Opinion ID: 337627
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Scope of the Project

Text: 23 Whether or not the Government should prove able to rebut the presumption that it fully offset enhancement in 1961, there may be an independent basis for affirming the judgment below. This question remains: were the sixty-two acres being taken here within the scope of the Rayburn project at the time the Government originally became committed to it? If this taking is but another reel in the motion picture released in the early 60's, the Government may pay without reference to enhancement; however, if it is a new Corps production, enhancement is owing, and the judgment below was proper. See United States v. Reynolds, supra; United States v. Miller,supra; Louisiana, Through the Sabine River Authority v. Lindsey, 5 Cir. 1975, 524 F.2d 934; United States v. 2,353.28 Acres of Land, 5 Cir. 1969,414 F.2d 965. 24 Pellucidity does not normally attend application of the scope of the project concept; the history of the project before us and the peculiar postures of the parties to this litigation present particularly mind-boggling problems. Both parties focused on this question at the pre-trial hearing on the Government's motion to exclude evidence of enhancement, but the judge in denying the motion did not make an explicit finding that the acreage was outside the scope of the Rayburn project. 16 The Government's initial brief to this court addressed only this scope issue; the landowner, however, has responded throughout this appeal solely with the prior offset theory discussed in part II, supra. Nevertheless, we do not find that appellee has completely abandoned the issue. Because the court below reached no explicit conclusion on the scope of the project which is an issue for the trial judge rather than the jury, see United States v. Reynolds, supra, 397 U.S. at 20, 90 S.Ct. at 807; Wardy v. United States, 5 Cir. 1968, 402 F.2d 762, and because ambiguities in the testimony at the pre-trial hearing lie unresolved, we remand this issue also to the district court. We hope to facilitate the proceedings on remand, however, by explicating our understanding of the legal standards triggered by this question. 25 The Supreme Court's statement of the scope of the project test in United States v. Miller, supra, 317 U.S. at 377, 63 S.Ct. at 281, 87 L.Ed. at 344, retains vitality today: 26 The question then is whether the respondent's lands were probably within the scope of the project from the time the Government was committed to it. If they were not, but were merely adjacent lands, the subsequent enlargement of the project to include them ought not to deprive the respondents of the value added in the meantime by the proximity of the improvement. If, on the other hand, they were, the Government ought not to pay any increase in value arising from the known fact that the lands probably would be condemned. The owners ought not to gain by speculating on probable increase in value due to the Government's activities. 27 Applying the Miller test to decide whether a particular acquisition was within reasonable prescience or departed to a totally new vista calls for discriminating judgment. See United States v. Reynolds, supra, 397 U.S. at 21, 90 S.Ct. at 807, 25 L.Ed.2d at 18. This court recently explained in light of Reynolds that project scope is not to be narrowly interpreted. See Louisiana, Through the Sabine River Authority v. Lindsey, 5 Cir. 1975, 524 F.2d 934. 17 While noting, however, the Supreme Court announcement that the land ultimately taken need not have been actually specified in the original project plans to come within its scope, this court did maintain that (i)t must also be evident to the public that a given tract might be taken for the project. 524 F.2d at 942. The test must have latitudinal and longitudinal tolerances. We cannot straitjacket the government in defining scope of the project, but on the other hand, we cannot permit global meanderings to enclave areas not reasonably to have been conceived as included at its inception. 28 Examples of the application of discriminating judgment in the case reports yield no ready conclusion in the instant appeal, at least in its present state. Most instructive perhaps is United States v. Crance, 8 Cir. 1965, 341 F.2d 161. 18 There the Government purchased seven acres of defendant's land in 1958 for inundation by a reservoir project. Though project plans contemplated recreational areas from the outset, both a 1956 preliminary design memorandum and a 1960 proposal of sites approved by the Chief of Engineers did not include any of the remainder of defendant's tract. After a 1960 public hearing announcing the proposal, however, the Government in response to suggestions from area citizens decided to acquire thirty-five acres of defendant's property for recreational purposes. The court found on these facts that the additional acreage was within the scope of the project and subject to condemnation without regard to enhancement, pursuant to this very broad principle; 29 The significant factor here is that this project contemplated recreational areas from its very inception and certainly the property lying beyond the perimeter of the reservoir would probably be incorporated for recreational purposes if the land acquired for the reservoir alone was not also sufficient for recreational utilization. Since the Crance property abutted the reservoir line, it was within the sphere of probable acquisition for recreational use. 30 341 F.2d at 165. 31 Crance implied that until reservoir lines are finalized, a process it recognizes as laden with uncertainties and problems of its own, all property adjoining the proposed reservoir line is subject to being taken for recreational purposes without reference to enhancement. 19 The court reached this conclusion although Government policy on recreational areas called only for the use of tracts 20-40 acres in size located every five miles around the lake. While the certainty of acquisition of recreational property in connection with the reservoir is somewhat greater than the acquisition of perimeter acreage to adjust for errors in surveying the reservoir line, 20 the degree of uncertainty as to the acquisition of any particular tract resulting from the Crance standard suggests that finding these sixty-two acres spread along the edge of the Rayburn project to be within its scope would burden landholders with no significant increase in insecurity. 21 32 Cases finding property outside the scope of Government projects have involved clearer public statements that final lines have been drawn or less foreseeable types of changes than are present in the instant case. In United States v. 2353.28 Acres of Land, 5 Cir. 1969, 414 F.2d 965, an official of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had previously testified that the land condemned for Cape Canaveral would not extend, for safety and security reasons, beyond a waterway to the north. He stated that the project would not interfere with this waterway. Confidential reports contained the only evidence of extension beyond the waterway. In that context, we held the taking of defendant's property five miles north of the waterway to be beyond the scope of the project. 33 This court was aided in that case by United States v. 172.80 Acres of Land, 3 Cir. 1965, 350 F.2d 957. There the Government had drawn a reservoir line, and it subsequently took land from the defendant above that line. The cause of the change was not as predictable as a mistake in surveying, however, Rather, the new Kennedy Administration had liberalized Government policy concerning the extent of public development and use of reservoir areas. Finding that the landowner could not reasonably anticipate condemnation of the property above the line, the court found him entitled to the enhancement of value due to the reservoir. 22 34 Application of the scope of the project test to the case at bar requires the assessment of three factors: the foreseeability of any change in the reservoir line and of this particular tract's falling within the ambit of such a change; the length of time between the original acquisition and this taking; and the Government representations concerning the finality of the original 171 foot line. First, that some adjustment for error of a reservoir line as originally drawn and staked may be necessary seems a reasonable probability, certainly as contrasted to a change in policy imposed by a new administration. Once some adjustment is viewed as reasonably foreseeable, the taking of this particular acreage was certainly a greater probability than the acquisition of the tracts involved in Crance or First Pyramid, supra. The sixty-two acres here all lie on the strip between the 171 foot line as originally staked and the 179 foot flowage easement line. 23 35 At first blush, the most disturbing factor in suggesting that this taking was within the original scope of the project is the length of time that passed before the Government acted. The reservoir, however, lay dry in 1961. When impoundment began is not clear from the record, but in 1965 the water level evidenced the mistake. Publicly announced Government policy mandates the taking of property for reservoirs up to the five year flood line. See 19 Fed.Reg. 381 (January 21, 1954). That the need for adjustments may not reveal itself for five years is therefore likely. This policy is but a reminder that these projects are not of the stop watch variety and that gradualism in acquisition is oft times fact and not fiction. 36 The delay from 1965 to 1971 could itself take the acreage outside the scope of the project only if it constituted a representation to the landowner that the original 171 foot line on his property did not need adjustment. The resurveying which was commenced in 1966 and the contemporaneous practice of bartering equivalent tracts above and below the mistaken line would seem to preclude such a finding. However, the trial court on remand is free to consider whether, although the adjustment of the reservoir line would otherwise be within the original scope of the project, Government action or inaction after the need for such adjustment became clear made it no longer evident to the public that the taking here might be forthcoming. The scope of the project is not thonged to time. Many years and many men have traversed the Rayburn Reservoir since the project began, however, and time can be a factor in removing the mote of potential acquisition from the eyes of area landowners. 37 With respect to Government disclosures at the commencement of the project, the record below is ambiguous. Although on any reading the indications that the original 171 foot line would be final were more equivocal than the NASA statements concerning the acquisition of Canaveral, testimony at the pre-trial hearing left unclear whether landowners in 1961 had any indication that the line as drawn was subject to adjustment. Sufficiently definite representations by the Government that the line originally drawn was final could lead to a finding that the acreage here was outside the project's scope regardless of the general probability of mistakes in surveying. Alternatively, statements making it clear to the public that the line might need adjustment could bring the land within the project's scope without need for us to resort to the probability standard announced in Crance. 24 38 In sum, given the likelihood of some mistakes in surveying and the probability that this perimeter acreage would be subject to adjustment for any such mistake, we would be inclined to find these sixty-two acres within the scope of the project, as we interpret the admittedly-inconclusive prior applications of that test. We recognize that such a holding would burden a landowner adjacent to a reservoir project with some uncertainty, interfering with the accurate valuation of his property until the reservoir lines are finalized. 39 The alternative, however, would not be certain protection for the landowner. A narrow reading of the scope test might well result in public works legislation authorizing the selection of particular tracts from a broadly drawn area which would protect against such eventualities as the adjustment involved here. Tracts selected from which this area up to the completion of the project would fall within its scope. See Miller v. United States, supra; Shoemaker v. United States, 1893, 147 U.S. 282, 13 S.Ct. 361, 37 L.Ed. 170. The uncertainty to the landowner and the artificial devaluation of his property would be at least as great under such a Government approach to condemnation as under our interpretation of the scope test. Government parsimony in this area is not to be penalized. 40 The posture of this appeal, however, renders such a holding unnecessary. Ambiguities persist as to the Government's representations to area landowners in 1961 and to the impact of Government activity between 1965 and 1971 on the public understanding of the need for further acquisitions. Resolution of those ambiguities might support findings that these sixty-two acres were either inside or outside the scope of the Rayburn project, without reference to a Crance -type assessment of the probability of this acquisition based on the general likelihood of mistakes in surveying and the proximity of this acreage to the reservoir line. Therefore we will remand to allow the district court to resolve the factual ambiguities insofar as is possible and, employing its first hand knowledge of the facts, to apply the scope test we have outlined.