Wilmes v. Minneapolis & Northwestern Railway Company
| Decision Date | 21 June 1882 |
| Citation | 13 N.W. 39,29 Minn. 242 |
| Parties | Peter Wilmes v. Minneapolis & Northwestern Railway Company |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Condemnation proceedings. Appeal by the railway company from a judgment of the district court for Hennepin county, after a trial before Vanderburgh, J., and a jury.
Judgment affirmed.
R. B Galusha and Woods & Babcock, for appellant.
Wilson & Lawrence, for respondent.
To prevent confusion we will in this opinion call the respondent, Wilmes, plaintiff, and the appellant company defendant. Plaintiff owns 120 acres of land, consisting of three forties in line as represented in the sketch following.
[SEE ILLUSTRATION IN ORIGINAL]
The land is occupied and used by him as one farm, his residence being situate upon the easterly forty. Defendant, having located the line of its railway across the two westerly forties, instituted proceedings for condemnation, under Gen. St. 1878, c. 34.
Section 14 of this chapter permits a railroad corporation seeking a condemnation to present to the proper district court a petition describing the lands which it will be necessary to take, and setting forth the names of the owners thereof, etc., and praying the appointment of commissioners to ascertain and determine the compensation to be made to such owners, "for the taking or injuriously affecting such land."
Section 17 authorizes the court, pursuant to the petition, to appoint three commissioners to ascertain and determine the amount to be paid to such owners "as compensation for * * * damages by reason of taking or injuriously affecting any such land."
Section 18 requires the commissioners to examine all the lands which will be taken or damaged, and which are described in the petition, and to proceed to make an assessment of damages which will result to any party by reason of the construction of said railroad; and to determine and award to the owners of such land the "amount of damages arising to them respectively from the taking or injuriously affecting their said land * * * for the purposes of such (i. e., the proposed) enterprise."
Section 23 provides for an appeal from the commissioners' award to the district court, and section 25 adds that "appeals shall bring before the appellate court the propriety of the amount of damages in respect to the parties to the appeal; and unless the parties otherwise agree, the matter shall be submitted to a jury and tried as other appeal cases are tried, and the court or jury, as the case may be, shall reassess the damages aforesaid; * * * but the rule for ascertaining and fixing such damages shall be based upon the same principles that the commissioners are required to adopt in originally appraising and determining such damages."
The lands of the plaintiff described in the petition, in the order appointing the commissioners, and in the award, are his two westerly forties only. The award states that the commissioners "determined, appraised, and awarded to the owners of such land and property, and of any right proposed to be taken or injuriously affected by the prosecution of the petitioner's enterprise, the following amount of damages as compensation arising to them respectively by reason thereof, to wit," etc.
Upon the trial of the appeal which had been taken to the district court, the plaintiff (defendant objecting) offered evidence of his ownership of his easterly forty; that the same was connected with the two westerly forties, with which it formed one farm owned and occupied by him; that his residence was upon the easterly forty; and as to the amount of damages to the whole 120 acre tract by reason of the location and construction of the road. A verdict was accordingly returned for the damages to the whole of said tract.
The important question in this case is whether the evidence mentioned was properly received. In our judgment this question should be answered in the affirmative. The proceedings for condemnation, irrespective of the reception of the evidence in question, appear to have been in substantial accordance with the provisions of chapter 34 before recited, so that the question propounded resolves itself into a question as to the meaning and true interpretation of these provisions of statute, so far as called for by this case. What is meant by the expressions (all evidently referring to the same thing) "compensation for taking or injuriously affecting," "compensation for damages by reason of taking or injuriously affecting," "the amount of damages...
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