Research Associates, Inc. v. New Haven Redevelopment Agency

• Decision Date: 10 November 1964
• Citation: 152 Conn. 137,204 A.2d 833
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, INC. v. NEW HAVEN REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 833

204 A.2d 833

152 Conn. 137

RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, INC. v. NEW HAVEN REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Nov. 10, 1964.

Benjamin M. Chapnick, New Haven, for appellant (plaintiff).

Richard G. Bell, New Haven, for appellee (defendant).

Before KING, C. J., and MURPHY, ALCORN, COMLEY and SHANNON, JJ.

KING, Chief Justice.

The defendant, in eminent domain proceedings, took land and two tenement houses of the plaintiff for redevelopment purposes and assessed damages at $37,900. The plaintiff applied to the Superior Court for a review of the assessment, and the matter was referred to a state referee, all pursuant to General Statutes § 8-132. The referee found the land to have a value of $15,800 and the two tenement houses to be without value at the time of the taking. The court accepted the referee's report, ¹ as amended, overruled the plaintiff's exceptions thereto, and rendered judgment thereon. From this judgment the plaintiff has taken this appeal.

The damages sustained in a taking by eminent domain are to be measured as of the date of the taking. Colaluca v. Ives, 150 Conn. 521, 531, 191 A.2d 340; DelVecchio v. New Haven Redevelopment Agency, 147 Conn. 362, 365, 161 A.2d 190. The referee fixed that date as September 17, 1962, which was the date on which the certificate of taking was recorded, as provided in General Statutes § 8-129. The plaintiff argues that the date of the taking was in fact somewhere 'from August 1961 until December 1961'. The basis of this most unusual contention is apparently a claim, unsupported by any allegations in the complaint, of a conspiracy between the defendant, on the one hand, and the New Haven Board of Health and the 'city authorities', on the other, to drive the price of the plaintiff's land down by denying the plaintiff the building permits necessary to repair the buildings and then condemning the premises, on December 29, 1961, as unfit for human occupation. The short answer is that the taking is alleged in the complaint to have been August 23, 1962. While the date apparently should have been September 17, 1962, there is no claim of any change in value between the two dates, and no basis in the pleadings for fixing the date of the taking between August and December 29, 1961.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the record to support the plaintiff's claim that the actions of the Board of Health and the 'city authorities' were done in collaboration with the defendant, or that these actions were anything but a legitimate exercise of the police power. Indeed, no attempt was made to appeal from the action of the Board of Health in condemning the property as unfit for occupancy or from the action refusing the issuance of building permits.

Moreover, § 8-132 of the General Statutes provides for the appointment of a state referee to review an assessment of damages if the landowner claims to be aggrieved. Section 8-129 provides that, upon the recording of a certificate of taking. 'title to such property in fee simple shall vest in the municipality, and the right to just compensation shall vest in the persons entitled thereto'. Under this statutory procedure the state referee has authority to determine the value only at the date of the taking, and this date, at least in the absence of special equitable considerations, is fixed by § 8-129 as the date of the recording of the certificate. If the condemnee claims any other date as the true date of the taking, he should make this claim to the Superior Court prior to the entry of the order referring to a referee, for review, the defendant's assessment of damages. See cases such as State v. Fahey, 147 Conn. 13, 15, 156 A.2d 463; Water Commissioners of Norwich v. Johnson, 86 Conn. 151, 160, 84 A. 727, 41 L.R.A.,N.S., 1024.

The plaintiff also claims that the referee did not have authority to reduce the assessment of damages made by the defendant. Under § 8-132 of the General Statutes, in an application for the review of an assessment of damages made by a redevelopment agency, a state referee is given the power, after notice and hearing, to 'revise' the assessment 'in such manner as he deems proper'. Obviously, these words permit, and indeed require, the referee to raise, lower or leave unchanged the assessment of damages as he finds proper under the law and the evidence before him. There is no ambiguity in the language, and no reason is apparent why the referee should be precluded from revising downward an assessment which he finds excessive.

In this case there is no dispute over the value of the land, which the referee found to be $15,800. The plaintiff does claim, however, that there was insufficient evidence to support the referee's finding that the tenement houses were without value at the time of the taking. The determination of the value of these buildings was a matter for the considered judgment of the referee, taking into account the divergent opinions expressed by the witnesses and the claims...