Court Opinion

ID: 9670510
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:21:46.127479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:51:16.966905
License: Public Domain

McCALEB, Justice
(dissenting).
I have been and still am of the opinion that the defendants in these cases have been handsomely paid for the farm lands ex-, propriat.ed herein for the use of plaintiff’s sixteen inch pipe line for transportation of high octane gasoline. Their claims for severance or residuum damages are highly speculative and this court’s rejection of them on the first rehearing was fully supported by the record and the pertinent authorities on the subject.
*221The view on this second rehearing is that a pipe line containing gasoline is dangerous and has the psychological effect of deterring prospective purchasers of the adjacent land, thus necessarily impairing the commercial value thereof. In such circumstances, it is said that justice requires a remand of the case in order to give defendants another day in court to introduce testimony to show that the market value of the land has been lessened since the taking. The case of Texas Pipe Line Co. v. National Gasoline Co. of Louisiana, Inc., 203 La. 787, 14 So.2d 636, is cited as supporting authority.
I see no applicability of the decision relied on to the facts of this case. In that matter, the land being expropriated had a marketable value for residential purposes and, in fact, had been purchased by defendant in 1928 with the specific design of constructing a residential subdivision adjacent to Bossier City. The claim for severance damages was founded on the theory that the adjacent land for a distance of 50 feet on each side of the 20 foot right-of-way taken by plaintiff was diminished in value as a result of the psychological effect it had in deterring prospective purchasers of homesites. This claim was sustained by evidence and the jury of freeholders allowed severance damages amounting to 50% of the market value of the land lying within 50 feet from the right-of-way.
In the case at bar, there is no claim that the lands are suitable for residential purposes. The only showing is that, in in addition to their natural fitness as cut over pasturage lands, they have a potential adaptability, by reason of location, for use as sites for commercial or industrial enterprises. There is no proof that persons, who may some day be interested in any of the land for such purposes, will be deterred from purchasing it because of the proximity of part of it to plaintiff’s pipe line or that they may fear, that whatever business they intend to pursue upon the land may be endangered by its nearness thereto. Nor is it claimed by defendants that the case should be remanded or that, upon the remand, any such evidence will be available.
To send the case back to the lower court under these conditions for the purpose of permitting defendants to establish the market value of each tract of land for sale or rental immediately before and after the expropriation is to invite the admission of more speculative testimony as it should be obvious that whatever evidence is elicited on the remand, touching upon whether a willing industrial purchaser would be deterred, by the nearness of the pipe line, from offering as great a sum for any of the lands as he would otherwise be willing to pay, would not be founded on fact but would necessarily emanate from opinions based on pure conjecture.
I respectfully dissent.