Woodfolk v. Nashville & Chattanooga R.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 31 December 1852
• Citation: 32 Tenn. 422
• Parties: WOODFOLK v. NASHVILLE & CHATTANOOGA RAILROAD COMPANY.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

32 Tenn. 422

WOODFOLK

v.NASHVILLE & CHATTANOOGA RAILROAD COMPANY.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

December Term, 1852.

This was a proceeding in the circuit court of Davidson county, upon the facts and for the purposes stated in the opinion. At the January term, 1852, Turner, judge, presiding, there was a judgment for the plaintiff, from which the defendants appealed in error, and from which the plaintiff himself prosecuted a writ of error.

Meigs and Ewing & Cooper, for plaintiff in error, argued: Increase in value of the adjacent property is not the compensation meant by the Constitution. “Even for the general good of the whole community, no unnecessary violation of the rights of property is, in any instance, allowed by the English law. If a new road, for example, is to be made through the grounds of a private person, in a case where it would be exclusively beneficial to the public, the Legislature never permits itself to do this without the consent of the owner of the land; or at least without securing to him a complete indemnification. In vain may it be urged that the good of the individual ought to yield to that of the community. The true principle applicable to all such cases is that the private interest of the individual is never to be sacrificed to a greater extent than is necessary to secure a public object of adequate importance. The public, therefore, is considered, in all such transactions, as an individual, treating with an individual for an exchange. All that the Legislature does is to oblige the owner to alienate his possession for a reasonable price; and even this is an exertion of power which the Legislature indulges with caution, and which nothing but the Legislature can perform.” 1 Steph. Com. 154, 155; 1 Bla. Com. 139.

“The principle is that the lands of individuals are holden subject to the requisitions of the public exigencies, a reasonable compensation being paid for the damages. It is not taking the property of one man, and giving it to another. At most, it is a forced sale to satisfy the pressing want of the public. Now, this is as it should be. The will or caprice of an individual would often defeat the most useful and extensive enterprises, if it were otherwise. Property is, nevertheless, sufficiently guarded by the Constitution. The individual is protected in its enjoyment, saving only when the public want it, not merely for ornamental, but for some necessary and useful purposes. Then, indeed, the individual must part with it for an equivalent.” Boston & Roxbury Milldam Co. v. Newman, 12 Pick. 480;11 Pet. 642, 644, 645.

When these authorities say that private property is not to be taken for public use, without a “complete indemnification,” “reasonable price.” ““reasonable compensation,” “an equivalent,” do these phrases mean that the owner has the thing they signify, if his land not taken is increased in value as much as the value of that which is taken? In Bloodgood v. The Mohawk & H. R. R. Co., 18 Wend., the New York court of error say: “There can be no diversity of opinion as to the meaning of the words, just compensation. It is a fair equivalent in money, a quid pro quo; it is a recompense in value for the property taken” (p. 35). The same doctrine is held in 2 Dallas, 315, and 9 Dana, 114. In these phrases the judges have expressed the same idea which the phrase just compensation, in the Constitution, is used to convey; and their opinion of what the Constitution means is not to be mistaken. See Const. of Vt., ch. 1, sec. 2.

In the case of Parham v. Justices, etc., of Decatur County, 9 Ga. 341, 351, the court state the grounds upon which private property may be taken for public use, as follows:

1. Private property may be taken for the public use, without compensation, in cases of urgent public necessity, which no law has anticipated, and which cannot await the action of the Legislature; as, where houses are pulled down, and bulwarks raised, for defense against an enemy, and the like. In these cases there is no remedy but by petition to the Legislature. And such is the doctrine of this court in Barrow v. Page, 5 Hayw. 97, 100; Meigs' Dig. 531.

2. But this rule of necessity has very narrow limits; it is, indeed, an exception to the general rule, which is that when public necessity requires the assumption of private property, it can only be done by the act of the Legislature, and the Legislature must make provision for compensation. If it does not, the courts may pronounce the law a nullity.

This, says the court, was the law of the land in England, before Magna Charta. Against the contrary the Great Charter guarded, by declaring that no individual should be deprived of his property but by the law of the land and by judgment of his peers. The petition of rights affirmed the same doctrine; and this great rule of right and liberty was the law of the state of Georgia, at the adoption of the Constitution.

The writers on the law of nations hold the rule to be the same; the Code Napoleon, art. 545; the Civil Code of Louisiana, art. 489, as well as the 5th article of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, recognize this rule. Even the government of Turkey submits to its control. 9 Ga. 350, 351.

The supreme court of South Carolina, in 1796, divided upon the question whether private property could be taken for a public highway without compensation. The majority held the affirmative, upon the idea that the taxing power and this power of eminent domain were analogous. The supreme court of Georgia shows the fallacy of this by observing that each citizen is presumed to pay, and ought, in fact, only to pay, his equal proportion of taxes needful for the support of government. But if private property is taken to build a road, and no compensation is awarded, then the burden of providing roads for the public falls with onerous inequality upon those citizens over whose lands the road happens to run. They pay their proportion of the general taxes, and of those raised to defray the expenses of opening roads; and, in addition, they give up their lands for the right of way. There is no equality, no justice, in this. A law which raises the taxes out of one man or class of men, the balance going free, would be contrary to natural right and justice, just as a law which would constrain one or a few to pay the expenses of a highway would be; and both would be set aside as nullities. Id. 352.

But the distinction between the taking of private property by taxation and by right of eminent domain is still more clearly and succinctly shown by the court of appeals of New York, in the case of the People, ex rel. Frederick Griffin et al., v. The Mayor, etc., of Brooklyn (pamphlet, 1-37). “Taxation,” says the court, “exacts money or services from individuals as an for their representative shares of contribution to any public burdens. Private property, taken for public use by right of eminent domain, is taken, not as the owner's share of contribution to a public burden, but as so much beyond his share. Special compensation is, therefore, to be made in the latter case, because the government is debtor for the property so taken; but not in the former, because the payment of taxes is a duty, and creates no obligation to repay otherwise than in the proper application of the tax. Taxation operates upon a community, or upon a class of persons in a community, and by some rule of appointment. The exercise of the right of eminent domain operates upon an individual, and without reference to the amount or value exacted from any other individual, or class of individuals” (p. 8).

In Meacham v. Fitchburg Railroad Company, 4 Cush. 292, 299, the court holds that an advance in the value of the remaining portion of a lot or parcel of ground, a part of which is taken for the construction of a railroad, may be deducted from the damages sustained by the owner of the land; that the jury, however, are absolutely restricted, in making this deduction, to the land adjacent to that taken for the road, or connected as one tract or parcel of land therewith; that the deduction to be made is the “peculiar benefit” to the owner of the land, arising out of the location of the road and that the great and leading principle to authorize such reduction of damages is the direct benefit or increase of value to the remaining part of the tract or parcel of land, by reason of the railroad's passing through the lot or tract as to which the damages are claimed. Finally, that the time at which this increase in the value is to be estimated is the actual staking out of the road, that being the period when the land is taken (pp. 298, 299). To the same purpose is James River & Kanawha Company v. Turner, 9 Leigh, 315, 331, 341.

F. B. Fogg and Trimble, for defendant in error.

Caruthers, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

The defendants located their road for about 500 feet, on a six-acre lot of plaintiff, in the vicinity of Nashville. The road runs through the corner of the lot, separating about three-fourths of an acre from the main lot, and occupying in the bed, which is from seven to ten feet deep, about three-fourths of an acre. The plaintiff has his family residence on the lot, and it is handsomely and tastefully improved. The part separated has upon it some negro houses, a cow-house, well, and spring-house. The plaintiff applied to the circuit court of Davidson county, under the act of 1845, ch. 1, chartering said company, for the appointment of commissioners to assess the damages sustained by him in consequence of the location of said road upon his land. This was at May term, 1850, when five commissioners were appointed. At October term, 1850, the report made by said commissioners was quashed for informalities in their proceedings, and five other men appointed. A majority of these commissioners “assess the loss and damage at two thousand dollars;” and that the “benefit and advantage the said Woodfolk has received from...