Court Opinion

ID: 9675099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:42:00.391715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:31.471768
License: Public Domain

' On Motion for- Rehearing,’
The appellant City of Houston has-filed a motion for rehearing consisting solely of formal “Points of Error on Reheáring” without-Submitting argument or,■ discussion in their support. - •
However, the League of Texas Municipalities, the Texas Cities Attorneys Association, and the law firm of Hofheinz, Sears, James & Burns have sought and obtained leave to file an amicus curiae brief .and argument urging that our holding with respect to “market value” is contrary to settled Texas law. The amicus curiae presentation is an able and exhaustive one.
It is claimed that our holding is contrary to.prior holdings of the Supreme Court, pf qther Courts pf Civil Appeals, and of our o.wn Court in. the. following cases. McInnis v. Brown County Water Imp. Dist. No. 1, Tex.Civ.App. Austin 1931, 41 S.W.2d 741, error refused, without qualification; McInnis v. Brown County Water Imp. District *683No. 1, Tex.Civ.App. Austin 1931, 45 S.W.2d. 1118, error refused without qualification; Ft. Worth & D. N. Ry. Co. v. Sugg, Tex.Civ.App. Amarillo 1934, 68 S.W.2d 570, no writ history; West Texas Hotel Co. v. City of El Paso, Tex.Civ.App. El Paso 1935, 83 S.W.2d 772, error dismissed; King v. Mc-guff, Tex.Civ.App. Galveston 1950, 229 S.W.2d 188, reformed to elimináte recovery of exemplary damages, and affirmed 1950, 149 Tex. 432, 234 S.W.2d 403.
West Texas Hotel Co. v. City of El Paso was a tax case and we do not consider it applicable. For reasons which appear from the face of the opinion, we also feel that King v. IVlcGuff is inapplicable; however we are convinced that our holding is not to be reconciled with the holdings in the two Mclnnis cases or with that in Fort-Worth & D. N. Ry. Co. v. Sugg, the latter being based apparently on the former cases.
The Mclnnis cases were companion súits and the second of these was décided on-the basis of the opinion in the first which is reported in 41 S.W.2d 741, 746.‘ The outright refusal of a writ of error by the Supreme' Court in these cages'amounts to1'an adoption by the Suprem'e Court of the opinión as well as the judgment'in the twó’ cases so as to give what is said in the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals the force and effect of Supreme Court law. '
In the Mclnnis cases the trial court defined the market value of the property there involved as “ ‘the price which it will bring in cash when offered for sale by one who desires to sell, but is not obliged to sell, and is bought or purchased by one who desires to purchase it, but is under no necessity of doing so.’ ” The Court of Civil Appeals observed that this definition of “market value” accords generally with accepted definitions in condemnation cases, and stated that the rule in Texas was not otherwise.
Coming to the- precise objéctions urged against the definition, to wit: the use in it of the words “in cash” the court said: “While the particular question does not appear to have been often raised, we find the expressions ‘market value,’ “fair market value,’ ‘cash market value,’ and ‘fair cash market value’ used synonymously throughout the reports. See Baucum v. Arkansas Power & Light Co., 179 Ark. 154, 15 S.W.2d 399; State v. Woodward, 208 Ala, 31, 93 So. 826, 827; from the latter of which we quote: ‘ “Cash” is the antonym of “crédit.”- - •* * * The phrase “actual cash value” is practically synonymous with “fair cash'value” '(and means) the price it (prop-' erty) will-bring in a fair market.- * * * A sale on credit would *' ■ * * ■ have a ten-, dency “to iincrease the number of -bidders and td enhance the -price.”. And-that .en--hancement would vary ad infinitum according to the minitude of the cash.-payment: and the magnitude and duration of -the- credit.’-”
While it is true that the court cites Baucum v. Arkansas Power & Light Co., 179 Ark. 154, 15 S.W.2d 399, it is also true that. the court 'actually- quotes-- from' the. Alabama case of State v. Woodward, 208, Ala. 31, 93 So. 826, apparently with 'ap-. proval. The court does.not .undertake to deal with-the objection urged to the charge in language of its own,.but.we take it the quotation .-from-the Alaba'ma case, is -to-be given greater weight than the citation of. the Arkansas case and. that-as between the divers holdings of the .two cases we' are to, assume that the Austin court intended to. follow the reasoning of the .Alabama' case, and that, a similar intention is to be imputed to the Supreme Court by its refusal-of.a writ of error. This being true, it is not to. be gainsaid that' the clear implication of the quoted language of the Alabama case, is that credit sales, or sales partly for cash and partly for credit, are- not to be taken in-, to consideration in determining market value in'-condemnation -cases. If this- analysis be correct,, and we think its is,! .then our holding.is in conflict with :a prior holding of the Supreme Court on the same question, and it is withdrawn.' Our function as an intermediate court of appeals is not to anticipate growth and change in the law so as to keep it in step with1 changing *684times and modern conditions, at least not to the extent of arriving at a result contrary to what has been previously decided oil substantially the same question by the Supreme ' Court. . That is peculiarly the prerogative and function of the court of last resort.
Much has been written on fair value, market value, fair market value, cash market value, etc. We apprehend that much of the confusion in the cases on the precise point before us stems from a failure to recognize an obvious distinction between a price in cash, that is to say a sale for cash money in an on-the-barrel-head transaction, and the value in cash of whatever consideration one may be able to realize from the sale of land based on a sale for part cash and part secured credit which is the basis of sale in the vast majority of land transactions. If one can realize, say, only $800 from a cash sale of land, but could realize $1,000 payable $500 in' cash and $500 by a well secured note from a sale of the same land, which note, for illustration, would have a market value immediately upon execution and delivery of $400, no reason occurs to us in fairness or justice why a condemnee should be limited in his money compensation to an $800 figure rather than to the $900 total money value of his land on a sale partly for cash and partly for credit. However, as we have already pointed out, if the law as apparently declared in Mclnnis v. Brown County Water Imp. Dist. No. 1, supra, -is to be altered and changed to put it in step with modern conditions where credit is the very life blood of the business world, that amendment and change will have to come about through Supreme Court action. It is beyond our right and power. We do observe in passing, however, that since 1931, the date of the Mclnnis decision, and the present there has occurred a vast change in the function and use of credit in ordinary commercial transactions so that cash no longer commands the respect it once did. We also observe in passing that the effect of the tax laws on the desirability or lack of it of cash transactions from the standpoint of a seller is vastly different today than in 1931. In 1931 it was inconceivable that one would prefer a deferred payment to a cash transaction. That in many instances is no longer true. In recent times it has not been uncommon even for automobile paper to be bought at its full face value. See our recent opinion in Mossler Acceptance Company v. Tips, 289 S.W.2d 295.
We have said we do not consider West Texas Hotel Co. v. City of El Paso, supra, applicable because it is a tax case. The point is the question decided there really turned on the construction of tax statutes which refer to “reasonable cash market value”, Art. 7211, V.A.T.S., and to “cash value, the market value of such property,” Art. 7214, V.A.T.S. The same is true of the Alabama case of State v. Woodward, supra, on the authority of which the Mclnnis cases were decided. There the court was construing an Alabama tax statute which provided for the assessment of property at “ ‘its fair and reasonable cash value.’ ” Gen.Acts 1919 Ala. § 7, pp. 282, 287. We perceive there may be a distinction between, tax cases where only uniformity and equal protection of the laws is concerned, and condemnation cases where just compensation must under the Constitution be the rule of decision. Many considerations would support a valuation, based on a cash price for determining a tax base. Such a classification of property would not be unreasonable. But that is not necessarily to say that the same considerations would justify the taking of private property for something less than the real or actual present cash value thereof. That is to say the value in cash or money of whatever consideration the condemned property would bring on the market. This may or may not explain the absence of the word “cash” in Article 3265 providing a rule of damages in eminent domain cases. It is there set out that the damages “shall be the market value of the property.” There is no reference in Article 3265 to “cash market value” such as is found in our own taxation stat*685utes under which West Texas Hotel Co. v. City of El Paso was decided, and in the Alabama statute under which State v. Woodward was ruled.
If, as we have held, the trial court erred, under the ruling-in the Brown County Water Imp. Dist. case, in refusing to include the words “in cash” in- its definition of market value, this brings us to the question of whether such refusal constitutes reversible error. It probably would under the abandoned rule of Bell v. Blackwell, Tex.Com.App., 283 S.W. 765, but under the present harmless error rule before we can reverse we must be able to say, not only that error was committed, but that the error was one which was calculated to prejudice and probably did prejudice appellant in the end result. From a review of the record, we are unable to reach such a conclusion.
All of the valuation witnesses for ap-pellees stated their opinions of “market value.” The City’s witnesses testified to their opinions of “cash market value.” In the presentation of the case to the jury and in the examination of the witnesses, no point was made by the parties of any distinction between “market value” and “cash market value” nor was any evidence adduced by any party indicating that the opinion of any expert witness on market values was based on other than a cash transaction. In fact, there is no way to determine from the record whether appellees’ witnesses did or did not take into consideration, in arriving at their estimate of market values, sales other than sales for cash. In this state of the record, we are unable to see how appellant has been prejudiced1 by the' refusal of the trial court to give its requested definition of market value since there was no evidence before the jury to indicate that appellees’ witnesses, in expressing their opinions of market value, were taking into consideration any sales other than cash sales, and if, as is stated in the Brown County Water Imp. Dist. case, the expressions “ ‘market value,’ ” “ ‘fair market value,’ ” “ ‘cash market value,’ ” and' “ ‘fair cash market value’ ” are synonymous, then it follows, in the absence of some indication to the contrary, that appellees’ witnesses must have had in mind only cash market value. If this be correct, then there was no evidence in the record of any market value other than the cash market value, and we must presume that the jury determined the case alone on the basis of the evidence before it. There is no indication or proof that the jury went outside the record to consider other and higher values than those testified to, i. e., values which might have been realized from credit as distinguished from cash transactions.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is refused.