Court Opinion

ID: 9674537
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:30:20.066089+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:28.027597
License: Public Domain

HIGGINS, Judge.
John Comer Owen and Bessie Owen had a verdict for $40,875 damages against the City of Springfield on a claim that the City’s sewage lift station constructed and operated near their home constituted a permanent nuisance. Mr. and Mrs. Owen were denied a verdict on their claim for damages for temporary nuisance against the City and Frank Coluccio Construction Company. Judgment was rendered accordingly. Defendant City appealed from that part of the judgment which awarded plaintiffs $40,875 in damages; plaintiffs appealed that part of the judgment which denied their claim for damages for temporary nuisance. The Court of Appeals, Southern District, affirmed the judgment. This Court transferred the case to review whether Mr. and Mrs. Owen were foreclosed in this proceeding by recovery in a prior condemnation proceeding affecting the same land. The judgment on the award of $40,875 to plaintiffs is reversed, and is otherwise affirmed.
On December 30, 1977, the City of Springfield filed a Petition In Condemnation in furtherance of certain sewage projects to be constructed in accordance with a plan of the Public Works Department filed with the petition.
The City sought to take approximately 1½ acres from the 109 acre farm of defendants John Comer and Bessie E. Owen to construct the James River Lift Station. The lift facility was designed to receive and pump approximately 6,000,000 gallons of raw sewage per day, utilizing two 400-horsepower, 4,200 gallons-per-minute *18pumps, and to vent the sewer fumes and gases to the atmosphere. It was to be located approximately 100 yards from the Owen residence.
The City’s petition prayed that commissioners be appointed “to ascertain and assess the damages ... the defendants as owners of the tracts of land ..., may sustain by reason of taking, condemnation and appropriation of such tracts of land and the just compensation to which defendants may be entitled in consequence of the taking, condemnation and appropriation of said tracts of land.”
Mr. Owen valued the 1V2 acre tract taken at $3,000.00. The commissioners awarded Mr. and Mrs. Owen a total of $22,651.00 for the taking and its consequential damages. The commissioners’ report was filed April 28, 1978.
On May 10, 1978, Mr. and Mrs. Owen filed their exception to the commissioners’ award thus preserving their right to jury trial on the damages sustained as a result of the City’s condemnation and use of their property.
The lift station was constructed and placed in operation in January 1981; Mr. and Mrs. Owen immediately experienced sewage odors and engine noise emanating from the lift facility.
Notwithstanding existence and pendency of the right to jury trial on their exception to the damages awarded resulting from the condemnation and construction of the sewage facility, Mr. and Mrs. Owen had, on September 10, 1980, filed a petition in inverse condemnation which, as subsequently amended, served as plaintiffs’ pleading at the trial which gave rise to this Court’s consideration of the issues between Mr. and Mrs. Owen and the City of Springfield. Plaintiffs alleged in Count VIII of their petition that the lift station “will create additional noise and vibration and noxious odors and sewage fumes.” Although plaintiffs style their claim and action for “permanent nuisance” it is in the nature of and treated here as a claim for inverse condemnation. Where the nuisance is caused by a municipality in the exercise of a governmental function and is non-tor-tious, the same is not subject to abatement and the municipality is considered to have appropriated the permanent right, which is in the nature of an easement, to invade landowners’ property. Barr v. KAMO Elec. Coop., 648 S.W.2d 616, 618-19 (Mo.App.1983); Stewart v. City of Marshfield, 431 S.W.2d 819, 822-23 (Mo.App.1968); Lewis v. City of Potosi, 317 S.W.2d 623, 629 (Mo.App.1958). The landowner may collect all his damages at once, the measure thereof being the diminution in value of his property by reason of the appropriation. Lewis, 317 S.W.2d at 629; King v. City of Rolla, 234 Mo.App. 16, 24, 130 S.W.2d 697, 701-02 (1939).
On June 10, 1982, Mr. and Mrs. Owen dismissed their exception to the commissioners’ award. Because the City had filed no exception, the Owens’ dismissal terminated the condemnation suit and fixed the Owen’s damages at $22,651.00, for and as a result of the taking of their property for the purposes expressed.
The City’s answer to the inverse condemnation suit instituted by Mr. and Mrs. Owen set up the original condemnation proceeding and damage award as a bar of res adjudicata to the issues they sought to have addressed under their petition for inverse condemnation.
There is no disagreement between Mr. and Mrs. Owen and the City that plaintiffs’ suit sought damages for permanent noise and odor “unavoidably caused in the operation of the lift station.” Plaintiffs’ theory was so submitted in their verdict-directing Instruction No. 43. The question then is whether Mr. and Mrs. Owen had the opportunity to tender such claim in the prior condemnation suit before their dismissal of exception brought it to final judgment. If so, they were precluded from the verdict in question by the final judgment in the prior suit.
In Powell, et al, v. City of Joplin, 335 Mo. 562, 73 S.W.2d 408 (1934), this Court recognized the “familiar rule” that a judgment is conclusive not only as to questions which were raised, but as to every question which could have been raised. The Court *19applied the rule to affirm the dismissal of a representative suit filed subsequent to a merits resolution of a prior representative suit. In Winthrop Sales Corporation v. Shelton, et al., 389 S.W.2d 70 (Mo.App.1965), the court held that the failure to tender an issue which is available prior to rendition of the judgment precludes its being raised thereafter in a proceeding between the same parties involving the same thing. In Smith v. City of Sedalia, 244 Mo. 107, 149 S.W. 597 (1912), this Court held that an action for injunction to abate an alleged permanent nuisance was barred by a pending suit for damages where both suits sought relief on account of the City’s discharge of sewage into a watercourse running through Smith’s land.
Damages incidental or consequent to a condemnor’s use of land for the purposes acquired are subject to consideration in the condemnation case and are subject to assessment by jury upon exceptions duly filed. See Citizens Electric Corp. v. Amberger, et al., 591 S.W.2d 736 (Mo.App.1979); KAMO Electric Cooperative, Inc. v. Baker, 365 Mo. 814, 287 S.W.2d 858 (1956); Jones v. St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern Ry. Co., 84 Mo. 151 (1884); McCormick v. Kansas City, St. Joseph and Council Bluffs R.R. Co., 57 Mo. 433 (1874); and Clark’s Administratrix v. Hannibal & St. Joseph Ry. Co., 36 Mo. 202 (1865).
In the original condemnation action the City gave notice to the Owens through its petition and construction plan that the sewage facility on their land would utilize heavy duty pumps to handle 6,000,000 gallons of raw sewage per day, venting its fumes and gases to the atmosphere. This knowledge was in addition to general knowledge that raw sewage has an offensive odor and that heavy duty pumps produce noise. These items were submitted as the “unavoidable damages” in the second cause of action; and it is not sufficient to argue that the second cause of action was for something different, “unanticipated damages.” The Owens were advised by the plan that they could expect and anticipate odor and noise; and they did in fact experience odors and noise at a time when their condemnation exception was still pending. Both items of damage were cognizable in the original condemnation action and the commissioners did award the Owens $22,651.00 for the value of the land taken and the consequential damages occasioned by the taking.
In these circumstances, plaintiffs had their day in court in the original condemnation action and are barred from a second day in court on the same issues.
With respect to plaintiffs’ appeal from denial of their claim for temporary nuisance damages, this Court adopts without further attribution the following substance of the opinion of the Court of Appeals.
This claim was based upon alleged tortious trespasses by Coluccio in the construction of a sewer line upon easements across plaintiffs’ land. The work was done by Coluccio under contract with the City.
Appellants charge error in that the court entered judgment in favor of both Coluccio and the City, although the jury’s verdicts do not name the City but only Coluccio. The verdict is on a typewritten form with blanks to be filled in by the jury. The form says:
On the Claim of plaintiffs John Comer Owen and Bessie E. Owen for temporary nuisance against defendants Frank Coluccio Construction Company and City of Springfield, Missouri, we, the undersigned jurors, find in favor of:
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In the verdict returned by the jury, the space above “(Plaintiffs John Comer Owen and Bessie E. Owen)” is left blank. There is written into the space above “(Defendants Frank Coluccio Construction Company and City of Springfield, Missouri)” only the name of “Frank Coluccio Construction Co.”
The typewritten verdict form goes ahead to say:
“We the undersigned jurors, assess the damages for plaintiffs John Comer Owen and Bessie E. Owen at $_” The blank *20for the amount of damages was left uncompleted by the jury.
Appellants claim that such verdict leaves open, undisposed of and pending their claim against the City. They also claim that the verdict is ambiguous as to both defendants, and that a new trial is required as to both defendants.
The jury’s intent by its verdict is clear when the entire record is considered. The verdict-directing instructions in the case directed a verdict for the plaintiffs against both defendants if the jury found certain hypothesized tortious conduct by Coluccio; there was no hypothesization which would allow a verdict for or against either defendant by itself. The verdict was not for plaintiffs against either defendant. The acquittal of agent Coluccio ipso facto acquitted the principal City as well. Pinger v. Guaranty Investment Co., 307 S.W.2d 53, 59 (Mo.App.1957). The verdict and judgment in this case would be a bar to a later prosecution of the same claim against the City.
The case would be different if the City’s liability were not derivative from that of Coluccio — as, for example, in the case of Smith v. Welch, 596 S.W.2d 84 (Mo.App.1980), cited by appellants, where the liability of one of three defendants was based upon his alleged independent acts. The failure of the jury to bring in a verdict disposing of the claim against him was held to require a remand of the case for a new trial as to him.
Appellants also claim the court erred in admitting certain testimony of witnesses Frank Coluccio, David Baker, O.K. Clark and David Snider on the ground that they had not been disclosed as expert witnesses in answer to an interrogatory of plaintiffs, citing Manahan v. Watson, 655 S.W.2d 807 (Mo.App.1983), and Stephens v. Kansas City Gas Company, 354 Mo. 835, 191 S.W.2d 601 (1946). Witness Coluccio was the owner, and Baker and Clark were employees of Frank Coluccio Construction Company, who had actually participated in the construction work. Their testimony was given in defense of plaintiffs’ claim that Coluccio trespassed outside the bounds of the easement, compacted the ground, did not replace the topsoil, threw beer cans on the property, and created a temporary nuisance. The plaintiffs’ evidence in chief had included the testimony of Dr. Harry James, who testified that the soil on the plaintiffs’ farm was compacted due to heavy machines; that the soil was disturbed due to the heavy machinery; and that Coluccio did not follow the specifications of the project.
The objected-to testimony of Coluccio, Baker and Clark was that pads, upon which the backhoe rested during the construction work, were used to keep the machine from sinking into the ground; that Coluccio followed the plans and specifications in the construction work; and that the use of the backhoe was necessary in the construction project.
These were not “expert witnesses” in the sense that they were engaged by a party in anticipation of litigation to testify to scientific or technical matters. They were observers and participants in the events and transactions of the case. If some of their testimony incidentally called upon their learning and experience for conclusions and opinions, and could in that sense be called “expert testimony,” that does not make them “expert witnesses” within the meaning of Rule 56.01(b)(4). See Krug v. United Disposal, Inc., 567 S.W.2d 133, 135-36 (Mo.App.1978); Missouri Public Service Company v. Allied Manufacturers, Inc., 574 S.W.2d 509, 511-12 (Mo.App.1978) (dictum). Plaintiffs were not unfairly surprised or disadvantaged by their testimony. The trial court was well within its discretion in overruling the plaintiffs’ objections to the testimony. '
David Snider, director of public works involved in the construction work, was called as a witness by the City. His objected-to testimony related to facts which had no bearing upon the issues in plaintiffs’ claim against the City and Coluccio and could in no way have prejudiced them in their claims against the City and Coluccio.
Accordingly, the judgment for damages in favor of plaintiffs against the City is reversed and the cause is remanded with direction to enter judgment for defendant *21City of Springfield; the judgment against plaintiffs on their temporary nuisance claim against the City and defendant Coluc-cio is affirmed.
BLACKMAR, DONNELLY, WELLIVER and ROBERTSON, JJ., concur.
RENDLEN, J., dissents in separate opinion filed.
BILLINGS, C.J., dissents and concurs in separate dissenting opinion of RENDLEN, J.