United States v. 576.734 ACRES OF LAND, ETC.
| Decision Date | 22 March 1944 |
| Docket Number | No. 8502.,8502. |
| Citation | 143 F.2d 408 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. 576.734 ACRES OF LAND, MORE OR LESS, IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA. HANKIN v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
John C. Harrington, of Washington, D. C. (Norman M. Littell, Asst. Atty. Gen., Gerald A. Gleeson, U. S. Atty., of Philadelphia, Pa., C. James Todaro, Sp. Asst. to the Atty. Gen., and Vernon L. Wilkinson, Atty., Department of Justice, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellant.
Joseph L. Prince, of Pottstown, Pa. (Moe Henry Hankin, of Abington, Pa., on the brief), for appellee.
Before MARIS, GOODRICH, and McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal by the United States from a judgment of the District Court in favor of Moe Henry Hankin, the appellant alleging error in the admission of certain testimony and the exclusion of other testimony in the course of the trial.
The United States on March 23, 1942, filed a declaration of taking for a quantity of land in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and judgment thereon was filed the same day. The land was taken for the establishment of a Naval Reserve Aviation base. A portion of the land in question consisted of a tract known as the Kates Farm of some one hundred acres. The land was, at the time of taking, under lease to Moe Henry Hankin who had, at the time, a growing crop of grain on the land which had been planted the autumn before. The lessor settled with the government at a mutually agreed price for the farm, exclusive of the lessee's interest. The lessee and the government did not come to a settlement and the lessee, rejecting the report of the Board of View, brought his action in the District Court.
What the government took and was under obligation to pay for was the entire tract.1 But since settlement had been made with the owner of the fee, the subject of litigation here was the value of that portion of the entire tract represented by the lessee's interest. There was no evidence of the value of the lease as such. Lacking that, other means of proof were properly resorted to.2 The testimony covered the nature of the soil, the condition of the growing crop in March, the crop history for the year of neighboring farms and estimates of the cost to the tenant of producing the crop. Harvest time for the grain on this land, and similar grain on neighboring lands, was August. Testimony was admitted of prices prevailing for such grain at that time.
The first point of the government's appeal is based on a dispute as to how far such proof may properly go. The lessee offered evidence that it was customary for farmers in this neighborhood to hold their grain until January for better prices and then offered testimony showing the prices for grain in January, 1943. This the court permitted over objection by the government. We think the admission of this testimony was erroneous and that the error was substantial.
The basic question to be determined was the value of the tenant's lease. The chief item in that value was the worth of the growing crop on March 23, 1942. The evidence concerning the nature of this piece of land, plus the history of growing crops in the neighborhood for that season was only relevant in so far as it gave a basis for determining the value of that crop on March 23. The United States was not obligated to pay for a matured crop; its obligation was limited to the value of the leasehold on the day of taking.3
An analogy is found in the cases dealing with the tortious destruction of growing crops. The basis of compensation is the value of the unmatured crop at the time it is destroyed.4 But since it is not customary to buy or sell growing crops as such, no effective market value, in this sense, ordinarily exists. The formula adopted has been to take evidence on the probable yield and value of the crop when harvested at maturity and the cost of further care and cultivation, harvesting and marketing the crop, in order to determine the actual realizable value of the crop when destroyed; or what the crop when harvested would have brought, less the prospective cost of cultivation, harvesting and marketing.5 In allowing such evidence, many decisions state that the market value of the yield to be considered is the market value "when", "at the time" or "at" maturity or harvesting and gathering of the crop.6 This limitation is a reasonable one, for, it must be remembered, the...
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