Indiana Cent. R.R. Co. v. Hunter

• Decision Date: 25 November 1856
• Citation: 8 Ind. 69
• Parties: Indiana Central Railroad Company v. Hunter
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

8 Ind. 69

Indiana Central Railroad Company v. Hunter

Supreme Court of Indiana

November 25, 1856

From the Marion Circuit Court.

The judgment is reversed at the cost of the appellee. Cause remanded for a new trial and for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

H. C Newcomb and J. W. Harvey, for appellant.

W Wallace and R. L. Walpole, for appellee.

OPINION

Gookins J.

Matthew R. Hunter, and other heirs of John Hunter, deceased, filed their complaint before a justice of the peace, setting forth that they had been injured by said company, by an entry upon, and location of their railroad track through, the plaintiffs' lands. The complaint proceeds:

"They particularly set forth the nature and locality of the injury to be as follows: the track of said railroad enters upon said land from the east, about six rods from the north line thereof, and passes diagonally through said land, occupying, as the complainants allege, about seven acres of said tracts of land. Said railway company have made excavations in said land of from three to five feet, throwing the dirt upon said land, in places, from five to six feet in height, and it still remains upon said land in that condition."

They prayed the appointment of appraisers, etc. Appraisers were appointed, who assessed the plaintiffs' damages at 400 dollars, for which the justice gave judgment. The company appealed to the Marion Circuit Court, where there was a trial by jury, verdict for the plaintiffs for 350 dollars, motion for a new trial overruled, and judgment.

On the trial the plaintiffs were permitted, against the objection of the defendants, to prove the cost of fencing the road through their land, and the amount of injury done to a crop of wheat growing thereon, by the construction of the road. We think this was error. The statute under which the proceeding was had, requires that the complaint shall particularly set forth the nature and locality of the injury complained of. Local Laws 1849, p. 92. The complaint follows the statute, in this particular, and is very specific in its allegations. In the case of the Martinsville, etc., R. R. Co. v. Bridges, 6 Ind. 400, it was decided that, in assessing damages, those necessarily resulting from the acts specified in the complaint might be proved. We regarded that case, at the time, as going to the full limit that was admissible, in dispensing with a statement of the particulars of the injury done. The evidence should have been excluded, because the damages proved did not result from the injuries specified in the complaint, nor from any thing necessarily incident to them.

The defendants offered to prove on the trial, the value of the plaintiffs' land at that time. On the plaintiffs' objection this testimony was excluded. The appellants inform us, that their object in offering this proof was, to ascertain the increase in value of the land, since the location of the road some eighteen months before, and thereupon show that such rise in value resulted from the construction of the road; and thereby enable the jury trying the cause, to take such resulting benefits into consideration in making up their verdict. The appellants pursuing the argument say, "It is impossible to take into consideration benefits resulting from the construction of any work of improvement, without at once letting the mind lay hold on the prospective benefits and advantages which may naturally result from such improvement. It would be a hair-splitting operation, and such an one as no juror could ever perform, to the satisfaction of his own conscience, to be sworn as a juror in such a case as the present, to take into consideration the benefits resulting to the complainants, by the construction of the road, according to the best of his judgment, and upon actual trial and computation of the supposed damages, make up his verdict, and not be permitted to take into consideration the prospective benefits naturally resulting to the plaintiffs by the construction of the road."

We are not insensible to the difficulty of arriving at the real benefits conferred upon the owner of the contiguous land by the construction of a public work through it; but we are...