Colvill v. St. Paul & C. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 01 January 1874
• Citation: 19 Minn. 240
• Parties: JANE E. COLVILL v. ST. PAUL & CHICAGO RY. Co.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 240

19 Minn. 240

JANE E. COLVILL

v. ST. PAUL & CHICAGO RY. Co.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Appeal by defendant from an order of the district court, Goodhue county, denying a new trial.

Smith & Van Slyck, for appellant, cited:

W. Colvill, with J. C. McClure, for respondent, cited:

RIPLEY, C. J.

The grounds of the motion for a new trial from the order denying which this appeal is taken are: (1) Excessive damages appearing to have been given under the influence of passion and prejudice. (2) That the verdict was not justified by the evidence, and is contrary to law. (3) Errors in law occurring at the trial and excepted to.

The first is not urged. In support of the second it is said that on the question of the value of the property the whole testimony in the case shows that the damages awarded by the jury were very much in excess of a large majority of the estimates made by the witnesses in the case.

The verdict is indeed largely in excess of the estimates made by the defendant's witnesses, but it is not in excess of the estimate of any witness of the plaintiff, and is much less than that of most of them. The fact, therefore, that the defendant's witnesses outnumbered the plaintiff's is no ground for setting aside the verdict.

These proceedings are taken under the same charter as that under which the cases of Simmons and of Grannis v. this defendant arose. In this case, as in those, the defendant had entered upon and taken possession of the strip of land out of plaintiff's property (lot 6, section 28, township 113, range 14, containing 67 70-100 acres) sought to be condemned long before the trial, commencing work thereon in August, 1870; had completed its road over it some six months before trial; and had used it ever since down to the time of the trial, viz., December 19, 1871. The charter directs that the jury shall "assess the value of the lands so entered upon, taken, possessed, occupied, and used by said company at the time it was so entered upon and taken."

A witness called for plaintiff testified that the property in question was in Red Wing; that he was acquainted with the value of property in the city generally, and also of the property in question at the time of the taking and was then so acquainted.

The witness was then asked: "What was the value of the property (said lot 6) without the railroad thereon, and what was the value of the same with the road at the time the railway took the same for its purposes?"

This was objected to as not a proper question; that no proper foundation had been laid; that the competency of the witness to answer the question had not been shown, and that the same is incompetent.

The witness was competent. When the value of property, real or personal, is in controversy, persons acquainted with it may state their opinion as to its value. Simmons v. St. P. & Chi. Ry. Co. 18 Minn. 184, (Gil. 168.) As to the question itself, it is awkwardly worded, but it plainly means to ask for the value of said lot without the road at the time the defendant entered upon it, and its value with said strip taken out of it by the defendant and appropriated by it to its purposes of constructing and operating its railroad thereon.

The question is therefore substantially identical with those approved in said cases of Simmons and Grannis, and since it appears from the instructions given at defendant's request that the same view was taken by it at the trial, as in those cases, upon the argument in this court, of the meaning of the words "value of the land taken," viz., that the plaintiff was entitled to a just and fair compensation for the taking of said strip of land for said purposes, to be arrived at by ascertaining the difference between the value of the whole premises immediately before the taking, and its value immediately after the taking of the said strip for its purposes aforesaid; and as the scope of this appeal, like those, was but to secure a retrial of the same matter submitted to and passed upon by commissioners, it is not only of no more consequence now, than in those cases, to consider whether the value of the land taken, at the time of such taking aforesaid, is that just compensation without which private property cannot be taken for public purposes, but the question must be held competent on the defendant's own view of the law, as well as on the authority of ...