Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/219/180.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 11:10:22+00:00

Document:
Assistant Attorney General John Q. Thompson and P. M. Cox for plaintiff in error. [219 U.S. 180, 181] No appearance for defendants in error.
Action by the owners of a farm for a taking of a part thereof by the United States for public purposes. Judgment for the plaintiffs below.
1. 'That in addition there is taken an easement of access from plaintiff's land by way of the county road to the Tates creek pike.
2. 'That the whole land was worth $3,000 before said taking, and what was left after the taking was worth $1,500.
3. 'I divide the damage by reason of the taking between the land taken and the easement of access, taken equally; i. e., I allow $750 for the land taken, and a like sum of $750 for the easement of access taken.
The errors assigned relate only to so much of the judgment as allows damages for the 'easement of access,' referred to in the findings above set out. That there was a taking by flooding permanently the 7 1/2 acres, valued at $750 by the court below, is not contested. Pumpelly v. Green Bay & M. Canal Co. 13 Wall. 166, 20 L. ed. 557; United States v. Lynah, 188 U.S. 445 , 47 L. ed. 539, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 349; United States v. Welch, 217 U.S. 333 , 54 L. ed. 787, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 527; High Bridge Lumber Co. v. United States, 16 C. C. A. 460, 37 U. S. App. 234, 69 Fed. 323.
The contention is that the 'easement of access' destroyed, and therefore taken, was not a private right of way constituting property such as that for which compensation was allowed in United States v. Welch, but was a public county road; and reference has been made to the well-known class of cases touching an injury to land not taken by the construction of a railroad along and upon an abutting public road, or a change of grade, to the damage [219 U.S. 180, 183] of adjacent property, and like indirect injuries to the use of property adjacent, but of which no part was taken from the owner. Northern Transp. Co. v. Chicago, 99 U.S. 635 ; 25 L. ed. 336; Sharp v. United States, 191 U.S. 341 , 48 L. ed. 211, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 114.
But here there has been an actual taking by permanently flooding a part of the farm of the defendants in error. An incident of that flooding is that a public road running across the flooded land is also flooded. But if this were not so, and the roadway had simply been cut off by the interposition of the flooded portion of the farm, the damage would be the same. Since, therefore, there has been a taking of a part of the owners' single tract, and damage has resulted to the owners' remaining interest by reason of the relation between the taken part and that untaken, or by reason of the use of the taken land, the rule applied in the cases cited does not control this case.
To the same effect see Cooley, Const. Lim. pages 565, 566.
There is nothing in United States v. Welch, cited above, which conflicts with the conclusion we have reached, but, upon the contrary, the trend of the opinion is toward the decision we announce.
In Sharp v. United States, 191 U.S. 341, 354 , 48 S. L. ed. 211, 215, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 114, and High Bridge Lumber Co. v. United States, 16 C. C. A. 460, 37 U. S. App. 234, 69 Fed. 320, 323, as well as in United States v. Welch, supra, the principle is recognized as settled law.
Both the petition and the finding show that access to the public road has been cut off by the intervention of flooded land actually taken.
That the trial judge found the damages for the land and for the easement of access separately is not controlling. The determining factor was that the value of that part of the Grizzard farm not taken was $1,500, when the value of the entire place before the taking was $3,000. A judgment for a less sum will not be that 'just compensation' to which the defendants are entitled. The case is not different in legal consequence from what it would have been if a railway had been constructed across one's lawn, cutting the owner off from his road and outbuildings, etc. To say that such an owner would be compensated by paying him only for the narrow strip actually appropriated, and leaving out of consideration the depreciation to the remaining [219 U.S. 180, 186] land by the manner in which the part was taken, and the use to which it was put, would be a travesty upon justice.

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