Court Opinion

ID: 9752539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:13:56.15055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:17.302527
License: Public Domain

MADDEN, Judge
(dissenting).
I agree with what Judge Whitaker has written with regard to the awarding of an “in place” value for two sections of the railroad.
I do not agree with that part of the decision of the Court which awards compensation to the plaintiff computed at prices which could not have been lawfully asked or paid in a sale of the property at the time of the Government’s requisition.
This case does not involve any necessity on the part of the plaintiff to replace the property taken, which was the equitable basis on which this Court’s decision in the case of John J. Felin and Co., Inc., v. United States, Ct. Cl., 67 F.Supp. 1017, rested. Here the plaintiff had made applications to the Interstate Commerce Commission and to the Corporation Commission of Kansas for permission to abandon its railroad lines and operations and services. Its intention, according ' to the testimony of its vice president was “to scrap what parts we could not sell.” The Government’s requisition took the metal materials, thus destined for scrapping, for Government purposes. There is no question here of the classification of the materials except for a small number of turn-outs and crossings. As to the rest they were classified as reusable second-hand rails and track appurtenances.
If the plaintiff had, as it intended, offered them in the market for private purchase, it would have had to sell them at the legal price, i.e., the price fixed by the Office of Price Administration. The Government needed them for its proper activities, and requisitioned them, as it had the legal right to do. The Court holds that the Government, in order to satisfy its constitutional obligation to make just compensation, must pay more than its valid law would ■ have permitted any one else to pay. And the evidence on which the higher price is based is that, before the price was put under control, the higher price had prevailed, and that, in the opinion of an expert, when the price control should have been removed, the higher price would, again, prevail.
. This evidence does not seem to me to be helpful. Pecuniáry values are the product of many factors, and, particularly in wartime, some of the most important factors are the actions of the Government. Embargoes, production quotas, priorities, and subsidies have their effects. And direct price controls have more direct effects. But all these factors are actual, and lawful, and, I think, should not be disregarded by resort to a hypothetical situation in which they do not exist. Besides, I think it is inequitable and discriminatory, in circumstances such as those present in this case, to pay the person, whose property happened to be requisitioned by the Government, more than his fellow, who sold his property in the market, could lawfully charge or accept. See A. D. Walker v. United States, 64 F.Supp. 135, 105 Ct.Cl. 553.