Court Opinion

ID: 9864680
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 14:54:56.341715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:23:42.250323
License: Public Domain

THE COURT.
The appellant has filed a petition for a rehearing.
It is again urged that physical contiguity of different parcels of land is not necessary to entitle the owner in a condemnation proceeding to severance damages and that the statement to the contrary in Oakland v. Pacific Coast Lumber & Mill Co., 171 Cal. 392, 399 [153 Pac. 705], is dictum. The appellant in that case had insisted in the trial court “that the physical separation was negligible because unity of use and not physical contiguity was the controlling factor.” The trial court held adversely to this contention. In affirming the judgment the supreme court held that unity of use was not the controlling factor and, after quoting from section 1248 of the Code of Civil Procedure, relative to severance damages, said: “This very language limits in *261terms the award of damages to the property taken and the resultant damages to contiguous property injured by severance of the property taken.” This language is not. dictum.  “ Where there are two grounds, upon either of which the judgment of the trial court can be rested, and .the appellate court sustains both, the ruling on neither is obiter; but each is the judgment of the court, and of equal validity with the other.” (Union Pac. R. Co. v. Mason City & Ft. D. R. Co., 199 U. S. 160 [50 L. Ed. 134, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 19; see, also, Rose’s U. S. Notes]; Williams v. Southern Pac. Co., 54 Cal. App. 571, 579 [202 Pac. 356].)
It is further argued that the trial court unduly restricted the cross-examination of the plaintiff’s witnesses.  It is true that wide latitude should be allowed in the cross-examination of witnesses, ■ but it is equally true that a trial court has “discretionary power over cross-examination which will be disturbed on appeal only in case of an abuse thereof. ’ ’ (27 Cal. Jur. 97.) The field of inquiry in cross-examination for the purpose of testing the credibility of a witness and the weight of his testimony is so extensive that the trial court must be given a wide discretion in order to keep such examination within reasonable bounds; otherwise the trial of cases would be overlong.  When an appellate court is called upon to decide whether such discretion has been abused, the inquiry is whether a sufficiently wide range has been allowed to test such credibility and weight rather than whether some particular question should have been allowed. (People v. McDonald, 167 Cal. 545, 547 [140 Pac. 256].) The 5,000 pages of the reporter’s transcript abundantly bear witness to the extreme liberality of the trial court in permitting a wide cross-examination of the witnesses in this ease.  When a question is asked for the ostensible purpose of testing the credibility of a witness or the weight of his testimony, the trial court has a reasonable discretion to determine whether that is in fact the purpose of the question or whether its real purpose is “to get the substance of the inquiry before the jury as an evidentiary fact.” (People v. Weber, 149 Cal. 325, 343 [86 Pac. 671, 678]; People v. Ferdinand, 194 Cal. 555, 562 [229 Pac. 341].) In this case the trial court was justified in .the belief that the defendant’s real purpose in attempting, by the cross-examination of the plaintiff’s witnesses, to show *262the present selling price of water and electric power was to get those facts before the jury as evidence upon which to base calculations as to the prospective returns to be received by the plaintiff after the completion of the project. That such belief was not without foundation as shown by the argument of counsel for defendant before the jury, during which there was exhibited computations such as the following: “Available supply for domestic use, 200,000,000 gallons daily. Sale of water for domestic use at 10^' per 1000 gallons, 200,000 times 10^, $20,000 per day. 365x20,000, $7,300,000 per year.” The rulings of the trial court in .excluding proof of the prices mentioned and similar evidence upon which to base speculative profits do not constitute an abuse of discretion under the authorities cited in the opinion.
Appellant contends that the cases cited in the opinion in support of the doctrine of relation of title “relate to rights respecting the land being condemned, intervening between the filing of suit, or lis pendens, and the payment of the award.” There is nothing in the opinion of contrary import and, since the titles finally acquired by the plaintiff to the lands in the first two suits relate back to the commencement thereof, the defendant’s contention that he had established physical union between the lands in the third suit and the Arroyo Seco lands through the medium of those in the first two suits was certainly the assertion of “rights respecting the land being condemned” in those suits. If the owner of the lands in the third suit had retained the ownership thereof and had purchased all of the defendant’s lands, with knowledge of the pendency of the first two suits, it would hardly be contended, the other circumstances being the same as stated, that he would be entitled to damages by reason of the severance of the lands in the third suit from the Arroyo Seco lands. It does not appear that the defendant’s rights are in any respect different.
Appellant says, in substance, that the plaintiff could have abandoned the first two proceedings at any time within thirty days after final judgment and at the same, time could have taken the lands in the third proceeding and that; in such event, under the doctrine of relation as stated in the opinion, the defendant would have been deprived of severance damages to which he would have been entitled. Since the land was being condemned for reservoir purposes, it was absolutely necessary for the plaintiff to acquire at *263least the greater part of the lands in each suit. To have abandoned any one of the proceedings, therefore, would have been to abandon the project, for it seems clear that the plaintiff in a condemnation suit cannot, in effect, grant himself a new trial by the simple expedient of abandoning the proceeding after final judgment and then commencing another proceeding to condemn the same property. (Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Thomas, 167 Ga. 110 [144 S. E. 739]; Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. City of Chicago, 143 Ill. 641 [32 N. E. 178]; Robertson v. Hartenbower, 120 Iowa, 410, [94 N. W. 857]; Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. City of Georgetown, 50 Wash. 580 [97 Pac. 659].)
The three proceedings, at the time of the trial, were in the same court, between the same parties, and were being prosecuted for the condemnation of three adjoining parcels of land belonging to the defendant. The court made an order consolidating them. By such consolidation the three proceedings became one proceeding and should have been determined by a single verdict, “a single set of findings and a single judgment.” (Stanton v. Superior Court, 202 Cal. 478, 484 [261 Pac. 1001, 1003].) There are in fact three verdicts, three sets of findings and three judgments, but under the authority of the Stanton ease they are to be treated as one verdict, one set of findings and one judgment.  It logically follows that the plaintiff was without power to abandon any one of the original proceedings after final judgment without abandoning all of them and that, therefore, the defendant stood in no danger of being injured by a partial abandonment.
By the statement in the opinion that “the evidence would have supported a larger verdict” it was by no means intended to imply that the defendant was entitled to a larger award. It is equally true that there is evidence which would justify a smaller award. There is nothing in the record to warrant a holding on appeal that the award is not fair and just.
The petition is denied.
A petition by appellant to have the cause heard in the Supreme Court, after judgment in the District Court of Appeal, was denied by the Supreme Court on July 25, 1929,
All the Justices present concurred.