Opinion ID: 1349516
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: City of Crookston v. Erickson supports admissibility.

Text: In Crookston, this court recognized an exception to the general rule that a property owner may only be compensated for damages incurred by the state's use of the owner's condemned property: [W]here a part of an owner's land is taken for a public improvement such as [a sewage treatment plant], and the part taken constitutes an integral and inseparable part of a single use to which the land taken and other adjoining land is put, the owner is entitled to recover the full damage to his remaining property due to such public improvement even though portions of the public improvement are located on land taken from surrounding owners. 244 Minn. at 327, 69 N.W.2d at 914 (quoting Andrews v. Cox, 129 Conn. 475, 482, 29 A.2d 587, 590 (1942)) (emphasis added). In so holding, the Crookston court allowed the land owner to offer evidence of the full diminution in value of his property after a partial taking even though no part of the sewage plant developed by the city was actually located on his remaining property. Id. at 327-28, 69 N.W.2d at 911, 914. The appellant landowners argue that under the rule of Crookston, they are entitled to recover their full damages to their remaining property caused by the University Avenue project even though portions of that project were located upon lands other than those strips actually taken from these owners. They argue that because all of the components of the University Avenue projects were integral and inseparable to the entire project, Crookston precludes summary judgment in this case. At least one court has applied the same rationale as this court applied in Crookston in allowing evidence of severance damages in a street improvement project condemnation. The California Court of Appeals allowed evidence of severance damages in People By and Through Dept. of Public Works v. Volunteers of America, accepting the plaintiff's argument that the freeway must be considered as a whole    as one integral part of a single project, including the portion which was on the land of the plaintiffs. 21 Cal.App.3d 111, 115, 98 Cal.Rptr. 423, 426 (1971). The majority characterizes the appellant landowners' loss of access due to the median installation as occurring coincidentally with an unrelated partial taking. I disagree. The record supports that the installation of the median restricting the flow of traffic to appellants' property was part of an integrated attempt to ease congestion on University Avenue: the project necessarily  not coincidentally  required the widening of the street and condemnation of the appellants' property. For these reasons, I believe the appellants should be allowed to introduce evidence at trial of the effect of the loss of access on the before and after market value of their property. The majority also concludes that allowing the appellants this opportunity would produce future inequitable results in that a landowner equally affected by the loss of access, but who faces no contemporaneous loss of property, would not be entitled to compensation under our inverse condemnation precedent. I am mindful of this apparent inequity, but am guided by the words of Justice Simonett in Strom, who concluded that there is an important difference justifying the admissibility of evidence of a broader array of damages when the state physically takes property. Justice Simonett wrote: If there has been a partial taking, that is important. The significance of a partial taking is that it may establish, in a way that a non-taking cannot, the kind of close proximity between the remainder tract and the operation of the public improvement which is necessary to establish that any injury is indeed, direct, substantial and peculiar. Strom, 493 N.W.2d at 563 (Simonett, J., dissenting in part, concurring in part). I agree and would allow the appellants to offer evidence of the diminution of market value in this case. [1] When the state marshals its awesome condemnation powers to take property from its citizens, more than mere property may be lost: successful businesses may become unprofitable; previously desirable parcels of property may be rendered difficult to sell; even cherished family traditions may be lost when residential property is affected. It is only just, then, to level the playing field by allowing affected citizens to introduce [a]ny competent evidence that bears upon the market value of the property. Id. at 559 (citations omitted).