Court Opinion

ID: 9629250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:39:33.893626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:17.169354
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree with what seems to be a major premise of the main opinion that severance damages must be awarded without regard to availability of land which would replace the land taken. A con-demnee should not be awarded damages as if the taking rendered his remaining land unfit for its established use if the means of cure, or of minimizing damages, is available by exercising reasonable prudence; and this is true even if it involves making expenditures for substitute facilities, whether within his own land or outside its boundaries.1
It is appreciated that the power of eminent domain is an awesome one, which should be exercised with restraint, and that a property owner affected thereby should be afforded just and adequate compensation. On the other hand, that power is exercised by the sovereign (the public) only when and only to the extent necessary to discharge its responsibilities to the public. It is to that same sovereign that the con-demnee looks for the public services he enjoys, including public streets and highways so that the public has access to his property (or business), and also for the protection of his person and property. As a member of the public enjoying those benefits and protections, he is also obliged to be governed by reasonable restraints and to exercise care and prudence in mitigating the damages which it is necessary for the sovereign to incur in discharging its responsibilities to him and to the public.2 The efforts required of a condemnee to lessen his damages may include a reasonable expenditure, which he may recover as a part of his damages.3
Consistent with the principles just stated, I see no good reason why this duty should be limited to expenditures on the con-demnee’s remaining land. The limitation should be what in fact constitutes reasonable and prudent action, taking into consideration all of the pertinent factors, including knowledge, opportunity, and the relative amount of expense that would be involved.4 It is also fair to state that a condemnee would not be required to make excessive expenditures in comparison to the potential injury threatened, and a lack of sufficient available funds might excuse him from making such a replacement.5
With appropriate deference to the main opinion, I am unable to agree with the frontal attack upon and the overruling of the prior Utah cases6 it refers to which deal with the subject of mitigating and limiting severance damages. It is my judgment *495that those cases were well considered and represent proper applications of the rule of mitigation of damages as applied to their particular circumstances. The rule which the majority opinion appears to espouse impresses me as unnecessarily rigid and may have the effect in some instances of awarding excessive damages by requiring the courts to treat as irreparable, injuries which could be minimized. Moreover, I cannot agree with the proposition that the main opinion’s proposed rule is the prevailing view in the country.
The authorities on which the majority opinion primarily relies are: (1) Nichols on Eminent Domain (3rd Ed.) § 14.22; and (2) cases which cite that same Nichols section as authority for their position. The cases which Nichols cites are not, in my view, inconsistent with the proposition that the question whether adjacent land could be easily bought is a factor to be considered in determining damages. Nichols first cites State Highway Dept. v. Thomas, 115 Ga. App. 372, 154 S.E.2d 812. In that case, the State condemned land under lease for use as a golf course and argued that the golf course proprietor had a duty to minimize its damages by relocating greens and fairways on other lands of his lessor. The appellate court merely affirmed a trial court’s ruling that a witness for the condemnor could not testify that “in his opinion it was possible for the lessee-condemnee to minimize damages by relocating.” The relevant quote from the case is:
the mere fact that it might have been possible to relocate the lessee-condemnee’s facilities on other portions of Mrs. Thomas’ land was wholly insufficient to prove that the condemnee Golf-land, Inc. could in fact have minimized its damages by any such course of conduct. It does not appear that the condemnor offered to prove these essentials so as to make this evidence admissible, and under these circumstances, this enumeration of error is not meritorious .
Nichols next cites State v. Herman, 405 S.W.2d 904 (Mo.1966). In that case, the State’s proffered evidence was that the landlock which resulted from the taking could have been cured by the condemnee’s acquiring sufficient land to build an access road and that the necessary land was available to the condemnee. The condemnee’s counter-evidence was that the cost of such a road would be about $27,000.00, an excessive expenditure where the State insisted the total severance damage was only $2,200.00. In affirming the trial court’s exclusion of the evidence proffered by the State for the reasons argued by the con-demnee, the appellate court further observed that no offer to sell the access road acreage was ever communicated to the con-demnee in the time period of the taking. The condemnee had no real opportunity to evaluate the access road purchase as a means of mitigation.
Finally Nichols cites a Utah case, Southern Pacific Company v. Arthur, 10 Utah 2d 306, 352 P.2d 693. In that case, the con-demnor took, for a sand and gravel source, land on Promontory Point which had been used by the condemnee as sheep range. The condemnor’s gravel pits were so steep and extensive that sheep could not safely cross them to reach any available replacement land from the remaining land. The holding was that available land located on the other side of the gravel pits, so that it could not be economically unified with the remaining lands of the condemnee, could not properly be regarded as replacement lands at all.
The doctrine of Shurtleff v. Salt Lake City,7 cited in the majority opinion, is not inconsistent with the concept that a con-demnee has a duty to act with reasonable prudence to avoid injurious consequences from the taking. He cannot constitutionally be forced to accept replacement land in lieu of money, but his recovery for severance damages can constitutionally be limited to the amount which would adequately have compensated him had he acted with reasonable prudence.
*496It is my opinion that if the instructions in this case are looked at in their entirety, as they are entitled to be, they do not misstate sound and established law as to severance damages; and I am not persuaded to join in reversing our cases which have long stood as the law in regard to mitigating damages. I would therefore affirm the judgment.

. See the Utah cases referred to in the main opinion; and Nichols on Eminent Domain, § 12.2[3],

. This same duty is imposed in tort and contract cases even though there is no public purpose justification for the conduct of the person who causes injury. 22 Am.Jur.2d 54, Damages §§ 33 et seq. Annotation at 48 A.L.R.2d 356, §3.

. Albers v. County of Los Angeles, 62 Cal.2d 250, 42 Cal.Rptr. 89, 398 P.2d 129.

. Beagley v. U. S. Gypsum Co., 120 Utah 487, 235 P.2d 783.

. 22 Am.Jur.2d 54, Damages, § 33.

. Provo River Water Users’ Assn. v. Carlson, 103 Utah 93, 133 P.2d 777 (1943); State v. Cooperative Security Corp., 122 Utah 134, 247 P.2d 269 (1952); State v. Style-Crete, Inc., 20 Utah 2d 365, 438 P.2d 537 (1968).

. 96 Utah 21, 82 P.2d 561 (1938).