Court Opinion

ID: 9689155
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:22:12.396808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:45.531993
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Although I agree with the decision of the court on the issues concerning valuation of the personal property, I strongly disagree with its conclusions concerning the effect of potential costs of environmental cleanup on valuation of the real estate.
Aladdin’s stated grounds for relief on this issue in its certiorari action are predicated on matters affecting its own legal accountability for environmental cleanup costs. That is a matter foreign to and not bearing upon the valuation issues in this eminent domain proceeding that turn on the consequences of the contamination to a potential buyer. Consequently, these arguments should be rejected out of hand. Unfortunately, the opinion of the court not only does not reject these arguments, it actually gives credence to them.
What is really at issue here is the effect that the environmental contamination of Aladdin’s property would have on the decision of a willing buyer to purchase it. The cost of cleaning up the contamination is only one element that a buyer would consider in this regard, but it is a very important element. A buyer would take this circumstance into consideration irrespective of whether it believed that it could be legally compelled to pay for that cost.
The issue was presented in the present case through the testimony of expert witnesses expressing the view that the market value otherwise existing for the property would be lowered by a half million dollars as a result of the cost of cleaning up the contamination. The commission evaluated this evidence and concluded that the value of the property would be lowered by $145,000 as the result of the cost required to eliminate the contamination. That decision was well within the commission’s province. The evaluation of the unknown consequences of known facts is frequently required in determining real property valuations.
The 1856 decision in the Henry case to which the court makes reference is not persuasive authority for the position that the court now takes. Before the court in Henry made the statement that is quoted in the majority opinion, it had already determined that the railroad company was not required to fence the property under existing statutes. As an alternative argument, the railroad then contended that it could be compelled in a court of equity to pay for one-half of the fence. The court also expressed doubt as to that claim. The significant distinction between this case and Henry, however, is that in Henry the court was asked to accept the railroad’s argument on faith. In the present case, the issue was developed through the testimony of expert witnesses. On what authority may an appellate court conclude that valuation witnesses may not be allowed to *618base their opinions on facts that any knowledgeable buyer would take into account?
Generally, the measure of reasonable compensation in eminent domain proceedings is the property’s reasonable market value at the time of the taking. Heldenbrand v. Executive Council of Iowa, 218 N.W.2d 628, 632 (Iowa 1974). This means the price the property would command in the market. Comstock v. Iowa State Highway Comm’n, 254 Iowa 1301, 1309, 121 N.W.2d 205, 210 (1963). The majority attempts to escape from the result that the law compels by suggesting that in this situation market value cannot reasonably be established. Whether that is the ease is an issue of fact rather than an issue of law and is controlled by the testimony concerning the availability of market value. It is only when there is no market and no general buying and selling of the kind of property in question that resort must be had to other methods of valuation. Id. There is nothing in the present record that would suggest that this is the situation here.1
We recognized in Boekeloo v. Board of Review, 529 N.W.2d 275, 278 (Iowa 1995), that ordinarily market value for contaminated property can be established in the usual manner, i.e., through the testimony of expert witnesses. The record in that case indicated that opinion evidence concerning the valuation of contaminated property is not only proper but that there are expert witnesses specializing in giving such opinions. I am unable to conclude that there was any illegality in the maimer in which the compensation commission considered and acted upon consequences of environmental contamination. I would reverse that portion of the district court’s judgment that granted Aladdin relief from the commission’s determination of that matter.
LARSON and TERNUS, JJ., join in this partial dissent.

. If, as the majority suggests, it is impossible to establish a market value for the property, the result should be a rebanee on other valuation methods. But that is not what the opinion is advocating. It is suggesting that the property be valued based on what the market value would be if the contamination did not exist.