Case ID: ohio-cc-ns_9/html/0103-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

QUESTIONS IN APPROPRIATION PROCEEDINGS.
    [Circuit Court of Hamilton County.]
    Cincinnati Iron Store Co. v. Trustees Cincinnati Southern Railway.
    Decided, December 29, 1906.
    
      Eminent Domain — Separate Trials as to Separate Parcels Appropriated —Doss of Future Business — Admissibility in Evidence of Plans of Building and Machinery■ — Plans must be Attached to Bill of Exceptions — Value of Switch Trade on the Property Condemned— Evidence of Values as Fixed by Compromise with Other Oioners— Error Proceedings.
    
    1. A property owner who has submitted without exception to a joint trial for the assessment of damages for various properties appropriated for railway purposes, can not be heard,to complain in the reviewing court that he was not given a separate trial.
    2. The amount of monthly sales and of freight transported over a switch track are incompetent as evidence, where offered for the purpose of proving loss of future business.
    3. Plans of a building and of machinery are probably admissible, but whether or not their exclusion was prejudicial can not be determined where the plans are not attached to the bill of exceptions.
    4. The cost of transporting merchandise by trucks is not competent evidence for the fixing of the value of a sw'itch track on the property condemned.
    In this case a large amount of property was appropriated for railway- purposes in a single action. As to many parcels agreements were reached, between the time of the filing of the petition and return of the verdict, whereby the amount to be paid to 'the owners was fixed. The value of the property of the present plaintiff was determined by the jury, and the plaintiff being dissatisfied with the award prosecuted error.
    Giefen, J.; Jelke, P. J., and Swing, J., concur.
    The question whether the condemnation proceedings should have been separate as to each individual property owner does not arise upon the record made, the Cincinnati Iron Store Co. interposing no objection in the trial court.
    The amount of the annual sales of the company and the value of the goods transported monthly over the switch track on the company’s premises were sought to be shown evidently for the purpose of proving the loss of future business, which is too remote, uncertain and speculative to be allowed. Railway v. Railway, 30 O. S., 604.
    The plans of the proposed beam or crane, if not those of the office building, were probably admissible evidence under the authority of Railway Co. v. Longworlh, 30 O. S., 108; but neither set of plans being attached to the bill of exceptions the court can not determine whether their exclusion was prejudicial. Palmer v. Yarrington, 1 O. S., 253.
    In proving the value of a switch track upon the premises sought to be condemned the cost of transporting by trucks the same amount of merchandise as that handled over the switch is not competent evidence. Evidence of sales by other lot owners made by compromise is inadmissible upon re-examination, although on cross-examination the witness has been asked concerning voluntary sales in the vicinity.
    The question and answer objected to on page 52 of the bill of exceptions were not prejudicial, nor that on page 112.
    Notwithstanding the wide difference between the values fixed by the witnesses for the trustees and those testified to by the company’s witnesses, none of which was binding upon the jury, we think they arrived at a fair and just valuation, and finding no error in the record the judgment will be affirmed.
    
      C. W. Baker and II. C. Busch, for plaintiff in error.
    
      John W. Peck, for defendant in error.'