Title: Green v. State Highway Commission
Citation: 184 Kan. 525, 337 P.2d 657
Docket Number: 41,276
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: April 11, 1959

184 Kan. 525 (1959)
337 P.2d 657
ESTHER SMILEY GREEN and GERALD GREEN, Appellants,
v.
THE STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee.
No. 41,276

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed April 11, 1959.
A. Harry Crane, of Topeka, argued the cause, and Ward D. Martin, Arthur L. Claussen and Harvey D. Ashworth, all of Topeka, were with him on the briefs for appellants.
Constance M. Achterberg, of Topeka, and Howard W. Harper, of Junction City, argued the cause, and W.B. Kirkpatrick, Assistant Attorney General, of Topeka, and Lee Hornbaker, of Junction City, were with them on the briefs for appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
FATZER, J.:
This is an appeal from a judgment in a state highway condemnation case. In May, 1956, the State Highway Commission, desiring to enlarge the intersection of U.S. 40 Highway and Kansas Highway 13 (K 13), filed its petition for the appointment of appraisers for the taking of 3.43 acres from the landowners and their rights of access to approximately one and three-quarters miles on each side of U.S. 40 Highway east of the intersection, and 450 feet north and south of the intersection on the east side of K 13. This intersection is located approximately 50 miles west of Topeka, approximately sixteen miles east of Junction City, and approximately eight miles south of Manhattan. Appraisers were appointed who made an award on May 31, 1956, of $1,597.15 for abutters' rights, land taken, abstracting and fencing. Being dissatisfied with the appraisement, the landowners filed with the clerk of the district court their notice of appeal and a bond as provided by law. The commission did not appeal from the appraisement.
The appeal was tried to a jury in the district court of Geary County, which returned a verdict and fixed the landowners' damages as follows:
Judgment was entered in harmony with the general verdict of the jury and the landowners timely perfected their appeal to this court from the verdict rendered, the judgment entered thereon, the overruling of the motion for a new trial, and the overruling of their oral motion to reconsider the court's ruling on the motion for a new trial. Because of their importance to the decision of this case, based upon conclusions hereafter announced, the landowners' specifications of error are fully quoted:
"3. The jury acted under bias and prejudice."
In deciding this case we are first confronted with the problem that while the landowners perfected their appeal from the other overruling their motion for a new trial, they fail to specify that ruling as error for appellate review. Harsh as the rule may be, this court has repeatedly held that errors relating to matters occurring at the trial for which a new trial is asked, cannot be considered on appeal unless the action of the district court in overruling the motion is specified as error. Our cases on this point are numerous. In Mathis v. Public School District No. 103, 175 Kan. 453, 264 P.2d 1082, it was held:
In the opinion it was said:
In Weede v. Bannon, 175 Kan. 569, 570, 265 P.2d 1025, it was said:
In Murphy v. Cole, 175 Kan. 822, 267 P.2d 959, it was said:
In Drennan v. Chalfant, 177 Kan. 633, 282 P.2d 442, it was said:
In State v. Turner, 183 Kan. 496, 328 P.2d 733, it was held:
In Ogilvie v. Mangels, 183 Kan. 733, 332 P.2d 581, it was said:
In Shelton v. Simpson, 184 Kan. 270, 336 P.2d 159 (opinion filed March 7, 1959), it was held:
See, also, McIntyre v. Dickinson, 180 Kan. 710, 307 P.2d 1068; Reger v. Sours, 181 Kan. 423, 311 P.2d 996; Binder v. Local Union No. 685, 181 Kan. 799, 317 P.2d 371.
*528 This court has repeatedly held what trial errors include, and in Shelton v. Simpson, supra, it was said:
It is clear that each of the landowners' specifications of error relates to trial errors: No. 1 deals with whether the trial court erroneously admitted and excluded certain evidence which was claimed to be prejudicial to the landowners; No. 2 pertains to the sufficiency of evidence to support the verdict and judgment, and No. 3 deals with whether the jury acted under bias and prejudice. While these alleged errors were urged to the district court on a motion for a new trial, the landowners are required, in addition to appealing from the order overruling that motion, to specify such ruling as error to obtain appellate review. As previously indicated, this appeal reaches this court as if no motion for a new trial had been filed. It therefore follows that the scope of appellate review is limited to the question whether the judgment is supported by the pleadings and the jury's verdict (McCarty v. Kansas-Nebraska Natural Gas Co., 176 Kan. 386, 271 P.2d 264; McIntyre v. Dickinson, supra; Reger v. Sours, supra; Binder v. Local Union No. 685, supra).
Under the present statutes and procedure for trials of eminent domain appeals in district courts, pleadings are not required; hence, we do not have the question whether the judgment is supported by the pleadings. Examining the judgment in this case, we find nothing wrong with it unless it is some of the trial errors set out by the landowners in their motion for a new trial, but, since the order overruling the motion for a new trial is not specified as error, it is the same as if no appeal had been taken from that order and we are unable to review it.
Finding no error in the case, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.