Court Opinion

ID: 9653519
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:48:12.08261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:59.819238
License: Public Domain

MINTON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree that the Government should be liable for the moving expense of the appellant. Dress this question up as you will, that is all that it amounts to.
That this case may be properly classified as one of “hard law” is no justification for departing from the true objective of a condemnation suit, namely, to fix the fair market value of the property taken.
In the case before us, there was a going business, operating at a place, the warehouse. The Government took, for a time, the place, and not the business. The removal of the business was an expense that was consequential and was not an element of value of the warehouse taken.
I have never understood that the condemnor could be held liable for expense which the condemnee was put to in vacating the premises. The cases are against such an allowance. Gershon Bros. Co. v. United States, 5 Cir., 284 F. 849; City of St. Louis v. St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co., 266 Mo. 694, 182 S.W. 750, L.R.A.1916D, 713; Matter of New York, W. S. & B. Ry. Co., 35 Hun, N.Y., 633; Mayor & City Council of Baltimore v. Gamse & Bro., 132 Md. 290, 104 A. 429; Ranlet v. Concord Railroad Corp., 62 N.H. 561.
Let us suppose that the Government had in this case condemned the fee. It would have been liable to pay the fair market value of the fee taken. Would the Government have had to pay the appellant’s moving expense? The majority concedes that it would not. With this, I agree. The cases support this view. Joslin Mfg. Co. v. City of Providence, 262 U.S. 668, 675, 43 S.Ct. 684, 67 L.Ed. 1167; Potomac Electric Power Co. v. United States, 66 App.D.C. 77, 83, 85 F.2d 243, 249; Futrovsky v. United States, 62 App.D.C. 235, 236, 66 F.2d 215, 217. By what process of reasoning can it be said that the Government must pay that expense if it takes less than the fee?
The Government did not take the bins and other personal property which the appellant removed. That they might have been worth less after removal than when installed and that certain expense was incurred in their removal are no criteria of the value of the thing taken, namely, the warehouse space.
The Government is required to make the condemnee whole for the property taken, but not for the expense of getting out. The use to which property is being put, or could be put, is a proper consideration for court or jury in arriving at the market value, but such use is not the thing taken. The taking may interrupt the business conducted on the premises, but that does not add to or detract from the value of the thing used. It is the thing used, namely, the warehouse space, that was taken, and not the use of the thing, namely, the business conducted in the warehouse. We seek the value of the thing used, not the value of the use of the thing. The expense of relinquishing the use of the thing from the thing used is not compensable as an element of value of the thing taken.
The judgment should be affirmed.