Braun v. Wisconsin Elec. Power Co.
| Decision Date | 03 February 1959 |
| Citation | 6 Wis.2d 262,94 N.W.2d 593 |
| Parties | Walter BRAUN et al., Appellants, v. WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER CO., a corporation, Respondent. Albert KAESTNER et al., Appellants, v. WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER CO., a corporation, Respondent. Edmund SCHULZ et al., Appellants, v. WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER CO., a corporation, Respondent. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
Gramling & Gramling, Milwaukee, Frank X. Didier, Milwaukee, of counsel, for appellants.
Shaw, Muskat & Paulsen, John G. Quale, Milwaukee, Bassuener, Humke, Poole & Axel, Sheboygan, for respondent.
Stewart G. Honeck, Atty. Gen., A. J. Feifarek, Asst. Atty. Gen., amicus curiae.
The appellant landowners advance the following two contentions on this appeal:
(1) It was an abuse of discretion for the trial court to order the consolidation for trial of the three appeals from the awards made by the commissioners.
(2) The trial court's method of submitting to the jury the issue of just compensation for the taking violated sec. 32.10, Stats., 1957.
The consolidation of two or more actions for trial rests in the sound discretion of the trial court. Schmidt v. Riess, 1925, 186 Wis. 574, 584, 203 Wis. 362. The controlling principle of law with respect to consolidation for purposes of trial is stated in 4 Callaghan's Wisconsin Pleading and Practice (3rd ed.), p. 221, sec. 30.07, as follows:
'The matter of joining cases for trial only is not a true 'consolidation,' but merely a union of convenience, resting largely in the discretion of the trial court where there can be no prejudice from a joint trial and expense and delay can be lessened thereby.'
We deem that the consolidation of the instant three proceedings presented a proper situation in which the trial court could exercise its discretion to consolidate them for purposes of trial. The factors which in our opinion made this proper were:
(a) Similar easement rights were being condemned over all three farms.
(b) The owners of all three farms were represented by the same attorneys.
(c) The landowners intended to and did use the same expert witnesses to establish the value of the taking as to all three farms.
The chief argument advanced against the consolidation is the claim that the issues were too complicated, and the expert testimony as to mathematical computations too involved, for the jury to keep them properly in mind. Such objections could be urged with greater persuasiveness against the consolidation for trial of many personal injury cases arising from the same automobile accident that reach this court. Certainly the instant special verdict consisting of three pairs of identically phrased questions was far simpler than the verdicts submitted in many such personal injury actions.
We are unable to perceive how the complaining landowners were prejudiced by the consolidation. Convincing proof to us that they were not is the fact that the values of the three takings, based upon the jury's special verdict, bear the same ratio to each other which the values determined by the commissioners did. For example, in each situation the value of the taking with respect to the Kaestner farm was determined to be 50 per cent of that of the Schulz farm taking and 66 2/3 per cent of that of the Braun farm taking. Prejudice is not to be inferred from the mere fact that the jury's found values resulted in lower awards than determined by the commissioners.
It is our conclusion that there was no abuse of discretion in the trial court consolidating the three proceedings for trial.
The second issue raised in behalf of the landowners, that the method employed by the trial court in submitting the issue of the value of the taking 1 to the jury, both as to the form of verdict and as to the court's instructions to the jury, violated sec. 32.10, Stats., 1957.
Sec. 32.10, Stats., 1957, provides as follows:
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