Court Opinion

ID: 9633563
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:52:32.551916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:44.222833
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Chief Justice
(concurring in the result).
I concur in the result, but not with any implications that might be indulged generally with respect to rulings on a few objections in this particular case. The State urged that 1) it was prejudicial error to exclude comparable sales prices; 2) allowing mention of federal funds being involved in the condemnation; 3) in allowing testimony directly or by innuendo with respect to defendants’ negotiations with an oil company, and that 4) the verdict was excessive.
As to 1) : The assignment of error urged, in my opinion, may have pointed up error if a proper foundation had been laid, but it appears that such had not been done at the time objection was sustained. No proffer of proof thereafter was made, and it is understandable that such failure might reflect hesitancy of counsel to pursue such course because of futility, which appears to have been the case here. But under the circumstances it is conceivable that counsel may have believed and concluded that he would prefer to stand on the record as made in contemplation of testing the matter. To leave the matter thus, where there is a choice as to proffer of proof and no proffer is made, would seem to this writer to require the appellate court carefully to examine any claimed error presented for the first time on appeal. I think that in this case, under the circumstances here, any claimed error so urged for the first time was not prejudicial.
As to 2) : I think that had a deliberate suggestion been made as to federal partici*253pation in the project, with nothing else, there would have been prejudicial error.1 But no one having objected to a view by the jury and not having requested that existing painted signs at the project clearly indicating federal participation, be covered or eliminated, no prejudicial error seems to have resulted here.
As to 3): The trial court refused to permit admission of a proposed lease to an oil company. Negotiations with the oil firm, however, were not stricken. Although we have held that such projected plans for expansion for a future higher and better use, are inadmissible, based not on true market value, but on conjecture,2 this writer cannot see where the trial court, who prevented admission of any leasehold, prejudicially erred in permitting testimony about negotiations therefor. Lots of people negotiate for something, but fail to consummate a deal, and in this case, where the facts indicated no executed lease, mere negotiations that would tend to indicate a possible, but undetermined value, may well have been excluded by the trial court, but as to being prejudicial under the other facts of this particular case, seems to be an insufficient reason to upset the verdict.
As to 4) : Damages: One says the property is worth $8,000. The other, $35,000. The jury, $20,000, — about half-way between. Doing so, it is no indictment of the jury system. But the pattern in condemnation proceedings in case after case in this court has shown that juries generally take appraisal extremes, add them up and cut the result in two to arrive at their verdicts. This is no more unusual than the disparity of the qualified appraisers’ figures, almost invariably where three on one side set market value at, say $10,000, and three on the other side at $40,000, with a result that appears to be a confused, but compromise verdict of $25,000. The irreconcilability of such conclusions which strangely and frequently winds up with 3 consistent appraisals on one side, and 3 consistent appraisals on the other,' — all of which results, in my opinion, in a consistent inconsistency.
It seems to me that a panel of expert appraisers might be suggested, from which a fixed number could be chosen by the judge, or by lot, that would insure divorcement of any love or affection for a particular litigant. At any rate the present pattern of wide divergence of opinions between appraisers presumably equally qualified, has produced a ridiculosity that merits correction.

. Johnson v. South Carolina State Highway Dept., 236 S.C. 424, 114 S.E.2d 591 (1960); State By and Through Road Commission v. Salt Lake City Public Bd. of Ed., 13 Utah 2d 56, 368 P.2d 468 (1962).

. State v. Tedesco, 4 Utah 2d 248, 291 P.2d 1028 (1956).