Court Opinion

ID: 9451040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:04:11.66752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:32.713205
License: Public Domain

ROGER D. FOLEY, Jr., District Judge
(concurring in the result).
The majority holds that whether a cotton allotment not taken in condemnation has value depends upon the facts of each case. The majority, here, finds that the evidence supports the jury’s verdict of $1,025,000.00 and the jury’s finding that the 550-acre cotton allotment was valueless.
While it seems clear from the evidence in this case that by growing cotton for several years upon the land in question, the value of the land was enhanced, the question of whether or not a cotton allotment considered apart from the land has value presents a difficult problem. However, for the reasons hereafter set forth, *688I see no need, to decide whether or not the cotton allotment, after severance, has value.
The majority quotes from the Government’s brief, in part, as follows:
“ ‘In order to prevent the “marketing of excessive supplies of cotton” in interstate and foreign commerce and to “maintain an orderly flow of an adequate supply of cotton in such commerce,” the cotton allotment system was established. 7 U.S.C. sec. 1341. Under it, the Secretary of Agriculture determines, upon the basis of estimated supply and demand for a particular year, whether there will be a quota of cotton for that year and, if so, what amount of acreage in the Nation will receive an allotment (sec. 1342).’ ”
Congress did not wish the taking of land by condemnation to either diminish total acreage allotted or to force the farmer out of business. To avoid these results, Congress provided the remedy set forth in Section 1378 of Title 7, United States Code.
I find no language in Section 1378 that indicates the intent of Congress that the increased value to the taken land, resulting from its proven history of cotton production, should not be a factor in determining the fair market value of the land. All that is not condemned, all that is severed, is the mere license to produce cotton in the future on the taken land. But just compensation to Appellee must be the fair market value of its land, which includes its proven history of cotton production. There is reliable evidence here that cotton farming is the highest and best use to which the land involved could be put.
There is no justification for implying Congressional intent that the value to the land of such history of production shall not be considered in a condemnation case simply because the allotment is severed at the time of taking.
The Government’s theory shocks one’s sense of justice. An unjust result can never be the right result. If the enhancement in the value of the fai’m, resulting from its cotton production, is not to be considered in arriving at its fair market value, then the jury would be required to fix the value of land different from the land taken. Appellee is entitled to receive just compensation for its land at the time of taking, not other land or the same land without its history of production.
In Iriarte v. United States, 157 F.2d 105, 1 Cir., 1946, at page 111, 167 A.L.R. 494, the Court stated, in part:
“[A]n increment added to the value of land by a governmental policy is not to be deducted from the fair market value of land condemned in order to arrive at the amount of the just compensation which must be paid therefor. * * * For instance it would obviously be impossible as a practical matter to deduct from the fair market value of agricultural land all elements of its value due to the Government’s agricultural policy.
* * *
“But before any governmental policy can be considered as affecting the market value of property, there must be evidence to indicate that the existence of that policy would be taken into consideration by the willing buyer and the willing seller whose bargain is the test of value.”
According to the evidence in this case, both a willing buyer and seller would, in negotiating for a sale of Appellee’s land, consider the land’s cotton-producing history.
In my view, no deduction of the value of the allotment apart from the land should have been considered by the jury, but I would not reverse because the jury reached the right results. The juxy properly fixed the value of the land and the judgment should be affirmed.