Court Opinion

ID: 9718064
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:16:10.720627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:57.142789
License: Public Domain

On Petition For Rehearing.
Mr. Frederickson
has filed a petition for rehearing in which he asserts that (1) this court should have awarded him attorney’s fees as costs; and (2) this court improperly used the “before and after rule” in determining just compensation.
It is his contention in support of (1) that § 32-15-32, N.D.C.C., provides for an allowance of attorney’s fees in the Supreme Court.
That section reads as follows:
32-15-32. Costs. — The court may in its discretion award to the defendant reasonable actual or statutory costs or both which may include reasonable attorney’s fees. In all cases when a new trial has been granted upon the application of the defendant and he has failed upon such trial to obtain greater compensation than was allowed him upon the first trial, the costs of such new trial shall be taxed against him.
North Dakota Century Code.
He argues that this section applies to any court in which the case is tried, and that, as this court on a trial de novo is required to try the case anew, it applies on an appeal to the Supreme Court when trial de novo is demanded.
A trial de novo in the Supreme Court is not equivalent to a trial in the court of original jurisdiction, the most apparent distinction being that a trial de novo in the Supreme Court is a trial based upon the record made in the court of original jurisdiction.
If, however, a trial de novo in the Supreme Court were to be considered, as Mr. Frederickson contends it should be, as a new trial, the last sentence of § 32-15-32 would require that we assess the costs of the trial in the Supreme Court against him, as he failed to obtain in this court a greater compensation than was allowed him in the first trial.
To apply § 32-15-32 to a trial de novo on appeal in the Supreme Court would extend that section to a proceeding not intended by the Legislature. We ac*746cordingly hold that Mr. Frederickson is not entitled to attorney’s fees as costs in conjunction with the appeal in this case.
As for (2), Mr. Frederickson alleges that this court has used and applied a rule which is not sanctioned by the prior decisions of the Court nor by statute. He states that there appears to be no sound reason why all of the prior rules of determination of damages in severance cases should be upset. His complaint is that we erred in determining just compensation by establishing the value of the property before the taking and afterward.
This is interesting in light of the argument made by Mr. Frederickson in his main brief on appeal, in which, in support of his contention that the trial court’s finding should be upheld, he said:
Mr. Odell [an appraiser testifying on behalf of Mr. Frederickson] testified that in his opinion the value of the property before the taking was $43,502.00, and the value after the taking was $27,479.00, or a difference of $16,023.00 representing the value of the land taken and all damages arising therefrom.
Mr. Frederickson, the property owner, testified that in his opinion the value of the entire property before the taking was $41,000.00, and that after the taking the value was $14,000.00, representing total damages of $27,000.00, of which $19,800.00 represented the value of the property actually taken and $7,200.00 represented the severance damage.
If Mr. Frederickson is correct in his contention that we erred, it would appear that we must now ignore completely the opinions of Messrs. Odell and Frederick-son as to the value of the property taken and the severance damages, because they arrived at their opinions through a similarly faulty approach.
However, we do not agree with Mr. Frederickson in this contention. We point out that we clearly established that the value of the land taken was $5,706, and that the severance damages were $1,410.
No objection having been made by either party to the introduction of evidence to show the value of the land before taking and its value after taking; the trial court having apparently used this evidence with other evidence in arriving at just compensation; and the parties having used the evidence on appeal in support of their contentions, we find no error in its use in this case.
We accordingly deny the petition for a rehearing and adhere to our opinion.
TEIGEN, C. J., and STRUTZ and KNUDSON, JJ., concur.
PAULSON, J., not being a member of the Court at the time of submission of this case, did not participate.