of these premises becoming a windfall to the owner of the land in the guise of fair compensation. This court so held upon full consideration in Anderson-Tully Co. v. U. S., 5 Cir., 189 F.2d 192; and Searl v. School District, Lake County, 133 U.S. 553, 10 S.Ct. 374, 33 L.Ed. 740; Consolidated Turnpike Co. v. Norfolk, etc., Ry. Co., 228 U.S. 596, 33 S.Ct. 605, 57 L.Ed. 982; Charleston & W. C....