Court Opinion

ID: 9477589
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:26:47.745997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:57.165332
License: Public Domain

MAYER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Where, as in this case, none of the primary methods for establishing fair market value alone affords the trial court evidence sufficient to confidently find the value, the complex, unwieldy exercise of rationalizing evidence under all arguably pertinent methods may be appropriate. The court’s review shows that the Claims Court’s result, in the nature of a jury verdict, is not clearly erroneous. But, as I read the court’s opinion, nothing said affects a trial court’s authority to limit the proof it will receive on valuation to fewer than all conceivable theories. This subject is inherently subjective to a significant extent, but the degree of speculativeness increases from comparable sales to replacement cost to income capitalization. Except, perhaps, in unique situations hypothesized in Kirby Forest Indust., Inc. v. United States, 467 U.S. 1, 10 nn. 14, 15, 104 S.Ct. 2187, 2194 n.n., 14, 2196, 81 L.Ed.2d 1 (1984), if a trial court finds true, reliable comparables are available, as they apparently were not here, there is no reason for it to collect evidence under other theories, fraught as they are with estimations, predictions and downright guesses.