Court Opinion

ID: 9790490
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:53:53.536886+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:29.898494
License: Public Domain

ROVIRA, Justice,
dissenting:
The requirement that compensable damage to a property owner must be different in kind from injury suffered by the general public runs consistently through our prior case law on eminent domain. See, e.g., Troiano v. Colorado Dep’t. of Highways, 170 Colo. 484, 500, 463 P.2d 448, 455-56 (1969) (loss of view caused by construction on adjoining property held noncompensa-ble); Lavelle v. Town of Julesburg, 49 Colo. 290, 112 P. 774 (1911) (condemnee denied recovery for injury to his remainder for annoyance and inconvenience suffered by the general public); Gilbert v. Greeley, S.L. & P. Ry. Co., 13 Colo. 501, 22 P. 814 (1889) (nonadjoining owner denied compensation for obstruction of public street by a railroad crossing). The majority now overrules Lavelle and holds that this requirement “has no validity ... when the reduction in property value results from a taking of a portion of lan'd held by the property owner.” Majority op. at 700. It further concludes that this exception to the general damage/special damage distinction is not inconsistent with our holding in State Dep’t of Highways v. Davis, 626 P.2d 661 (1981). Majority op. at 701. I cannot agree, for I see no justification for overruling Lavelle and no way in which today’s holding can be reconciled with Davis. Moreover, I believe the result reached by the majority, and applied today in this case, Bement v. Empire Electric Ass’n, Inc., 728 P.2d 706, and Herring v. Platte River Power Authority, 728 P.2d 709, is fundamentally inequitable and will produce substantial difficulties in future cases. I therefore respectfully dissent.
Only five years ago, in Davis, we con-. eluded that resolution of the question of whether landowners could recover for impaired access to the remainder of their property requires a determination of “whether the recovery of damages for impairment or limitation of access depends on whether part of the abutting landowner’s property has been taken.” 626 P.2d at 664. Responding to this question, we stated that:
The rationale for denying compensation for limitation or loss of access manifested by circuity of route is that the inconvenience suffered by the landowner is identical in kind to that suffered by the community at large, and the landowner’s inconvenience is only greater in degree.
In our view, whether or not property is actually taken is immaterial to the issue of damages to the remainder of the property for loss or limitation of access. The same criteria must be used in both instances. Compensation is only required when the remainder is damaged by a substantial limitation or loss of access. Any other result would create serious problems of fairness to landowners similarly situated.
Id. at 664-65 (citations omitted).
Lavelle, which involved a property owner’s claim for damage to his right of ingress and egress over adjacent land and damage to his property from noise, smoke, noxious vapors and increased fire danger, also holds that the special damage require*704ment applies where a property owner claims injury to his land:
It is clear that damages for noise, smoke, vapors and increased dangers from fire were not proper to consider. This inconvenience and injury would be common to all other property owners adjoining or adjacent to the power plant. The owner of property condemned is not entitled to recover damages to the residue for annoyance and inconvenience suffered by the general public. The damage to such residue is limited to some right or interest therein enjoyed by the owner, and not shared or enjoyed by the public generally.
— The rule ... as applicable to this case is, that if several contiguous tracts in realty constitute one entire parcel used for one general purpose by the common owner, the particular and special injury which will result to the part not taken should be determined and compensation made accordingly.
49 Colo, at 300-01, 112 P. at 778 (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
The majority discards Lavelle without explanation or justification, see majority op. at 700, and it attempts to fit Davis within its rule under the qualification that “only those damages to the remainder that are attributable to the use of or activity on the land that has been taken” may be recovered. Majority op. at 701-702. However, nothing in the language of Davis supports the conclusion that the question of whether the limitation of access flowed from taken property or adjoining property played any part in the outcome of that case. To the contrary, we held that “whether or not property is actually taken is immaterial” to the determination of whether a landowner is entitled to compensation for diminished access. 626 P.2d at 665. Davis involved the taking of a portion of the property owner’s land for a frontage road. Had Davis actually represented a rule allowing recovery for loss of access, a kind of injury that is also suffered by the general public, Troiano, 170 Colo, at 500-01, 463 P.2d at 455-56, the fact that a condemnee’s land was taken would hardly have been “immaterial.” Rather, under the rule announced by the majority today, the fact of the taking would have compelled recovery unless the loss of access was not the “natural, necessary and reasonable result of the taking.” Majority op. at 703. We would then have had no choice but to address in Davis the question of whether the impairment of access resulted from the taking or from some other activity. We made no such determination.
Davis and Lavelle are both clearly incompatible with the majority’s conclusion that, when property is taken under eminent domain, a landowner “is entitled to recover all damages to the remainder that are the natural, necessary and reasonable result of the taking.” Majority op. at 703. Those injuries that a landowner shares with the public at large, including impairment of access, Davis, and impairment of view, Troiano, are simply not compensable, regardless of whether they occur to the remainder left by a taking or to land that merely adjoins condemned property. Davis; Lavelle; see also Department of Public Works and Bldgs. v. Bloomer, 28 Ill.2d 267, 191 N.E.2d 245, 249 (1963); Illinois Power & Light Corp. v. Barnett, 388 Ill. 499, 170 N.E. 717, 719 (1930).
The fact that the majority of jurisdictions have declined to apply the general damage/special damage distinction to damage to remaining land where part of a parcel is taken, majority op. at 700, does not justify a contrary result. In citing 2A P. Nichols, The Law of Eminent Domain § 6.41 (J. Sackman rev’d 3d ed. 1985) (Nichols), as illustrative of the rule in other jurisdictions, majority op. at 700 n. 3, the majority fails to acknowledge that the same section of Nichols notes that Davis amounts to a rejection of the majority rule. See 2A Nichols § 6.41 at 6-339 n. 3; see also Triangle, Inc. v. State, 632 P.2d 965, 968 (Alaska 1981) (quoting Davis, 626 P.2d at 665) (Davis relied on in concluding that awarding compensation for reduced highway access resulting from a partial taking would “create serious problems of fairness *705to landowners similarly situated.”); id. at 672 (Connor, J., dissenting in part) (noting that Davis is contrary to the majority rule). Where we have adopted a rule of law in our prior cases, we are not obliged to reject that rule simply because we discover that it is disfavored in other jurisdictions.
I reject the majority’s exception to the general damage/special damage distinction not only because I believe that we are bound by our decisions in Davis and La-velle, but also because I am convinced that this exception will result in substantial inequity. The rule announced today creates an arbitrary distinction between an owner whose land is in part taken and one whose land is not taken at all. If two individuals own adjoining similar tracts and a power line, railroad, or highway is constructed in such a way as to take a few inches off one tract and to pass just outside of the other, the owner of the first tract under today’s decision will recover full compensation for the depreciation in the value of his land caused by damage, such as impairment of view, that is experienced to a varying degree by his neighbor. Under Troiano, the owner of the second tract, which receives almost precisely the same injury, will recover nothing. See Walker v. Old Colony and Newport Ry. Co., 103 Mass. 10, 4 Am.Rep. 509, 512 (1869) (noting this discrepancy in compensation); see also 2A Nichols § 6.27[3], at 6-203. Despite these very different results, it is apparent that the landowner who has been compensated for land actually taken is in the same position as his neighbor with regard to any injury to his remaining land. One commentator, noting the discrepancy caused by this exception to the special damage requirement, remarked that:
Theoretically, if the objective of the eminent domain procedure is to spread throughout the community the costs and negative impact of public improvements ... a landowner should not be awarded consequential damages because a portion, however small, of his land was taken, where his neighbor, suffering the same loss, receives none because no portion of his land was actually taken.
Annot., 59 A.L.R.3d 488, 492-93 (1974); see also 2A Nichols § 6.27[3], at 6-203; Triangle v. State, 632 P.2d at 968.
We recognized the sound rationale for the special damage requirement over a century ago when we adopted the general damage/special damage distinction in City of Denver v. Bayer, 7 Colo. 113, 2 P. 6 (1883). In Bayer, which involved damage caused by construction of a railroad on a street in which the plaintiff arguably possessed an easement of access, we concluded that:
The railroad is a public benefit. It is generally of great advantage to the town or city to or through which it is built and operated, and for any injury or annoyance occasioned thereby which an adjoining owner shares in common with the general public, he ought not to recover; but for those damages which are peculiar to him, which affect his property and impair its value without injuring that of his neighbor, he ought, in justice, to receive compensation.
7 Colo, at 118, 2 P. at 9-10. The members of the public who benefit from a public improvement, such as the powerline at issue here, must also share the burden to the community that inevitably accompanies such improvements. The rule adopted by the majority today departs from this rationale by unfairly singling out for extra compensation those landowners who are “lucky” enough to have had land taken from them. I am unable to join in such an inequitable result, and would therefore reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.
Finally, I note that in its attempt to reconcile today’s decision with Davis, the majority has set forth a test fraught with complications that will both tax the resources of our trial courts and discourage settlement of compensation claims. By allowing compensation for all types of injury to the remainder left behind by a partial taking, but then leaving open “the precise applicability and contours of [the] qualification” that recoverable injuries must be “the natural, necessary and reasonable result of *706the taking,” majority op. at 702, 703, the majority has asked our trial courts to make a complex factual determination without giving them any guidance in how to do so. Where, for example, multiple tracts of land are taken for a public purpose, as they often are in eminent domain proceedings, the majority’s test will require a determination of whether and to what extent a landowner’s injuries are caused by activities performed on land taken from him, as opposed to activities that take place on land taken from others. Recognizing the difficulties involved in resolving such a question, one commentator has pointed out that:
As a practical and theoretical matter, it would appear to be often clearly impossible to separate the effect on a landowner’s remaining property of the use placed upon the land taken from him, as distinguished from the use placed upon the land of other adjacent owners.
Annot., 59 A.L.R.3d 488, 493 (1974) (footnote omitted). This factual uncertainty will undoubtedly discourage settlement by making it difficult for parties to estimate the total value of compensable damage. Both the uncertainty and the possibility of erroneous findings would be eliminated by adoption of either a rule holding general damage that a condemnee shares with the general public to be noncompensable or a rule holding that a condemnee may recover the entire diminution in the value of his remainder. While I favor the former rule for the reasons set forth above, even the latter rule would produce less vexatious results than the hybrid approach adopted by the majority.
I am authorized to say that Justice ERICKSON and Justice VOLLACK join in this dissent.