Wilcox v. St. Paul & N. P. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 15 July 1886
• Citation: 35 Minn. 439,29 N.W. 148
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court
• Parties: WILCOX v ST. PAUL & N. P. RY. CO.

35 Minn. 439

29 N.W. 148

WILCOXvST. PAUL & N. P. RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 15, 1886.

Appeal from a judgment of the district court, Hennepin county.

Wilson & Lawrence, for respondent, M. B. Wilcox.

D. A. Secombe, for appellant, St. Paul & N. P. Ry. Co.

DICKINSON, J.

This appellant filed its petition for the condemnation for railroad purposes of lots 1 and 10, in a certain block of land in Bottineau's second addition to St. Anthony, in which petition this respondent, Wilcox, was named as the owner of the property. Wilcox appealed to the district court from the award of commissioners. Prior to the trial in the district court the railway company (having authority from the municipality, but without having executed the bond prescribed by section 24 of chapter 34 of the General Statutes of 1878) entered upon that part of the street adjacent to lots 1 and 10, and constructed its railroad thereon, and still continues in possession thereof. In the proceedings in the district court Wilcox claimed damages, not only for the taking of lots 1 and 10, but also on account of injury thereby resulting to lots from 2 to 9, inclusive, and comprising the remainder of the block to which he asserted title; and, upon the trial, Wilcox was allowed, against this appellant's objection, to introduce evidence of injury resulting to those lots by reason of the taking of lots 1 and 10. There was no evidence tending to show that any of the 10 lots were inclosed, or in any way occupied.

One of the questions presented on this appeal from the judgment is as to the propriety of allowing damages in respect to lots from 2 to 9, none of which were touched by the railroad. It may be deemed to have been settled by the decisions of this and other courts that a land-owner, a part of whose property is taken under the law of eminent domain, is not entitled to compensation for consequential injuries resulting therefrom to his entire estate, however extensive that may be, and without regard to the purposes to which it has been appropriated; but that such right of compensation exists only in respect to the tract or parcel of land a part of which is taken. And even though the lands injuriously affected are contiguous to the lands taken, so that the whole may be said to be one body of land, yet the right to compensation may not exist in respect to the whole. If one own distinct, although contiguous, farms, from one only of which land is taken, he is not entitled to compensation for resulting injury to the other. Minnesota Val. R. Co. v. Doran, 15 Minn. 230, (Gil. 179;)St. Paul & S. C. R. Co. v. Murphy, 19 Minn. 500, (Gil. 433.) And in numerous cases, involving contests of this kind, the use to which the property has been devoted has been deemed an important consideration in determining whether lands, being in one body, should be deemed one tract, or several distinct tracts, for the purposes of the assessment of compensation. Winona & St. P. R. Co. v. Denman, 10 Minn. 267, (Gil. 208;) Minnesota Val. R. Co. v. Doran, supra; St. Paul & S. C. R. Co. v. Murphy, supra; Sherwood v. St. Paul & C. Ry. Co., 21 Minn. 122; Sherwood v. St. Paul & C. Ry. Co., Id. 127; Wilmes v. Minneapolis & N. W. Ry. Co., 29 Minn. 242;S. C. 13 N. W. Rep. 39.

In these, and in other like cases, such use, sometimes disputed, as in the Cases of Doran and Murphy, supra, would have been unimportant, if the mere contiguity of the lands had been deemed enough to entitle the owner to compensation in respect to the whole. If...