Roth v. State Highway Com'n of Missouri

• Decision Date: 16 October 1984
• Docket Number: No. 47442,47442
• Citation: 688 S.W.2d 775
• Parties: Donald E. ROTH, et al., Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION OF MISSOURI, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 775

688 S.W.2d 775

Donald E. ROTH, et al., Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION OF MISSOURI, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 47442.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Eastern District,

Division Four.

Oct. 16, 1984.

Motion For Rehearing and Transfer

Denied Nov. 20, 1984.

Transferred to Supreme Court

Jan. 15, 1985.

Retransferred to Court of Appeals

May 14, 1985.

Original Opinion Reinstated

May 21, 1985.

John Wheelan Maupin, Kirkwood, for defendant-appellant.

Samuel C. Ebling, St. Louis, for plaintiffs-respondents.

STEPHAN, Judge.

Defendant State Highway Commission of Missouri appeals from the trial court's granting of a motion for new trial on the ground that the verdict for defendant was against the weight of the evidence. Plaintiff's action against defendant is in the nature of a claim for inverse condemnation, in which plaintiff sought damages for the interference with the use of his property.

Plaintiff owned a tract of land of approximately 84 acres in St. Louis County located partially in the Village of Bel-Ridge and partially in the Village (now City) of St. John. This property was in the pathway of the Innerbelt Highway (now Interstate Route 170), and a portion of it was condemned ultimately for highway purposes by defendant. Prior to the condemnation, the tract was zoned for industrial use under the St. John and Bel-Ridge zoning codes, and the land was formally platted into an industrial park known as the "Rock Road Industrial Center."

On October 28, 1968, Mr. James Roberts, Division Engineer for defendant, and Mr. Lancaster, another Highway Commission employee, attended a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Village of Bel-Ridge. In January, 1970, Roberts attended similar meetings at the Board of Trustees in the Village of St. John and again at the Board in Bel-Ridge. At each of these meetings, Roberts discussed the impending Innerbelt Highway construction and the need to prevent any building permits from being issued to the people owning the land involved.

Additionally, Roberts sent correspondence to the Villages of St. John and Bel-Ridge in November, 1969, asking that these municipalities halt plaintiff's development of the Rock Road Industrial Center. Roberts sent letters to the village clerks of St. John and Bel-Ridge in May, 1970, seeking cooperation from these municipalities and again requesting that no building permits be issued to plaintiff. In October, 1973, the State Highway Engineer wrote to the Village of Bel-Ridge, asking that it refuse rezoning of the tract. Plaintiff testified that, when he applied for building permits in St. John, the city engineer told plaintiff, "[O]ver my dead body will you get [a building permit] until you settle with the Highway Department."

Defendant formally approved the acquisition of the property by purchase or condemnation on March 16, 1971. An offer of $465,000.00 was made to plaintiff in July, 1971, which plaintiff refused as being unrealistic. In April 1970, defendant's District Right of Way Agent, Charles Sample, estimated damages to plaintiff's land resulting from the proposed taking at $2,250,000. In July 1970, two other employees of defendant appraised the damages at $1,543,278 and $1,409,576, respectively. Plaintiff met with representatives of defendant in January, 1972, August, 1973, and October, 1973, and the offer of $465,000.00 was restated. Plaintiff refused the offers and requested that the Commission go forward with the condemnation. He received repeated assurances this would be done. Instead, in May, 1974, defendant increased its offer to $522,300, which plaintiff refused.

Plaintiff, an attorney representing him in another condemnation matter with the defendant Commission, and a Commission attorney met in the fall of 1974 to discuss the other piece of property owned by plaintiff which was also located in the path of the Innerbelt Highway. Plaintiff testified that defendant's attorney told him "that unless we settled this other case on his terms, he would not file the condemnation petition that he had ready to file..." which involved the property in the instant case. Based on a review of two additional appraisals completed on the property in 1975, defendant approved a new offer of $985,800 to plaintiff on January 19, 1976. The new offer was presented to plaintiff on February 2, 1976, which plaintiff refused. Defendant filed its condemnation suit for plaintiff's property on April 19, 1976, and paid the Commissioners' award into the court's registry on September 24, 1976.

Plaintiff thereafter filed this action against defendant for compensation for pre-condemnation injury. At trial, evidence was adduced from which a jury could find that, because of the tactics of defendant and its agents, plaintiff suffered substantial monetary loss by being prevented from developing the eighty-four acre tract during the seven year delay between defendant's announcement of its condemnation plans and the filing of the condemnation suit. After the jury returned a verdict for defendant, the trial court granted plaintiff's motion for new trial on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence.

The power to enter such order derives from Rule 78.02; and, when entered, the order is viewed as presumptively correct by an...