Grand River Dam Authority v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 03 March 1941
• Docket Number: 2190.,2160,No. 2159,2180,2186,2183,2179,2189,2187,2159
• Citation: Grand River Dam Authority v. Thompson, 118 F.2d 242 (10th Cir. 1941)
• Parties: GRAND RIVER DAM AUTHORITY v. THOMPSON et al. and eight other cases.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

118 F.2d 242 (1941)

GRAND RIVER DAM AUTHORITY v.THOMPSON et al.and eight other cases.

Nos. 2159, 2160, 2179, 2180, 2183, 2186, 2187, 2189, 2190.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

March 3, 1941.

Jesse L. Ballard, of Vinita, Okl. (R. L. Davidson, of Tulsa, Okl., Q. B. Boydstun, of Vinita, Okl., and Gayle M. Pickens, of Miami, Okl., on the brief), for appellant.

Frank Nesbitt, of Miami, Okl. (Nelle Nesbitt, of Miami, Okl., L. Keith Smith, of Jay, Okl., J. J. Smith and Henry Walker, both of Miami, Okl., R. L. Wheatley, of Vinita, Okl., and Ad V. Coppedge, of Grove, Okl., on the brief), for appellees.

Before PHILLIPS, MURRAH, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.

The appellant, Grand River Dam Authority, is a public corporation agency and instrumentality of the State of Oklahoma, created by an Act of the Oklahoma Legislature approved April 26, 1935, Okl.Session Laws, 1935, Chapter 70, Art. 4, Sec. 1, 82 Okl.St.Ann. § 861, in which it is authorized and empowered, among other things, to control, store and preserve the waters of Grand River and its tributaries for any useful purpose and to develop and generate water power and electric energy through the use thereof, and to sell and distribute the electrical energy produced.

Said appellant, with financial aid on the part of the government of the United States in the form of a loan and grant, has, for the purpose of flood control and the development of hydro-electric power, completed the construction of a dam and power plant on said river near the town of Pensacola in Mayes County, Oklahoma.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C.A. § 791a et seq., appellant applied for and received from the Federal Power Commission a license for the construction, maintenance and operation of said project, which includes a reservoir extending about 55 miles upstream from the dam and which is composed of approximately 52,000 acres of land.In acquiring title to these lands it became necessary in some instances for appellant to resort to condemnation, including the proceedings in the instant cases.Appellees separately owned or otherwise had some interest in and to various tracts of land located within either Delaware or Mayes counties, Oklahoma, situated within the area of said reservoir.The appellant being unable after diligent effort to acquire same for such reservoir purposes by purchase or amicable agreement, commenced said condemnation proceedings therefor in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma to take and appropriate said land for the use and purposes aforesaid.

Said appellant alleged, inter alia, that the Federal Power Commission had issued to it a license authorizing the construction, maintenance and operation of the said project; that the amount claimed by the owners of each of the tracts of land sought to be condemned, excluding costs, exceeded $3,000, the proceedings being under and pursuant to Section 21 of the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C.A. § 814.

Upon the filing of the petitions in the condemnation proceedings, the Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, as a part thereof and after due and timely notice to all parties named in said petitions, appointed Boards of Commissioners to assess the damages which would be sustained as a result of the taking and appropriating of the land.

Upon the reports of said boards of commissioners being returned and filed, the appellant deemed itself aggrieved thereby and desirous of having juries to assess such damages timely filed its demand for trial by jury.At the subsequent trials the jury therein returned general verdicts, in each case unanimous, fixing and assessing the amount of damages which the appellant should pay in compensation for the taking or appropriating of the lands in question.

Motions for new trials were duly and timely filed and overruled, and judgments rendered thereon in accordance with the verdicts, and appeals have been taken therefrom to this court.

Error is assigned in each appeal that (1)the trial court erred in instructing the jury that the verdict should be unanimous, and failed, refused and omitted to instruct the jury that three-fourths of the whole number of jurors concurring in a case were authorized to return a verdict; and (2) in case No. 2180(Ray et ux.), whether two certain tracts of land constituted one unit or separate units, was a question for determination by the court, and it was error to submit such question to the jury; and (3) in case No. 2189(Newburn et al.) that the trial court erred in refusing, failing and omitting to instruct the jury to return separate verdicts with respect to each of the farms therein involved, and further erred in giving an instruction to the jury in effect to return a single verdict with respect to the two farms and fix and assess the damages in a lump sum.

Whilst under the Oklahoma Constitution the right of trial by jury is to remain inviolate and in civil cases a verdict may be rendered by three-fourths of the whole number of jurors concurring (Okl.Const. Art. 2, Sec. 19, Okl.St.Ann.), it is not essential here to determine as to whether the common-law rule requiring unanimous verdict applies in these cases in lieu of the provisions of said Sec. 19, Art. 2 of the Constitution.

In Curtis & Gartside Co. v. Pigg, 39 Okl. 31, 134 P. 1125, 1131, it is said: "The intent of this provision Sec. 19, Art. 2 of the Constitution is not to deprive the jury of a reasonable time in which to consider its verdict, nor to give the court power to constitute nine of the number as the jury and the remaining three as an unnecessary surplusage; but its object is to provide that where, after due deliberation has been given to the issues involved, and after a reasonable time has been spent in an endeavor to reach a just verdict, they be unable to concur unanimously, then in order to prevent delay, and mistrials and defeat of justice, three-fourths of their number concurring shall have power to render a verdict.Note the language of the Constitution: `Three-fourths of the whole number concurring shall have power to render a verdict.'This language clearly implies that the power is with the jury to say whether they will render a three-fourths verdict, and not with the court to peremptorily demand it."

A failure, though requested, to instruct the jury that three-fourths of its number could agree upon and return a verdict, as a rule neither vitiates a unanimous verdict agreed upon and returned by the jury, nor operates as reversible error.First National Bank of Lawton et al. v. Thompson, 41 Okl. 88, 137 P. 668;Thompson & Rose v. Tyler, 27 Okl. 729, 113 P. 709;Arizona Eastern R. Co. v. Bryan, 18 Ariz. 106, 157 P. 376;Murphy et al. v. Shaffer et al., 58 Cal.App. 453, 208 P. 1003;Adams Express Co. v. Aldridge, 20 Colo.App. 74, 77 P. 6;Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Thomas' Adm'r, 170 Ky. 145, 185 S.W. 840;Ricketts v. Drew Grocery Co., 155 Miss. 459, 124 So. 495;Reith v. Ansley, 162 Miss. 886, 140 So. 521;Lohmeyer v. St. Louis Cordage Co., 214 Mo. 685, 113 S.W. 1108;Portwright v. St. Louis Transit Co., 183 Mo. 72, 81 S.W. 1091;Baxter v. Magill, 127 Mo.App. 392, 105 S.W. 679;Gauthier v. Carbonneau et al., 226 Wis. 527, 277 N. W. 135; 64 Corpus Juris 1064.

In all of said appeal cases, 2159, 2160, 2179, 2180, 2183, 2186, 2187, 2189, 2190, neither was contention then nor here made that the unanimous verdicts as returned were not supported by substantial evidence.No exceptions were properly saved in cases 2159, 2179, 2180, 2183, and 2186 on account of instruction as to unanimous verdicts or failure to instruct that three-fourths of the jury concurring were authorized to return a verdict.

In case No. 2180(Ray et ux.), as to said assigned error No. 2, the uncontroverted evidence, which is substantial, discloses that the appellees had owned the two tracts for over twenty years, one consisting of 120 acres on one side of Cowskin River, and the other on opposite side of said river, consisting of 80 acres on which they lived, a public road with a ford thereon affording means of access from their residence on one...