Opinion ID: 1419385
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the condemnees' cross-appeal

Text: As a result of the taking which was the subject of Civil No. 17295, there was a loss of free and unrestricted access from one portion of the defendants' remainder agricultural land to another. On one side of the H-1 Freeway, the defendants had leased lands to the Oahu Sugar Company; on the other side the lessee was the Ewa Plantation. Each lessee hauled its sugar cane to a refinery on its side of the H-1. The state built a series of underpasses connecting the two portions of the defendants' remainder agricultural lands. The defendants sought to establish as evidence of severance damages the facts that future economic conditions would require the consolidation of the two separate sugar operations, that all sugar cane subsequently produced would have to be hauled to a single refinery, and that the existing underpasses connecting the parcels on each side of the H-1 Freeway would be inadequate to permit free passage of the vehicles needed to haul the sugar cane. The circuit court properly excluded this evidence. The mere fear of contingent injury which may never occur, and the happening of which is speculative and uncertain, is not a showing of damage. Waukegan Park District v. First National Bank of Lake Forest, 22 Ill.2d 238, 246, 174 N.E.2d 824, 829 (1961). See also Territory of Hawaii etc. v. Honolulu Plantation Company, Ltd., 34 Haw. 859, 868 (1939); Thomsen v. State, 284 Minn. 468, 472, 170 N.W.2d 575, 579 (1969); City of Los Angeles v. Geiger, 94 Cal. App.2d 180, 190-191, 210 P.2d 717, 724 (1949). Civil Nos. 17197, 17295, 17380, and 17381 are reversed because of the improper allowance of attorneys' fees, expert witness' fees, costs and expenses. Civil No. 17381 is further remanded for a new trial on the issue of severance damages.