Hansen v. Franklin County
| Decision Date | 16 October 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 49002,No. 10,10,49002 |
| Citation | 78 N.W.2d 805,247 Iowa 1287 |
| Parties | Peter HANSEN, Appellant, v. FRANKLIN COUNTY, Iowa, and the Board of Supervisors of Franklin County, Iowa, composed of H. T. Jurgens, E. A. Fredericks and G. M. Anderson, and Drainage Districtin Franklin County, Iowa, Appellee. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Uhlenhopp & Cady, Hampton, for appellant.
Leming & Hobson, and R. L. Saley, Hampton, for appellee.
Plaintiff's action was at law. His petition alleges damages because of the widening and deepening of a drainage ditch across his farm in 1953. The ditch was originally constructed in 1913. There is substantial evidence from which the jury could find that the ditch was originally 40 feet wide, with a four foot berm and spoil banks from 16 to 20 feet wide on each side. It could have been found from the evidence that the land taken out of cultivation by the original ditch was a strip 80 feet wide, including the ditch proper and the berm and spoil banks on each side. The spoil banks, consisting apparently of earch removed from the ditch, were from 6 to 15 feet high; and there is evidence that it was not possible to cultivate them. As to the deepening of the ditch, there is evidence that the 1953 operation did no more than to restore the original depth.
The ditch after the 1953 work was finished was approximately 80 feet in width. But there were no spoil banks; so that there is evidence from which the jury was justified in finding that the strip of land carved out of plaintiff's farm and removed from cultivation was no wider after the 1953 construction than it had been after 1913. These facts are not all admitted, nor are they without contradiction; but in view of the questions raised by this appeal, we are concerned only with those which have some substantial support in the evidence.
I. Plaintiff assigns two errors. The first, which is given the major stress, is that the verdict of the jury was contrary to the evidence and the instructions of the court, and so cannot be allowed to stand. Griffith v. Burlington, C. R. & N. Ry. Co., 72 Iowa 645, 34 N.W. 609. This contention is supported in argument by a quotation of Instruction No. 6, which told the jury that the measure of plaintiff's damages, if any, was the difference between the reasonable market value of the farm immediately before and immediately after the improvement of 1953. This instruction also told the jury: 'But you are not to take into consideration any benefits or advantages that may have accrued or that may accrue in the future to plaintiff's farm by reason of the establishment of the present drainage improvement.'
From this counsel argue that, since the ditch was unquestionably widened and deepened, some damage must have resulted; and the only way in which a verdict of no damage could have been reached must necessarily have been by allowing some benefits from the improvement, contrary to the instruction quoted. But the difficulty with this position is that there is a considerable quantum of evidence that the actual land out of cultivation was no greater after the 1953 construction than before. The ditch is wider now; but there is much evidence that the spoil banks could not have been cultivated, while the widened ditch has no spoil banks and the land can be farmed to its edge. Perhaps it would be more nearly correct to say that the new improvement has spoil banks but they are levelled off so they can be cultivated.
L. J. Hansen, a farm planter for the Soil Conservation Service since 1948, testified that the spoil banks on the new construction, with a proper amount of fertilizer, should produce as well as the rest of the farm. There is not enough gravel to do any harm. It would produce seed crops better than the rest of the farm, but would need nitrogen to produce corn. Mr. Hansen placed the value of the farm at the same figure before and after the new improvement.
August Friesleben, who lived near the plaintiff's farm and had in fact lived upon it for eleven years, likewise placed the value at the same figure before and after, as did several other farmers and farm...
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