Source: https://openjurist.org/317/us/369
Timestamp: 2019-10-24 02:55:11
Document Index: 233761370

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 258', '§ 258', '§ 6', '§ 595', '§ 595', '§ 1', '§ 257', '§ 257', '§ 591', '§ 591']

317 US 369 United States v. Miller | OpenJurist
317 U.S. 369 - United States v. Miller
317 US 369 United States v. Miller
63 S.Ct. 276
87 L.Ed. 336
April 6, 1934, the Chief of Engineers of the Army recommended that the Government contribute twelve million dollars towards the project.1 Congress authorized the appropriation in the following year.2 December 22, 1935, the President approved construction of the entire improvement. In 1936 Congress appropriated $6,900,000 for it and in 1937 $12,500,000.3 In August 1937 the project was again authorized by Congress.4
December 14, 1938, the United States filed in the District Court for Northern California a complaint in eminent domain against the respondents and others whose lands were needed for the relocation of the railroad. On that day the Government also filed a declaration of taking.5 In this declaration the estimate of just compensation to be paid for a tract belonging to three of the respondents as co-tenants was estimated at $2,550 and that sum was deposited in court. On the application of these owners the court directed the Clerk to pay each of them one-third of the deposit, or $850, on account of the compensation they were entitled to receive.
The three respondents who had received $850 each on account of compensation were awarded less than the total paid them. The court entered judgment that title to the lands was in the United States and judgment in favor of respondents respectively for the amounts awarded them. Judgment was entered against the three respondents and in favor of the United States for the amounts they had received in excess of the verdicts with interest. They moved to set aside the money judgments against them on the ground that the court had no jurisdiction to enter them. The motions were overruled. All of the respondents appealed, assigning error to the trial judge's ruling with respect to the questions to be asked the witnesses, to his charge which had instructed the jury that, in arriving at market value as of the date of taking, they should disregard increment of value due to the initiation of the project6 and arising after August 26, 1937, and three of them to his entry of money judgments for the United States.
The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the judgment holding, by a divided court, that the trial judge erred in his rulings and in his charge, and unanimously that the District Court was without jurisdiction to award the United States a judgment for amounts overpaid.7 A majority of the court were of opinion the witnesses should have been asked to state the fair market value of the lands as of the date of taking without qualification, and the judge should have charged that this value measured the compensation to which the respondents were entitled.
1. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution provides that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. Such compensation means the full and perfect equivalent in money of the property taken.8 The owner is to be put in as good position pecuniarily as he would have occupied if his property had not been taken.9
It is conceivable that an owner's indemnity should be measured in various ways depending upon the circumstances of each case and that no general formula should be used for the purpose. In an effort, however, to find some practical standard, the courts early adopted, and have retained, the concept of market value. The owner has been said to be entitled to the 'value',10 the 'market value',11 and the 'fair market value'12 of what is taken. The term 'fair' hardly adds anything to the phrase 'market value', which denotes what 'it fairly may be believed that a purchaser in fair market conditions would have given',13 or, more concisely, 'market value fairly determined'.14
Respondents correctly say that value is to be ascertained as of the date of taking.15 But they insist that no element which goes to make up value as at that moment is to be discarded or eliminated. We think the proposition is too broadly stated. Where, for any reason, property has no market resort must be had to other data to ascertain its value;16 and, even in the ordinary case, assessment of market value involves the use of assumptions, which make it unlikely that the appraisal will reflect true value with nicety. It is usually said that market value is what a willing buyer would pay in cash to a willing seller. Where the property taken, and that in its vicinity, has not in fact been sold within recent times, or in significant amounts, the application of this concept involves, at best, a guess by informed persons.
Since the owner is to receive no more than indemnity for his loss, his award cannot be enhanced by any gain to the taker.17 Thus although the market value of the property is to be fixed with due consideration of all its available uses,18 its special value to the condemnor as distinguished from others who may or may not possess the power to condemn, must be excluded as an element of market value.19 The district judge so charged the jury and no question is made as to the correctness of the instruction.
This has begotten subsidiary rules. If only a portion of a single tract is taken the owner's compensation for that taking includes any element of value arising out of the relation of the part taken to the entire tract.20 Such damage is often, though somewhat loosely, spoken of as severance damage. On the other hand, if the taking has in fact benefited the remainder the benefit may be set off against the value of the land taken.21
The respondents also say that, whatever the criterion of value adopted by the federal courts, Congress has adopted the local rule followed in the state where the federal court sits; and they claim that the California rule is settled that fair market value at the date of taking is the standard of value, without elimination of any increment attributable to the action of the taker. We need not determine what is the local law, for the federal statutes24 upon which reliance is placed require only that, in condemnation proceedings, a federal court shall adopt the forms and methods of procedure afforded by the law of the State in which the court sits. They do not, and could not, affect questions of substantive right,—such as the measure of compensation,—grounded upon the Constitution of the United States.25
Examination of the Act of February 26, 1931,26 discloses that the declaration of taking is to be filed in the proceeding for condemnation at its inception or at any later time. When the declaration is filed the amount of estimated compensation is to be deposited with the court to be paid as the court may order 'for or on account' of the just compensation to be awarded the owners. Thus the acquisition by the Government of title and immediate right to possession, and the deposit of the estimated compensation, occur as steps in the main proceeding.
All the provisions of the Act taken together require a contrary conclusion.27 The payment is of estimated compensation; it is intended as a provisional and not a final settlement with the owner; it is a payment 'on account of' compensation and not a final settlement of the amount due. To hold otherwise would defeat the policy of the statute and work injustice; would be to encourage federal officials to underestimate the value of the property with the result that the Government would be saddled with interest on a larger sum from date of taking to final award, and would be to deny the owner the immediate use of cash approximating the value of his land.
Denial of notice and hearing is asserted. But, while it is true that the court included the judgment of restitution in its general judgment in the condemnation proceedings without notice to the parties or hearing, the respondents made motions to set aside the judgment against them, and the court heard and acted on the motions. The respondents had full opportunity to urge any meritorious reasons why judgment of restitution should not be entered against them.28 We think they were entitled to no more.
State courts have proceeded as did the court below, under analogous statutes,29 and our decisions justify the District Court's action.30
Pursuant to Act of Feb. 26, 1931, 46 Stat. 1421, 40 U.S.C. §§ 258a—258e, 40 U.S.C.A. §§ 258a—258e.
Bauman v. Ross, loc. cit. Congress has provided that in takings such as that here involved benefits to the remainder of the tract shall be considered by way of reducing the compensation for what is taken. Act July 18, 1918, c. 155, § 6, 40 Stat. 911, 33 U.S.C. § 595, 33 U.S.C.A. § 595.
Act of Aug. 1, 1888, c. 728, 25 Stat. 357, §§ 1 and 2, 40 U.S.C. §§ 257, 258, 40 U.S.C.A. §§ 257, 258; Act of Apr. 24, 1888, c. 194, 25 Stat. 94, 33 U.S.C. § 591, 33 U.S.C.A. § 591.