Louisiana Resources Co. v. Greene
| Decision Date | 28 October 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 8389,8389 |
| Parties | LOUISIANA RESOURCES COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Karlan P. GREENE, et al, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Roger C. Edwards and Roger E. Boynton, Abbeville, for defendants-appellants.
Broadhurst, Brook, Miller & Reed, Oscar E. Reed, Jr., Lafayette, for plaintiff-appellee.
Before CUTRER, STOKER and LABORDE, JJ.
This is an appeal in one of two expropriation suits consolidated for trial and consolidated in this appeal. 1 The issues common to and related to both cases will be discussed in this opinion. The plaintiff-appellee is a pipeline company, Louisiana Resources Company (Louisiana Resources). This company brought suits to expropriate pipeline servitudes across the lands of defendants-appellants, Karlan P. Greene and Randall W. Greene (Greenes) and Walter Noel (Noel). 2 A bifurcated trial was held at the trial level. In the first phase of the litigation the trial court heard and passed on the right of Louisiana Resources to expropriate a twelve inch gas line across the properties of the Greenes and Noel in Vermilion Parish. After this issue was decided by the court in favor of Louisiana Resources and after construction of the pipeline, the second phase of the trial was conducted to determine the amount of compensation to be awarded to the Greenes and Noel.
Several issues are presented in this appeal by the Greenes and Noel, and plaintiff-appellee, Louisiana Resources, has presented certain issues through answer to the appeal. The issues presented by Greene and Noel are summarized as follows:
1. The first issue is whether Louisiana Resources established a right to expropriate the servitude. (This is the issue decided in favor of Louisiana Resources in the first phase of the litigation.)
2. Alternatively, in the event this court should affirm the right of Louisiana Resources to expropriate, the Greenes and Noel challenge the trial court's ruling granting a partial summary judgment foreclosing the presentation of evidence of severance damages.
3. Also in the alternative, the Greenes and Noel contend that the trial court erred in not considering sales of other pipeline rights-of-way which purport to be of value comparable to the rights-of-way expropriated from the Greenes and Noel.
4. In the further alternative, the Greenes and Noel complain that the trial court made inadequate awards to them.
In answer to the appeal Louisiana Resources alleges that the trial court erred in the following respects:
1. Award of attorney fees inconsistent with and in violation of the provisions of LSA-R.S. 19:8;
2. Excessive awards for expert witnesses;
3. Excessive awards for value of property taken;
4. Excessive awards for property, releveling, fertility, trespass, severance and miscellaneous damages;
5. Award of costs to defendants-appellants.
In its briefing before this court appellee Louisiana Resources appears to have abandoned its contentions that excessive awards were made insofar as the land value and damages to the land are concerned. Only three assignments of error are listed in appellee's brief: (1) it was not appropriate under LSA-R.S. 19:8 to award any attorney's fees at all, (2) alternatively, the amount of attorney's fees awarded was excessive, and (3) the trial court erred in casting appellee for costs of the expropriation proceeding.
Appellants contend that the taking of their property by Louisiana Resources Company did not meet the requirements for expropriation found in Article 1, Section 4 of the 1974 Louisiana Constitution. That article provides in pertinent part:
"Property shall not be taken or damaged by any private entity authorized by law to expropriate, except for a public and necessary purpose and with just compensation paid to the owner; in such proceedings, whether the purpose is public and necessary shall be a judicial question."
Appellants argue that the appellee failed to show that the expropriation was justified by a "public and necessary purpose". The testimony at trial on the issue of appellee's right to take revealed that the Louisiana Resources Company had contracted for and purchased a dedication of the gas in a 7,000 to 8,000 acre field near Henry, Louisiana, under development by Amerada Hess Corporation and the Ethyl Corporation. The appellee is obligated under this contract to construct a line to receive the reserves anticipated from this field. At the time that the issue of the appellee's right to expropriate was being litigated, two wells in a portion of the dedicated area known as the Bancker field were producing 10 to 15 million cubic feet of gas daily. The anticipated rate of production from the entire dedicated area was 50 to 75 million cubic feet of gas daily. The pipeline which the appellee has constructed across appellants' land (hereinafter called the Bancker extension) carries gas from the Bancker field into the Louisiana Resources Company's existing facilities at Cow Island, Louisiana.
A portion of this gas was supplied to several industrial customers along the Mississippi River. Customers under long term contract with the appellee were Cosmar, a manufacturer of styrene monomers used in plastic; Ciba-Geigy, a manufacturer of herbicides and pesticides; Hercafina, a manufacturer of methanol; and Agricultural Liquid Company and C. F. Industries, both manufacturers of anhydrous ammonia (a fertilizer). In addition, the appellee has several intermediate customers, including Ethyl Corporation, and Dow Chemical Company, which are entitled to buy excess capacity from the pipeline. Also, the appellee periodically makes sales to other industrial concerns in Louisiana.
Most of the gas in the Bancker extension is sold not to industrial plants, however, but to other gas transmission companies. Appellee is under contract to deliver specific quantities of natural gas to Louisiana Intrastate Gas Corporation; and to the extent that it has additional volumes of gas, appellee also sells gas to Transcontinental Pipeline and Sugar Bowl Gas Corporation. This gas is then delivered to other industries and consumers.
Some of the gas that appellee delivers to Louisiana Intrastate Gas Corporation is redelivered to cities, towns, and parish public distribution centers for sale to private consumers. Among the cities and towns which receive this gas are Lafayette, Alexandria, Natchitoches, Ville Platte, Grand Coteau, Patterson, and Logansport. Thus, the gas which flows through appellant's pipeline will be used by public utilities as well as by private industries.
Appellants contend that these uses of natural gas delivered through appellee's pipeline do not meet the public purpose test under Article 1, Section 4 of the Louisiana Constitution. In support of this contention, appellants urge that appellee's pipeline will not serve any interest located in Vermilion Parish, the area of expropriation, but will instead serve "some industries 100 or more miles from the location of the pipeline." Appellants argue that industries and individuals outside the immediate area of expropriation do not constitute the public for purposes of the public purpose test. This construction by defendants of the term "public" in Article 1, Section 4 of the Louisiana Constitution is extremely narrow and is contrary to Louisiana jurisprudence.
In United Gas Pipe Line Company v. Nezat, 136 So.2d 76 (La.App. 3rd Cir. 1961) the court found public purpose and necessity for a proposed pipeline which would carry gas under contract with suppliers and producers from gas reserves to be sold directly to consumers and indirectly to wholesalers for resale to consumers. The line in Nezat served cities and towns, power plants, paper mills, and chemical companies, interests similar to those which would be served by the line in the case before us. Supplying natural gas to either private individuals through public utilities or directly to private industries is a sufficient public purpose for expropriation, regardless of how far removed the consumers are from the area of expropriation. In the Nezat case, supra, consumers throughout Louisiana were served. In the cases of Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation v. Bowman, 238 La. 399, 115 So.2d 797 (La.1959) and United Gas Pipe Line Company v. Landry, 228 So.2d 565 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1969) expropriation was allowed for pipelines serving consumers in several states. It is obvious that the term "public" in the test for expropriation under the Louisiana Constitution is not limited to persons or interests found in the political subdivision in which the land to be expropriated lies.
Appellants cited the case of River & Rail Terminals, Inc. v. La. Railway and Navigation Co., 171 La. 223, 130 So. 337 (La.1930), and United Gas Pipe Line Company v. Blanchard, 149 So.2d 615 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1963), writ refused, 244 La. 135, 150 So.2d 590 (La.1963) for the proposition that expropriation is not allowed for the purpose of serving individual private enterprises only. As stated above, the Bancker extension indirectly serves public utilities as well as private industries by transmitting new supplies of gas to Louisiana Intrastate Gas Corporation's pipelines. The public need not be supplied gas directly from the pipeline for which expropriation is sought for the expropriation to meet the test...
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