Court Opinion

ID: 9711040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:23:17.792597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:01.804686
License: Public Domain

On Petition foe Rehearing
Arterburn, J.
The appellee, Public Service Company of Indiana, Inc., has filed a petition for rehearing and to modify the mandate of this court. Because of some contentions strongly made therein, we feel compelled to clarify further the position taken in the original opinion. Appellee insists that it (the condemnor) becomes a defendant in that portion of the condemnation action below in which a trial is held to determine the damages to be assessed for the taking of the land in question. Cases are cited which hold that the burden of proving the damages is upon the landowner in all such instances. Indianapolis, etc., Traction Co. v. Shepherd (1905) , 35 Ind. App. 601, 74 N. E. 904; Indianapolis, etc., Traction Co. v. Wiles (1910), 174 Ind. 236, 91 N. E. *695161; Halstead v. Vandalia R. Co. (1911), 48 Ind. App. 96, 95 N. E. 439; State v. Hamer (1936), 211 Ind. 570, 199 N. E. 589.
From that well established point it is argued that the responsibility is upon the surviving landowner and husband, the appellant, to substitute the personal representative of the deceased wife as a party to the action and that the appellee, Public Service Company of Indiana, Inc., had no such obligation in that respect.
In a trial of the issue of damages in a condemnation case the parties on each side under certain circumstances take on some of the characteristics of both a defendant and a plaintiff. It is true that the burden of proof as to the damages is upon the landowner, regardless of which party filed the exceptions to the appraisal. The Indiana, Bloomington and Western Railway Company v. Cook (1885), 102 Ind. 133, 26 N. E. 203.
The burden of proof does not always indicate the plaintiff in an action. We may ask, who had the right in this case to dismiss the proceedings for the determination of damages? Undoubtedly the one filing the exceptions (the Public Service Company) and the one actually maintaining the proceedings. By the filing of the exceptions to the appraisal of damages the Public Service Company of Indiana, Inc. was prosecuting and maintaining the action and keeping it alive for a determination of damages. There would have been no further proceeding without the filing of the exceptions by the appellee below. It alone could dismiss the action. It apparently felt it could reduce the damages fixed by the appraisers and obtain a personal judgment against the landowners for a return of a portion of the money paid into the clerk’s office. To us it appears that the burden of maintaining the action and substituting *696the necessary parties thereto, in event a recovery was to be obtained, was on the appellee who expected to obtain a personal judgment for a return of part of the money paid into the clerk’s office. We therefore feel that the responsibility for seeing that the proper persons are made parties to an action rests on that party. If the appellee, Public Service Company of Indiana, Inc., had seen fit to dismiss its exceptions, there would have been no trial and there would have been no necessity for the personal representative of the deceased wife to have been made a party to the action.
Appellee further contends that the mandate should be modified herein to the effect that the trial court be required to hold a preliminary or limited hearing outside the presence of the jury to determine whether or not the wife received a part of the proceeds, and if the evidence shows she received no part of the proceeds, then the judgment be permitted to stand against the appellant husband alone. Such a procedure would not eliminate the necessity of making the personal representative of the deceased wife a party to the action, since any such preliminary hearing would still involve an issue affecting the liability of the estate for any money found to have been received by the wife.
There is not involved in this case, so far as the allegations are concerned, any equitable proceeding, ancillary or otherwise, brought for the purpose of tracing or following the proceeds and recovering them under such principles. Reference in the opinion was made to such an equitable principle for the purpose of eliminating it as a basis for sustaining the judgment against the husband alone in the trial court. Neither do we need here to discuss or anticipate the *697contention that a jury should not be permitted to try such equitable issues.
If the appellee on a new trial obtains a judgment against the personal representative of the deceased wife and the husband jointly, it is well established that an execution may be satisfied out of the property of either or both. 21 Am. Jur., Executions, §385, p. 189; 33 C. J. S., Executions, §15, p. 150.
The petition for a rehearing and to modify the mandate are denied.
Achor, C. J., Jackson and Landis, JJ., concur.
Bobbitt, J., dissents.
Note.—Reported in 159 N. E. 2d 280.
Rehearing denied 161 N. E. 2d 169.