Court Opinion

ID: 9448760
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:44:32.348159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:32.904504
License: Public Domain

TUTTLE, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
With all deference I feel that the importance of the legal principles involved in light of the many land condemnation cases now pending in the Courts of this-Circuit, make it necessary to make my views known in a short dissenting opinion.
I think the trial court erred in permitting the jury to consider, in finding the market value of the twenty-eight acres-of land left to Smith, what effect, if any, the loss of access had upon the market, value of the remainder. This is true I think because the loss of access from, this twenty-eight acre tract, which included Smith’s home and store, was not caused by any condemnation proceedings-then before the Court for trial. This was due to the fact that the Government expressly excluded from its declaration, of taking the “existing easements for-public roads.”
It seems to me, with all deference, that-the majority holds here that the Government could not legally condemn Smith’s-property without including in the condemnation proceeding his right of easement in the public highways by which he had access to town. This Court has-held in United States v. Brondum, 5 Cir., 272 F.2d 642, that:
“In a condemnation proceeding courts cannot compel the United States to take and pay for an estate not described in the declaration of taking.” 272 F.2d 642, 647.
Here, of course, the United States did not-seek to deprive Smith of his right of access without compensation. It considered the right which Smith had to the use of the county roads, including that, traversing his land, as one that he held, in common with the other property owners on the road net. Rightly or wrongly, the Government thought that it could compensate Smith, together with all of' the other property owners having the' right of user in the county roads by condemning the county’s right to the road: and compensating it in the amount necessary to construct a substitute road net.. *61It proceeded on the principle announced in Jefferson County, Tenn. v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 6 Cir., 146 F.2d 564, where, on page 565, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said:
“The State or its political subdivision, holds, as a trustee, title to the easement for public highways and roads. A quasi corporation such as a city or county, holds such property by delegation of the general sovereign power, the authority for its acquisition and control being governmental and the interest exclusively that of the public.”
Thus, in a number of cases it has been held that a county or a city, as the case may be, has a Fifth Amendment right to be compensated for the taking by the United States of its public roads. See Town of Bedford v. United States, 1 Cir., 23 F.2d 453, 56 A.L.R. 360, and City of Fort Worth, Tex. v. United States, 5 Cir., 188 F.2d 217.
The Government contends here that its acquisition of Hall County’s interest in its road net destroyed by the entire condemnation of the entire lake area and its payment of $1;750,000, as fixed by the jury as necessary to enable Hall County to construct a substitute road net, fully compensated Cleveland Smith for his loss of access. I think a strong case can be made out to support this contention. However, it seems to me that we do not reach this question in this litigation. The taking of the sixty acres in his condemnation proceeding did not destroy the right of access from Smith’s twenty-eight acres remaining. The road still ran across this particular tract of land. The trouble is that it led nowhere. The fact that it led nowhere resulted from the Government’s flooding the road when it flooded the land which it here condemned. However, since it expressly excluded Smith’s easement in the road net from the condemnation proceeding, Smith’s loss of access cannot be considered in determining Smith’s damages in the condemnation proceeding.
If the Government’s theory is not correct, that is that by compensating the county for the substitute road net it has discharged its obligation to the land owners who otherwise had access by virtue of the road net, then Smith still has a course of action against the Government for the destruction of a right which the Government did not seek to take by condemnation proceeding. This right exists under the Fifth Amendment, but it can be vindicated only in the manner au-thori2;ed by Congress, and that is under the Tucker Act. Unless we are to hold contrary to what we have previously said in the Brondum case, supra, that the Government may be compelled to take all that it is actually going to need in such a procedure as this, then it seems to me that there is no justification for our holding that Smith is entitled to have his compensation for the loss of access considered by the jury in determining the value of his remaining land, since the Government expressly excluded the right of access from its condemnation proceedings. When and if Smith files a suit under the Tucker Act for the loss of access, which the Government did not seek to condemn in this present suit, the Government would then undoubtedly raise the defense that it had adequately compensated Smith and other land owners for their loss of access by the condemnation proceeding against Hall County. Then, for the first time, the Court would have to determine whether that condemnation proceeding, as a result of which the Government paid Hall County what a jury has determined was adequate payment to enable Hall County to build a substitute road net, satisfied the constitutional requirement that Smith be paid adequate compensation for every species of property taken from him.
For the reasons indicated I think the judgment should be reversed and upon submission to the jury that part of the charge permitting it to consider loss of access should be eliminated.