Muncie and Portland Traction Company v. Hall
| Decision Date | 05 January 1910 |
| Docket Number | 21,449 |
| Parties | Muncie and Portland Traction Company v. Hall et al |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From Jay Circuit Court; John F. LaFollette, Judge.
Action by the Muncie and Portland Traction Company against John W Hall and another. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
Frank H. Snyder and Whitney E. Smith, for appellant.
Smith & Moran, for appellees.
Appellant instituted this action to condemn, in fee, certain real estate belonging to appellees, for the erection thereon of a power-house and car barns. Such proceedings were had that, in the circuit court on appeal, the question of damages was submitted to the jury. The action of the court, in giving and refusing to give certain instructions to the jury, presents the principal questions for our consideration.
The objectionable matter in instructions three and four, given by the court, is, in effect, that interurban railroad companies are so far quasi-public corporations that they may by rendering the owner full compensation, take private property in fee for a power-house and car barn when necessary to such use. The criticism is that the instructions are calculated to mislead the jury into believing that the question of necessity was involved in the trial, and that the burden of proving it rested upon appellant. In the very first instruction given, the court had said to the jury: "The only question that is involved in this trial is the amount of damages that defendants have sustained by reason of the condemnation of said real estate by the plaintiff." The objectionable phrase might as well have been omitted, but it was clearly used in an explanatory or introductory sense, and when considered in connection with the specific direction concerning the issues embraced in the first instruction, we think it could not have been misleading.
The substance of instructions five, six, and seven, is that, in estimating the value of property which was adapted to some particular as well as a general use, the jury should take into consideration the nature of the particular use, whether the property was at the time being devoted to such use, the present and prospective needs of the community with reference thereto, and its value with regard to the use to which men of ordinary prudence and wisdom would devote the property if owned by them, considering all the uses, present and prospective, to which it might be devoted. The objection suggested to these numbers is that they practically override the elements entering into market value, and are indefinite and speculative. The court but a moment before had directed the jury, upon appellant's request, that no remote conjectural, or speculative damages could be allowed in the case, that the sum allowed for the tract appropriated must not exceed the market value of the land on the day of its appropriation, and that in arriving at the...
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