State v. Ware
| Decision Date | 10 October 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-01-00516-CV.,03-01-00516-CV. |
| Citation | 86 S.W.3d 817 |
| Parties | STATE of Texas, Appellant, v. Joe L. WARE and the Estate of Christine Ware, Appellees. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Sherry L. Peel, Assistant Attorney General-Transportation Division, Austin, for Appellant.
John McClish, Womack, McClish, Wall & Sick, P.C., Austin, for Appellees.
Before Chief Justice ABOUSSIE, Justices B.A. SMITH and YEAKEL.
In 1968 appellant the State of Texas obtained, through the exercise of its power of eminent domain, an easement for highway right-of-way purposes over property in Travis County owned by appellee Joe L. Ware and his wife Christine Ware (the "Wares"). In this subsequent action, the district court found that the State's use of the property exceeded its easement rights and awarded $600,000 to the Wares for the State's condemnation of their remaining fee interest in the property.1 The State brings three issues on appeal. We will reverse the district-court judgment and remand the case.
In 1952 the Wares acquired 2.226 acres of land in Travis County fronting U.S. Highway 183. They occupied the property as their family residence until 1968. The dispute in this case revolves around two separate condemnation actions by the State. The first occurred in 1968 when the State, in a partial taking, condemned and acquired a highway right-of-way easement over the Wares' entire property. The second arises from the final judgment in the case now before this Court, awarding the State title to the property's remaining underlying fee and damages to the Wares.
In 1968 the State and Travis County brought an action in Travis Count, Court to condemn the Wares' property for the purpose of constructing an interchange between U.S. Highway 183 and the yet to be constructed Loop 360. State v. Ware, No. 602 (County Court, Travis County, Tex. December 17, 1968). At the time of such action, counties held a general power of eminent domain. Act of March 7, 1948, 43rd Leg., 2d C.S., ch. 37, 1934 Tex. Gen. Laws 89, repealed by Act of January 1, 1984, 68th Leg., R.S., ch. 576, § 6, 1984 Tex. Gen. Laws 3729, 3730 (now codified at Tex. Prop.Code Ann. 21.001-.023 (West 1984 & Supp. 2002)). Condemnation proceedings by a county were required to "be instituted under the direction of the commissioners' court and in the name of the county." Act of March 26, 1925, 39th Leg., R.S., ch. 116, 1925 Tex. Gen. Laws 300, repealed by Act of January 1, 1983, 68th Leg., R.S., ch. 576, § 6, 1983 Tex. Gen. Laws 3729, 3730 (emphasis added). However, if the county was exercising the right of eminent domain over land needed for state highway purposes, the land was taken in the name of the State. See Op. Tex. Att'y Gen. No. V-1282 (1951). The only authority for counties to institute such proceedings "on behalf of the State of Texas" and "with title to the State of Texas" was found in former article 6674n, which applied only to land needed for designated state highways.2 Act of April 2, 1925, 39th Leg., R.S., ch. 186, § 14, 1925 Tex. Gen. Laws 458, repealed by Act of September 1, 1983, 68th Leg., R.S., ch. 288, § 2, 1983 Tex. Gen. Laws 1526. Under such provision, "the commissioners' court act[ed] not for the benefit of the county but as the authorizing agent of the State and institut[ed] the condemnation proceedings in the name of the State." Op. Tex. Att'y Gen. No. V-1282 (1951). The commissioners' court was not authorized to take the property in fee, but could condemn only a highway right-of-way. Id.3 Consequently, there could not be a total taking of the Wares' property. Instead, the State acquired a right-of-way for highway purposes over the Wares' entire 2.226 acres.
The practical effect of the taking, however, was to deny the Wares all beneficial use of the property. The Wares agreed to a judgment awarding them $35,000. The Wares stipulated that, at the time of the taking, Joe Ware believed that all of the property was "needed for highway purposes and that the [taking] divested the [Wares] of all of their right, title and interest in the property." There is no evidence in the record before us, and the Wares do not argue, that the 1968 judgment awarded them less than the full fair market value of the property at that time. Such an award would be consistent with the taking of an easement for highway purposes. As explained by the supreme court:
In some cases the measure of damages for the taking of an easement by condemnation proceedings is the difference in the market value of the land free of the easement and its market value burdened with the easement. If the easement leaves the landowner with some beneficial use of the land, as it does, for instance, in the case of easements for pipe lines, power lines, or other similar purposes, then the damages for the condemnation thereof, as a matter of law, will be less than the value of the fee. A distinction must be drawn, however, between such easements and easements which deprive the landowner of any beneficial use of the land. In the latter class of easements the landowner may recover as damages the market value of the land.
Thompson v. Janes, 151 Tex. 495, 251 S.W.2d 953, 956 (1952) (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
At the time of the taking, the State planned to construct a "cloverleaf" interchange at Highway 183 and the new Loop 360, with the Wares' property constituting the interchange's southeast quadrant. At some undetermined later date, the State changed the design plan from a cloverleaf to a smaller "diamond" configuration, leaving 1.374 acres free from any road surface. However, the State has retained the remaining property and is allowing a private highway contractor to use the portion for office space and storage. It is this part of the original property that forms the subject matter of the Wares' current complaint. The State stipulated that it has no plans to construct any roadway or roadway appurtenance within the disputed area, but still retains its easement. The State declared as surplus and reconveyed, either through sale or exchange, the unused portions of the other quadrants of the intersection.4 However, the State denied the Wares' request that the State declare the "unused portion" of their land as surplus and reconvey it to them. Consequently, at all times since the 1968 taking, the State has held an easement over all of the property originally taken from the Wares.
Not until 1996 did Joe Ware realize that the Wares still retained some ownership interest in the property. When the State refused to relinquish its easement over the portion of the property not being used for highway purposes, the Wares filed this suit originally requesting that the district court "grant Declaratory Judgment that the 1968 Easement has terminated." The Wares amended their original petition to include claims for injunctive relief and inverse condemnation. By interlocutory order, the district court found "that the State's use of the subject property has, for some time, exceeded those rights granted in the [1968] condemnation judgment so that the [Wares] are entitled to recover, in inverse condemnation, for the taking of their remaining rights in the property."5 Significantly, the district court neither found that the State's easement had terminated nor terminated the easement. The State then counterclaimed, seeking "fee title to the entire property which is subject to the State's easement and which is the subject of this suit ... and this Court enter its judgment determining the value of the fee title so acquired." After a jury trial, the district court rendered final judgment awarding the State title to the property and the Wares $600,000, the amount the jury found to be "the market value of the [Wares'] remaining interest in the property."6
The State appeals the district-court judgment by three issues, contending that the district court erred (1) in awarding the Wares more than nominal damages; (2) in applying the undivided-fee rule7 to arrive at the value of the Wares' remaining interest in the property; and (3) in finding that the State had exceeded its rights under the 1968 easement.
Eminent domain has been described as Fort Worth & D.C. Ry. v. Ammons, 215 S.W.2d 407, 409 (Tex.Civ. App.-Amarillo 1948, writ ref'd n.r.e.). But it is axiomatic that government cannot take a citizen's property without payment of the property's fair value. The United States Constitution provides that private property may not be taken for public use without just compensation. U.S. Const. amend. V. This provision is made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that no state may deprive any person of property without due process of law. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. The Texas Constitution likewise prohibits the State from taking private property without first paying adequate compensation to the owner: "No person's property shall be taken, damaged or destroyed for or applied to public use without adequate compensation being made, unless by the consent of such person." Tex. Const. art. I, § 17.
That the State had the right to take the original easement from the Wares and, later, their remaining interest is without dispute. The controversy this case brings to the Court involves the standard to be applied to determine the fair, just, and adequate compensation to which the Wares are entitled by virtue of the State's decision to exercise its power of eminent domain over property owned by the Wares and subject to the State's previously acquired easement.
By its second issue, the State challenges the district court's use of the undivided-fee rule as a method for determining damages in this case. Damages are measured by a legal standard...
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