Opinion ID: 1100036
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Compensation for Property Taken

Text: Under previous Louisiana constitutions, the legislature and the courts have developed rules which accepted market value as a relevant consideration in determining just compensation, but which also required adjustments of market value to prevent effects of a project's proposal itself from distorting a calculation of the owner's true loss. Civil Code article 2633 provides that the basis of assessment shall be the true value which the land possessed before the contemplated improvement was proposed, and without deducting therefrom any amount for the benefit derived by the owner from the contemplated improvement or work. Construing the code article with the constitutional requirement of just compensation, this court held that the owner is to be paid the true value of his land, as of the moment that it is legally demanded for a proposed public improvement, without including in such value the increment which may have resulted from the fact that the improvement has been proposed, and, on the other hand, without deducting therefrom the increment which may have resulted from the fact that the improvement has been in contemplation, or from any other cause, save that the improvement has been proposed. [3] Shreveport Traction Co. v. Svara, 133 La. 900, 63 So. 396 (1913). As this court explained in the Shreveport Traction Co. case, the reason for the distinction which the law draws between the increment in the value of property resulting from an improvement which is merely in contemplation and that resulting in a case where such has actually been proposed (or actually constructed) is that: [T]he public at large, or particular individuals, may hold an enterprise, which, within the meaning of the law, is regarded as public improvement in contemplation for generations, only, in the end, to abandon the idea, whilst the property to be affected by it is, in the meanwhile, on the market, and is bought and sold at prices which vary as the prospect that the improvement will be made, or will be abandoned, becomes, in the opinions of the buyers and sellers, imminent or remote. In other words, the possibility or probability, that some improvement affecting particular property will, or will not, be made, and, if made, when, and with what effect, are commonplace factors, which, with others, determine, from time to time, the market value of such property. When, however, the period of uncertaintyof mere hope, speculation, anticipation, or contemplationis past, and the time arrives when the property is demanded for the purposes of an improvement actually proposed, the state, having the right to take it, upon first making just and adequate compensation, should not be required to pay, in addition to its true value, a further amount, merely because of the purpose for which it is to be used, inasmuch as that purpose is to promote the welfare of the entire community. Id. 63 So. at 398-99.