Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/217/189/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 10:20:29+00:00

Document:
This Court accepts the construction of a state statute as to condemnation of land given to it by the state court.
While, in condemnation proceedings, the mere mode of occupation does not limit the right of an owner's recovery, the Fourteenth Amendment does not require a disregard of the mode of ownership, or require land to be valued as an unencumbered whole when not so held.
others, the parties in interest are not entitled to have damages estimated as if the land were the sole property of one owner, nor are they deprived of their property without due process of law within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment because each is awarded the value of his respective interest in the property.
Judicial Court upon report. 195 Mass. 338. A judgment was entered in the court where the record remained, and then the case was brought here.
We assume in favor of the petitioners, the plaintiffs in error, that their only remedy was under the statute, and we give them the benefit of the doubt in interpreting the decision of the court so far as to take it to mean that the statutes of Massachusetts authorize the taking of land held as this was with no other compensation than according to the principle laid down. In short, we assume in their favor that the constitutional question is open, and that the case properly is not to be dismissed. But we are of opinion that, upon the only possible question before us here, the decision was right.
The statement of the contention seems to us to be enough.
It is true that the mere mode of occupation does not necessarily limit the right of an owner's recovery. Boom Co. v. Patterson, 98 U. S. 403, 98 U. S. 408; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Barber Asphalt Co., 197 U. S. 430, 197 U. S. 435. But the Constitution does not require a disregard of the mode of ownership -- of the state of the title. It does not require a parcel of land to be valued as an unencumbered whole when it is not held as an unencumbered whole. It merely requires that an owner of property taken should be paid for what is taken from him. It deals with persons, not with tracts of land. And the question is, what has the owner lost? not, what has the taker gained? We regard it as entirely plain that the petitioners were not entitled as matter of law to have the damages estimated as if the land was the sole property of one owner, and therefore are not entitled to $60,000 under their agreement. See Bartlett v. Bangor, 67 Me. 460, 468; Walker v. Manchester, 58 N.H. 438, 441; Gamble v. Philadelphia, 162 Pa. 413; In re Adams, 141 N.Y. 297; Olean v. Steyner, 135 N.Y. 341, 346; Crowell v. Beverly, 134 Mass. 98. There is some subordinate criticism under the alternative agreement, giving them only $5,000. It is noticed that this was conditioned upon the petitioners' not being entitled, as just stated, and upon the admissibility of the evidence offered by the city, and upon the substantial correctness of the requests for rulings, and it is said that the evidence was not admissible. It seems to us that the worst objection to it was that it was offered to prove the obvious. But, taking the agreement fairly, we think it meant only to contrast broadly the position of the two sides, and made the result depend upon which was right.

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