Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific R. Co., Matter of, 85-2505

Citation794 F.2d 1182
Decision Date24 June 1986
Docket NumberNo. 85-2505,85-2505
PartiesIn the Matter of CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND AND PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Debtor. Appeal of SANBORN COOPERATIVE GRAIN COMPANY, Appellant, Chicago Pacific Corporation, Appellee.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Harold White, Fitzgibbons Brothers, Estherville, Iowa, for debtor.

Cynthia Bowman, Jenner & Block, Chicago, Ill., for Sanborn Corp.

Before POSNER and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges, and CAMPBELL, Senior District Judge. *

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

The Rock Island line was a landlord as well as a railroad. It rented land on which the tenants built grain elevators, among other things. Many of these leases were terminable on 30 days' notice, which exposed the elevator operators to a risk: the Rock Island might cancel, acquire ownership of the elevators, and lease the land for a much higher rent reflecting the value of the elevators the tenants had built. (The tenants had 10 days after the end of the lease to remove their improvements, after which the Rock Island acquired ownership. Few people recall seeing grain elevators rolling down the highway en route to new sites after being evicted from their old ones.) Iowa controlled the rent for the Rock Island's land, however, which made it impossible for the Rock Island to take advantage of the elevator operators in this way.

The Rock Island's bankruptcy presented it with an opportunity to turn the screws on its lessees. The Iowa statute applied only to lessees of railroads, and in 1980 the district judge supervising the Rock Island's bankruptcy instructed it to stop being a railroad. It did, and its Trustee--told to maximize the value of the estate without regard to good business relations--proposed large increases in the rent of the land underlying many grain elevators. Negotiating to avoid stupendous increases in rent, many of the elevators operators bought the underlying land from the Rock Island at prices that reflected part or all of the value of the elevators themselves.

When the Trustee increased one lessee's rent by 5900%, from $100 to $6,000 per month, the lessee balked. It declined to pay, vacate, or buy at the Trustee's price. See In re Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R.R., 753 F.2d 56 (7th Cir.1985) (Rake). Rake held that the district court could not allow the Trustee to charge a rent based on the value of the grain elevator. Instead, "the unimproved value of the ... property provides the better basis for an equity court to determine the fair rent" the Trustee may charge. 753 F.2d at 60. The limitation on the maximum rent affected the price the Trustee could expect to realize in a sale of the same property.

In mid-1982, before we decided Rake, Iowa extended its rent control law to railroads' successors. This closed the window of opportunity for the Rock Island, restoring the system that had been interrupted by the Rock Island's transition from railroad to real estate magnate. The reorganization court held the statute preempted by the bankruptcy laws on the ground that it reduced the value of the estate. We disagreed, because rent control of grain elevators has been constitutional since Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. (4 Otto) 113, 24 L.Ed. 77 (1876), and a bankrupt's property rights are governed by state law. In re Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R.R., 772 F.2d 299 (7th Cir.1985), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 1265, 89 L.Ed.2d 574 (1986) (Sanborn I ). If a going railroad may be burdened with a rent control scheme, so may a defunct railroad. Iowa's statute reduced the price the Trustee could realize, but a statute forbidding the Trustee to build a casino or dump radioactive waste on the land would have done the same.

I

Between the decisions in Rake and Sanborn I, the district court entered the order before us today. The dispute concerns the same land that was at stake in Sanborn I. The Sanborn Cooperative Grain Company leased 4.4 acres in Melvin, Iowa, from the Rock Island and built a grain elevator. The lease could be canceled by either party on 30 days' notice. The going rental was $2,404.65 per year. In September 1982 the Trustee gave the 30 days' notice and informed Sanborn that on November 1, 1982, it could either pay a new rent of $2,450 per month or quit the property. Sanborn refused to pay, and the parties agreed that Sanborn could remain in possession pending a sale of the land, which everyone assumed would be to Sanborn. They also agreed that the court would fix the rent for the period before the sale.

Robert Kent topped Sanborn's bid, and the Trustee sold the land to Kent on November 1, 1983, for $100,000. (Kent paid $120,000 for two parcels and apportioned $100,000 to the Melvin parcel. We need not decide whether the lopsided apportionment was justified.) Kent demanded a rent of $2,400 per month. Sanborn then invoked the new rent control law, and Iowa officials set a rent of $2,025 per year, leading Kent to seek the reorganization court's aid. This produced Sanborn I. Meanwhile the court wound up the Rock Island bankruptcy. The Rock Island, renamed Chicago Pacific Corporation (CPC), emerged as a solvent firm. The closing order preserved for decision any pending controversies, and the dispute about the rent for the Melvin property between November 1, 1982, and November 1, 1983, is such a controversy. Sanborn was a holdover tenant, and the dispute about what it would pay before the sale to Kent was an adversary proceeding in the bankruptcy. The court also concluded that it was entitled to fix the rent Kent would receive from the time it bought the land until Sanborn paid up or got out. This raises a jurisdictional problem discussed below.

By the time the court conducted a valuation proceeding, Rake had held that the appropriate rental is based on the value of unoccupied land. Sanborn presented a real estate appraiser who concluded that 4.4 acres of unimproved land at the site of the elevator was worth $15,000 in 1982-83. CPC presented evidence that vacant land in Melvin was worth $3,000 to $4,000 per acre, essentially agreeing with Sanborn's expert. But CPC argued that the appropriate way to value the land was to examine the price the Trustee had realized when selling land to the operator-lessees of other elevators. These deals, CPC insisted, show that the market value of the land was $147,000.

The reorganization court fixed the value at $125,000, stating:

The first contention of Sanborn, that is that the property should be valued as vacant, is inconsistent with the realities of the situation. The property is not vacant but in fact is a tract containing a grain elevator. It is because it contains a grain elevator that it was valuable to Sanborn and is now valuable to Kent.

The judge applied CPC's preferred method of comparing the Melvin elevator with comparable ones, although the judge did not explain why he picked $125,000 rather than the higher value for which CPC contended or the lower price Kent had paid for the parcel. (An actual price, such as Kent's, is a far better indicator of the value of this parcel than is a hypothetical price based on sales of other parcels.) The court concluded that a landlord would collect an annual rent of 20% of the market value of the land, here $26,250. It gave Sanborn credit for some prepaid rent at the old rate and directed it to pay CPC a net of $23,845.35 for the period before November 1, 1983. Then the court decreed Sanborn's rent to kent to be $29,400 per year, from November 1, 1983, until Sanborn finally vacated. The judge did not explain how he arrived at $29,400. This figure turns out to be 20% of the $147,000 valuation for which CPC had argued--and which the court rejected.

Two weeks after the reorganization court entered this order, we held in Sanborn I that the Iowa rent control statute applies to the Melvin property in Kent's hands. This upset the basis of the district court's order setting Sanborn's rent to Kent. It also upset the basis of the deal between the Trustee and Kent, who thought he was buying a property with the potential to produce $2,000 or more a month in rent. After the Supreme Court declined to review Sanborn I, CPC and Kent rescinded the sale of the two parcels. CPC maintains that as kent's successor in interest it is entitled to the $29,400 rental between November 1, 1983, and June 1, 1984, the date of the order winding up the Rock Island's bankruptcy.

II

Rake held that the Trustee must charge a rental based on the value of unimproved land. The reorganization court refused to apply Rake. It did not cite the case, although the valuation proceeding had been held after Rake and all parties had made that case the focus of their evidentiary presentations. The judge's conclusion that the rule of law contained in Rake "is inconsistent with the realities of the situation" is unacceptable. Perhaps Rake is mistaken or "inconsistent with the realities"; there is an unavoidable rate of error in all legal decisionmaking. Cases establish rules of law just as statutes do, however, and these rules have general application. District judges must follow the rules established in statutes and cases alike, no matter how misguided the judges may think them. United States v. Burke, 781 F.2d 1234, 1239 n. 2 (7th Cir.1985). Rake involves grain elevators built by tenants on the land of the Rock Island in Iowa; no closer precedent can be imagined; it supplies the rule of decision here as well.

The witnesses in this case agreed that 4.4 acres of unimproved land near the (abandoned) railroad tracks in Melvin, Iowa, was worth somewhere between $13,140 and $17,520 in 1982. The district court's valuation of $125,000 in explicitly based on the point that the Melvin parcel is not vacant. Rake makes this valuation untenable. It does not help CPC to cite the Trustee's sales of other parcels containing grain elevators. These sales occurred before the decisions in Rake and Sanborn I. The prices were...

To continue reading

Request your trial
147 cases
  • In re Confidential Investigative Consultants, Inc., Bankruptcy No. 91 B 08172.
    • United States
    • United States Bankruptcy Courts. Seventh Circuit. U.S. Bankruptcy Court — Northern District of Illinois
    • February 10, 1995
    ...at 749; see also In re Kubly, 818 F.2d 643 (7th Cir.1987); In re Xonics, Inc., 813 F.2d 127 (7th Cir.1987); In re Chicago, Rock Island & Pac. R.R. Co., 794 F.2d 1182 (7th Cir.1986). Under these rulings, a controversy should not be deemed "related to" a bankruptcy unless its resolution will ......
  • In re McAllister, Bankruptcy No. 95-03468-BGC-7
    • United States
    • United States Bankruptcy Courts. Eleventh Circuit. U.S. Bankruptcy Court — Northern District of Alabama
    • January 26, 1998
    ...that type of proceeding: "Jurisdiction is the power to decide. It must be conferred, not assumed." Matter of Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific R. Co., 794 F.2d 1182, 1188 (7th Cir.1986) (emphasis original). Just because a federal court has entered a money judgment does not mean that it also ......
  • Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific R. Co., Matter of, s. 85-1554
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)
    • August 20, 1986
    ...that valuation should be at scrap value when a sale at a higher price for a rail use is possible); cf. In re Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R.R., 794 F.2d 1182, 1185 (7th Cir.1986) (actual bids, not hypothetical calculations, are the best indicia of value). CMC thinks that error is the same......
  • In re Equip. Acquisition Res. Inc.
    • United States
    • United States Bankruptcy Courts. Seventh Circuit. U.S. Bankruptcy Court — Northern District of Illinois
    • June 22, 2011
    ...re Dental Profile, Inc., No. 09 C 6160, 2010 WL 431590, at *1 (N.D.Ill. Feb. 1, 2010) ( quoting In re Chi., Rock Island & Pac. R.R. Co., 794 F.2d 1182, 1188 (7th Cir.1986)). In deciding a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss, a court must accept as true all well-pleaded factual allegations in th......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT