Opinion ID: 1828823
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Average unit value appraisal vs. front land-rear land technique.

Text: The majority of the court of appeal held that, where property is taken for highway purposes, the award for the land taken should be based upon its average per-acre or per square foot value; that is, the award for the part taken should bear the same proportion to the value of the whole as the area taken bears to the total area of the parent tract. The majority relied upon State, Department of Highways v. Monsur, 258 So.2d 162 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1972) and State, Department of Highways v. Medica, 257 So.2d 450 and 454 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1972). The dissenting judge recognized that, under the facts of this case, this method of valuation produces the same award for the land taken as does the front land-rear land technique, to be discussed below. However, as he points out, by this method of valuation, land fronting on a highway would be assigned the same value as land lying several hundred feet back from the highway, although the highest and best use of the former might be highway commercial, obviously giving it a higher market value than the latter, whose highest and best use might be agricultural or residential. 272 So.2d 775. Our state constitution requires that just and adequate compensation be paid for property taken for public purposes. La. Const. of 1921, Art. I, Section 2. Where property is taken for highway purposes, the landowner must be awarded the full value the property possessed before the taking, without deducting therefrom any amount for the benefit derived by the owner from the contemplated improvement or work. La.R.S. 19:9. See also Civil Code Article 2633. Therefore, as stated in State, Department of Highways v. Landry, 171 So.2d 779, 781 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1965), certiorari denied, 247 La. 676, 173 So.2d 541 (1965) (no error of law): We regard the proposition as settled by Louisiana jurisprudence and statute, therefore, that landowners are entitled to receive the full and actual market value of highway frontage expropriated for further highway purposes, without deduction therefrom because a new highway frontage will be provided, by reason of the taking, for formerly-rear portions of the parent tract. To allow such a deduction from the market value of property taken, would be to allow deduction from this value for benefits which will be derived because of the contemplated improvement for which the expropriation was made, in direct contravention of LSA-R.S. 19:9, the legislative provision forbidding landowners from being deprived for such reason of the true market value of their property which is expropriated for public purposes. As summarized by the excellent treatise, Dakin and Klein, Eminent Domain in Louisiana, p. 173 (1970), our state's jurisprudence holds:    the highest and best use of the land actually taken is to be considered in determining fair market value. When there is a partial taking and the land expropriated has a different highest and best use than the remainder of the landowner's tract, it appears that the courts will value the land taken separately from the remainder on the basis of its own highest and best use and will not consider the value of the land taken in relation to the whole tract. The landowner is thus to be awarded the actual market value of the particular portion of the property taken, valued according to its highest and best use. He is not limited to its average per-acre value as a pro rata portion of the parent tract where the front portion has a different and higher best-use value. See: State, Department of Highways v. Spera, 272 So.2d 765 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1972), certiorari denied, 272 So.2d 695 (La.Sup.Ct.1973) (No error of law.); State, Department of Highways v. Smith, 272 So.2d 746 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1972), certiorari denied, 272 So.2d 696 (La.Sup.Ct. 1973) (No error of law.); State, Department of Highways v. Stegemann, 269 So.2d 480 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1972), certiorari denied, 271 So.2d 533 (La.Sup.Ct.1973) (No error of law.); State, Department of Highways v. Bertrand, 184 So.2d 611 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1966); State, Department of Highways v. LeDoux, 184 So.2d 604 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1966); State, Department of Highways, v. Landry, 171 So.2d 779 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1965), certiorari denied, 247 La. 676, 173 So.2d 541 (1965) (no error of law); State, Department of Highways v. Circle Center Corp., 148 So.2d 411 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1962), certiorari denied, 243 La. 1011, 149 So.2d 765 (no error of law). As the cited decisions show, where the evidence shows that the front portion of the tract taken has a higher value than the rear portion not taken, the landowner must be awarded the higher value for the land actually taken rather than an averaged value based on its proportionate portion of the land-area of the parent tract. Usually, however, there is no market value for a strip taken for highway or other public-servitude purposes. The landowner would not normally sell at any reasonable price the portion cutting his tract off from the highway or (in the case of other servitudes) bisecting it. There is no willing buyer (except the servitude-seeker) for the strip to be taken, normally useless because of its small-depth and its shape for any other purpose than the public servitude. For this reason, in holding that the landowner must receive the actual market value of the front strip taken, the courts have valued it at the price per unit (square foot, front foot, acre, etc.) that a willing seller would pay for it at its highest and best use as if the strip taken were part of a marketable front area of the parent tract sold for such highest and best use. As the dissent here in the intermediate court noted, 272 So.2d 776:    A number of the above cited cases, including, originally, Landry, supra, and most recently, Stegemann, supra, stand for the proposition that once the use tract is defined, i. e., it is determined what portion of the parent tract has a highest and best use as commercial property, the average unit value of the use tract may be employed to ascertain the value of the expropriated portion. In such a situation the expropriated portion would be assigned a value which bears the same proportion to the overall value of the use tract as its size bears to the size of the entire use tract.