Opinion ID: 1174404
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Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Are consequential damages compensable ?

Text: The Napolitanos urge that the damages claimed are consequential to their remaining property rights and emanate from the failure of the Highway Department to perform according to its representations with reference to the highway elevation. They say that the business would not have been injured had promises been kept, but, because they weren't, the business has suffered and that this consequential damage came about through a taking for which they have a right to be compensated. Article 1, Section 33, of the Wyoming Constitution, provides: Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public or private use without just compensation. Plaintiffs argue that this constitutional provision is self-executing and that the legislature cannot enact statutes which deprive persons of property rights guaranteed thereby. The argument goes on to make the point that, to the extent the claim-filing statute, § 9-2-332, W.S. 1977, does this, it is unconstitutional. The court found that Plaintiffs did suffer compensable damages of the nature claimed. We hold that such damages are compensable under the guarantee of Article 1, Section 33, supra. The rule is said to be: Under the constitutional provision which requires payment of compensation when property is damaged, consequential damages may be recovered ... Under this provision property is damaged when it is made less valuable, less useful, or less desirable. (The measure of damages in such case is the difference between the fair market value before and after the inflicting of the damage.) Hence, it is immaterial whether such damage occurs by reason of the construction or the maintenance of the project, so long as it is directly attributable to such causative factor, and irrespective of whether there has been an actual physical taking of any part of such property. The depreciation in value, however, must be by reason of damage to the land itself or to property rights therein. Personal inconvenience or discomfort to the owner, or interference with the business conducted on the land, is not compensable unless such results are causative factors in the depreciation in the value of the land. ... 4A Nichols on Eminent Domain, Sec. 14.1(1), pp. 14-19, et seq. [Emphasis supplied] Support for Napolitanos' position is found in Hirt v. City of Casper, 56 Wyo. 57, 103 P.2d 394 (1940). This case concerned a challenge of a jury's award of damages in a condemnation proceeding. The issue was whether the appellants, who owned property abutting on a local street, could recover damages for interference with their right of ingress and egress as a result of the street construction. The claimant's property was not physically taken. We interpreted Article 1, Section 33, of the Wyoming Constitution as protecting plaintiff's easement to the street when we said: ... The term `damaged' used in the constitution, and the term `injuriously affected' used in the various sections of the statute, are synonymous. Rigney v. Chicago, 102 Ill. 64; Gottschalk v. Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co., 14 Neb. 550, 16 N.W. 475, 17 N.W. 120. In other words, the statutes of this state recognized the fact, prior to the adoption of the constitution, that in a proceeding of eminent domain compensation should be made not only for property actually and physically taken, but also for damages which would be sustained by reason of the exercise of the power. The constitution merely confirmed a rule which had already previously been adopted by the legislature... ... [W]e find that to interfere with an easement, such as is involved in the case at bar, is, in essence, an injury or damage, to the property owned by the abutting property owner, and that, in turn, in essence, is a taking in the broad sense of that term, which must be compensated for under our constitution, unless countervailing reasons to the contrary exist... . 103 P.2d, at 398-399. We upheld a verdict for consequential damages in State Highway Commission v. Peters, Wyo., 416 P.2d 390. The reason such damages were denied in Sheridan Drive-In Theatre, Inc. v. State, Wyo., 384 P.2d 597, was because there was no proof that the highway relocation damaged the remaining property of the plaintiff. We did not, in that case, reject the concept. In sum, we agree with the Plaintiffs that such consequential damages to the remaining property as are complained of here are compensable under the protection afforded by Article 1, Section 33, of the Wyoming State Constitution.