167 A. 96 | Conn. | 1933
This is an appeal from an appraisal of damages made by the highway commissioner for the taking for highway purposes of certain land with the buildings thereon owned by the plaintiff, under the provisions of § 269a of the General Statutes, Cum. Sup. 1931, and §§ 1528 to 1531 of the Revision of 1930. The state referee, to whom the matter was referred, in his report, after reciting the preliminary steps taken in the proceeding and stating that he had viewed the premises, simply found that the plaintiff had sustained damages to a certain amount. The plaintiff *140 filed a motion to recommit for certain additional findings by the referee. These requested additions fall into three classes: First, findings as to the amount which the plaintiff paid for the property when he purchased it in 1927, the amount he had spent to repair the buildings, the rental income, the cost of reproduction and the uses to which the property could be put; second, summary statements of the evidence of various witnesses as to the value of the premises; and third, certain claims of law the plaintiff alleged he had made to the referee. The plaintiff also filed a remonstrance based upon the neglect of the referee to state the same matters in his report. The trial court denied the motion and sustained a demurrer to the remonstrance, and from a judgment entered on the report the plaintiff has appealed.
The granting or denial of the motion to recommit was within the discretion of the trial court reviewable only for abuse. Fox v. South Norwalk,
The first claim of law stated in the motion is clearly unsound. It was to the effect that the fair market value of the land could not be determined by the value in a time of "temporary economic depression . . . and stringency of the money market," but must be taken as of a time "preceding the depression." As the motion lays no basis for any consideration of a temporary financial depression other than the general conditions through which we are passing, we must assume that the claim of the plaintiff referred to these conditions. Aside from the impracticability of applying the rule of valuation suggested, it would be manifestly unsound. The purpose of an appraisal of damages in condemnation is to give to the landowner an equivalent in value for the land taken measured in money. In a time of general depression the money so received will purchase much more than in normal times; if, for instance, the plaintiff desired to purchase other land in place of that taken he could buy a much more desirable property for the same money in a time of general depression than he could when values were at a higher level. The fair market value at the time of the taking is the true rule of valuation; Tide Water Canal Co. v. Archer, 9 G.
J. (Md.) 479, 527; Alexian Brothers v. Oshkosh, 95 *142
We cannot say that the trial court was in error in denying the motion to recommit. The same considerations, to go no farther, justify the sustaining of the demurrer to the remonstrance.
The plaintiff filed an application to rectify the appeal by ordering all the exhibits in the case transmitted to this court. In order to make the exhibits offered before the referee available before the court, the plaintiff should have annexed them to his remonstrance in connection with the excerpts of evidence attached. There is no basis upon the record before us for their use upon the appeal and the application is denied.
There is no error.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.