Searle v. The Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad Co.
| Decision Date | 01 January 1859 |
| Citation | 33 Pa. 57 |
| Parties | Searle versus The Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad Company. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
This case is very defectively presented in the plaintiff's paper-book, for it gives us no part of the evidence on which the cause was tried, and does not enable us to consider the rejected offers in their regular connection, or to compare the charge with the case before the court. We could not, therefore, consider the plaintiff's assignments of error here, were it not that his defects are supplied by the defendants' paper-book.
The claim is for damages for taking part of the plaintiff's land in making the defendants' road; and by the principles of the judge's charge, the jury were allowed to find a verdict for the value of the land taken, and for all the actual damages arising from the manner in which the road went through the plaintiff's land and affected his improvements; and to measure even imaginary and contingent damages against the probable advantages or facilities that the improvement might occasion. We cannot say that we discover any error in all this.
But the court rejected evidence that there was over an acre of coal under the road, worth $4000, which would be lost to the plaintiff, because necessary to be left for the support of the road.
Now if such a fact were necessary to the ascertainment of the value of the land taken, it would be wise to accept the testimony of experts, for we ought always to seek the best sources of information. The objection is not to the experts, but to the facts themselves. We do not measure the value of land by such facts. Land may have $4000 worth of coal per acre in it, and yet sell at $40 per acre.
When a man has to sell his property, of course he must take the market value for it. That is measured by the custom or common dealing of the country. If it is land, the market value is measured by the price usually given for such land in that neighbourhood, making due allowance for differences of position, soil, and improvement. Value may be very approximately estimated in that way, for it is not then founded upon the mere opinion of witnesses, but on the fact of a general market value.
When the state takes private property for public uses, or authorizes it to be taken, this market value is all that it pays for it. This is the necessary measure, in order to avoid the favouritism or oppression that would attend any other measure. Every man holds his property subject to this eminent domain, dominion, or ownership of the whole society. He...
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Strouds Creek & M. R. Co. v. Herold
... ... construction of a railroad, is the market value of the land ... taken, at the time of the taking, ... 105 N.J.L. 165, 143 A. 369; Searle v. Lackawanna & B. R ... Co., 33 Pa. 57; Reading & P. R. Co. v ... ...
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Werner v. Com., Dept. of Highways
... ... Co. v. Balthaser, 119 Pa. 472, 483, 13 A. 294 (1888); Searle v. Lackawanna & Bloomsburg R.R. Co., 33 Pa. 57, 64 (1859); 4 Nichols, ... ...
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State By and Through State Highway Commission v. Nunes
... ... 283, 65 A. 678 (1907); Buckhannon & Northern Railroad Co. v. Great Scott Coal & Coke Co., 75 W.Va. 423, 83 S.E. 1031 (1914) ... 662 citing cases at note 21 (2d ed. 1953) ... 20 Searle v. Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad Co., 33 Pa. 57, 64 (1859). For ... ...
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Pennsylvania Gas & Water Co. v. Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission
... ... were subsequently dismissed by the Court of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County. 1 Judgment was entered on the award as made by the trial ... 512, 123 A. 471 (1924); Stone v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Co., 257 Pa. 456, 460, 101 A. 813, [428 Pa. 78] 814 (1917); Savings & ... As this Court explained many years ago in Searle v. Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad Company, 33 Pa. 57, 63--64 (1859): ... ...