United States v. Certain Parcels of Land

• Decision Date: 04 March 1942
• Docket Number: No. 1361.,1361.
• Citation: 43 F. Supp. 687
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. CERTAIN PARCELS OF LAND IN CITY OF BALTIMORE, PARCEL NO. 12.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

43 F. Supp. 687

UNITED STATES v. CERTAIN PARCELS OF LAND IN CITY OF BALTIMORE, PARCEL NO. 12.

No. 1361.

District Court, D. Maryland.

March 4, 1942.

Wilmer H. Driver, Sp. Asst. to Atty. Gen., and Robert R. MacLeod, of Washington, D. C., Atty., Department of Justice, for petitioner on motion for new trial.

Allen A. Davis, of Baltimore, Md., for Mayor and City Council of Baltimore.

CHESNUT, District Judge.

The above suit involved the condemnation by the Government of numerous parcels of land in Baltimore City for a federal defense housing project. Parcel No. 12 consisted of two right-angle segments of forty foot public streets. The title to the bed of the streets subject to the public easement was vested in the abutting property owners. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore was named in the Government's petition as one of the defendants interested in the condemnation proceedings. As a result of the trial of the case the jury awarded to the City the sum of $1919.59 as just compensation for its interest in the public streets. The United States duly filed a motion for a new trial on the ground that the amount of the award was excessive in that the amount should have been limited to nominal damages only. This motion has been argued orally and briefs have been submitted by the parties.

The Government contends that the amount of the jury's award was evidently based on valuing the superficial area of the land within the boundaries of the streets at the rate of the value of the abutting land owned in fee by other persons; and the principal point of law made in support of the motion for a new trial is that this was a permissible basis of valuation under the court's oral charge to the jury.

Parcel No. 12 was only one of numerous parcels embraced in the same condemnation proceeding. A jury selected to hear and decide the questions of valuation was, in accordance with the Maryland state procedure, sent to view the whole property involved in the one condemnation proceeding. Subsequently the jury heard testimony with respect to the parcels respectively. Thus the jury heard testimony as to the valuation of the properties abutting on the streets in question. While the jury's award as to parcel No. 12 was separately found and fixed in writing on the appropriate "inquisition" the finding of valuation as to parcel No. 12 was practically contemporaneous with the finding by the same jury of the valuations of other parcels owned respectively in fee by other persons.

With respect to parcel No. 12, counsel for the Government submitted only one request for an appropriate instruction which did not set up any particular basis for valuation of the streets different from that relating to other parcels of land involved in the same proceeding. The court granted the instruction so requested. In the oral charge the jury was accordingly instructed that its basis of valuation should be to ascertain as far as possible the fair market value of parcel No. 12. The only evidence in the case directly relating to valuation was evidence of the value of land abutting on the streets. In the oral charge the evidence as to this was summarized by the court for the jury. Counsel for the Government in argument to the jury contended that its award to the City should be for nominal damages only because the streets were public streets and of no real value to the City but rather a liability. The only exception noted by counsel for the Government to the oral charge of the court was that the court in its charge should have expressly restricted the jury's award to nominal damages. The court then orally told the jury that they could award only nominal damages to the City if they found that the value of the City's interest in the streets was only nominal.

The matter was further complicated by the fact that one of the abutting property owners asserted the claim that the streets had been abandoned by non-user and consequently his ownership in fee of the bed of the street had become an absolute interest in fee, not subject even to the easement of use as a public street. It also appeared that the City had constructed water pipes in at least one part of one of the streets although it was not precisely clear on the testimony as to whether these pipes extended into the area embraced in parcel No. 12. In the jury's inquisition which awarded $1919.59 to the City for its interest in the streets, the jury also awarded to one of the abutting owners, one Baer, the sum of $1157.86 for his interest in the bed of the street. From this it is contended with plausibility that the jury's award to the City and to Baer respectively showed that the jury must have determined that the street had not been abandoned as a public street. I think it is a reasonable inference from the course of the trial, the oral charge as a whole and the awards as determined by the jury to the parties respectively that: (1) the jury found the streets had not been abandoned; (2) that both the City and Baer had substantial valuable interests in parcel No. 12; (3) that parcel No. 12 was valued in fee absolutely by the jury on the basis of its superficial area in proportion to the valuation by the same jury of absolutely owned land of abutting owners and (4) that the total valuation for the streets was then divided by the jury between Baer and the City on some basis as determined by the jury. So far as Baer's interest was concerned apart from the City's, it may be observed that it might have been simpler and some complications avoided if Baer's interest in parcel No. 12, the street, had been determined by the jury along with his absolute interest in his abutting lot. But as presented by the Government's petition for condemnation, parcel No. 12 and all interests therein was necessarily presented to the jury as an entity, separate and apart from the proper valuation of Baer's abutting property.

It may also preliminarily be observed that while numerous other tracts of land have been valued by condemnation juries in this court in recent years, particularly during the last year, the instant case now under consideration is the first that has been tried involving separately the valuation of a public street and this, plus the further fact that parcel No. 12 was only one of numerous other parcels involved in the same case, probably accounts for the fact that counsel on neither side gave special consideration or attention to the rules of...