Court Opinion

ID: 9734368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:32:59.246833+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:48.228883
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, Acting P. J.
I dissent.Evidence Code section 813, subdivision (a), declares that the value of property may be shown only by the opinions of qualified experts (or the owner). Thus the proposed economic feasibility testimony of Mr. MacIver was not admissible as direct evidence of value. It was admissible in the trial court’s discretion for the limited purpose of helping the jury to weigh the opinions of the valuation witnesses. (Evid. Code, §§ 813, subd. (b), 351, 352, 723; see An Analysis of the California Evidence Code Provisions Relating to Evidence in Eminent Domain and Inverse Condemnation Proceedings (Cont. Ed. Bar 1966) p. 10.)
The majority opinion accepts the premise of the trial court’s discretionary power. Then, assuming that exclusion would have been an abuse of discretion, it orders reversal because it interprets an isolated remark of the trial judge as an indication of failure to exercise discretion. An appellate court should review propriety of the action, not the correctness of the trial judge’s theory. (3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (1954) Appeal, § 76.)
The record demonstrates that the trial judge exercised discretion in his ruling. He stated that the Maelver testimony would be inappropriate unless limited by proper admonitions and instructions. At other points he stated that the testimony would tend to confuse the jury; that it would lead, to- a “parade of witnesses”; that it would be “surplusage” to the testimony of the state’s own appraiser, who himself would testify to the property’s highest and best use. In his ruling the trial judge indicated thorough familiarity with the 1960 *251report of the California Law Revision Commission which led to the adoption of Evidence Code section 813. (3 Cal. Law Revision Com., Recommendation and Study Relating to Evidence in Eminent Domain Proceedings (I960).) There is no escape from the conclusion that the trial judge knew exactly what he was doing and excluded the proposed evidence in the conscious and knowledgeable exercise of his discretion.
The only question, then, before the appellate court is whether discretion was abused. “ 1 “In a legal sense discretion is abused whenever in the exercise of its discretion the court exceeds the bounds of reason, all of the circumstances before it being considered.” ’ ” (People v. Russel, 69 Cal. 2d 187, 194 [70 Cal.Rptr. 210, 443 P.2d 794], citing cases.)
An assessment of prospective use involves inquiry into several kinds of feasibility: economic feasibility, sometimes termed “demand”; engineering or physical feasibility; legal feasibility under future zoning regulations. Highly specialized uses to one side, economic feasibility is well within the ken of the parties’ expert appraisal witnesses. (See American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers, Condemnation Appraisal Practice (1961), pp. 31-32.) In many cases—and this appears to be one—the feasibility testimony of an economist may serve only to inflate and bedizen that of the real estate appraiser. Engineering feasibility and future zoning probabilities are frequently outside the expertise of real estate appraisers. (Ibid., pp. 33-34; People ex rel. Dept, of Public Works v. Arthofer, 245 Cal.App.2d 454, 465 [54 Cal.Rptr. 878].) An engineering witness, for example, may be the party’s only means of supporting his own or attacking the opposition’s appraisal witness. The discretionary factors characterizing each kind of feasibility evidence vary considerably.1
We have here an example of economic feasibility testimony. The prospective uses were not particularly specialized or eso*252teric, involving a question of high density urban use versus multiple residential use. Without first putting on its appraiser, the state opened its case by calling Mr. Maelver, its economist. Had the trial court wished to armor-plate its ruling, it could have directed the state to call its appraiser first, its economist second. Nevertheless, the state’s offer of proof showed that Maelver would testify to multiple residential, not high density urban uke, as the highest and best future use and that this testimony would parallel that of the state’s own appraisal witness. The trial court- did not at all exceed the bounds of reason in refusing to admit the economist as an additional and unnecessary contender in the battle for the minds of the jurors.
In this era of the law explosion no phase of judicial administration is more ripe for reform than eminent domain valuation. Trial judges, lawyers and appraisers are willy-nilly players in a supercharged psychodrama designed to lure 12 mystified citizens into a technical decision transcending their common denominator of capacity and experience. The victor’s profit is often less than the public’s cost of maintaining the court during the days and weeks of trial. We should not inject an economist as an indispensable actor in this overburdened drama. I would affirm the judgment.
Respondents’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied September 24, 1969. Burke, J., and Sullivan, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Neither of the cases cited by the majority is particularly compelling. Both antedated the rather fundamental change created by the 1965 enactment of Evidence Code section 813. People v. Ocean Shore R.R., Inc., 32 Cal.2d 406, 425-426 [196 P.2d 570, 6 A.L.R.2d 1179], holds that economic feasibility is a factor bearing on fair market value, not that it must be proved out of the mouth of one expert rather than another. In People v. Loop, 127 Cal.App.2d 786, 801-802 [274 P.2d 885], the economic feasibility witness was called by the landowner on surrebuttal in order to attack the prospective use described by the condemnor’s valuation experts. The feasibility witness thus represented the landowner’s only chance to enfeeble the opposition. Here, in contrast, the state had other strings to its bow, in the shape of one or more appraisers who could testify to the same effect as the feasibility witness.