| Minn. | Nov 22, 1889
This is an appeal from an order refusing a new trial, the cause having been tried in the district court upon an appeal from the award of commissioners in proceedings to condemn land for railroad purposes. The land of the respondent consisted of a farm, of 455 acres in Mower county. Long prior to this condemnation two. lines of railroad, operated by the appellant, had been established across the farm, and the right of way therefor acquired. One of these runs-in a north and south direction, and is called the “Iowa & Minnesota Division” of the appellant’s road. The other, running east and west, is called the “Southern Minnesota Division.” These two lines crossed each other at a junction called “Ramsey,” on the respondent’s farm. The land sought to be appropriated through this proceeding consisted in part of a tract of eight and a half acres, in triangular form, at the junction of the two lines of road, being east of the Iowa & Minnesota Division, and south of the Southern Minnesota Division. The respondent has owned this land since 1871, although he never acquired the fee of the strip extending north and south across the farm, constituting the line of the Iowa & Minnesota Division. In the trial of
It does not necessarily follow, from the fact that the western part of the farm, thus divided, may have been rendéred less valuable by reason of the taking of the eight and a half acres out of that part of the farm east of the railroad, that compensation for such injury should be allowed. A land-owner may be injured by the exercise of the right of eminent domain, and still not be entitled to compensation. One in the vicinity of whose lands a railroad may be located may suffer a depreciation in the value of his lands, yet he cannot recover therefor. That does not constitute a taking or interference with his property. Nor is such a land-owner entitled to compensation for such injury, although he may have other lands which are actually taken for the public use. While the injurious consequences of such improvements, in the depreciation of the values of particular lands, may extend very far from the location of the railroad, the rule of compensation has been, and perhaps must be, upon grounds of necessity and expediency, somewhat more limited and definite. In this country it is generally confined to the particular tract of land the whole or a part of which is taken, damages being awarded only for the land taken, and for the resulting injury to the remainder of the same tract, without regard to other lands of the same owner. This is the established rule of compensation in this state; and even adjoining lands of the same owner, not properly a part of the tract taken, are not to be considered in the assessment of damages. Minn. Valley R. Co. v. Doran, 15 Minn. 179, (230;) St. Paul & Sioux City R. Co. v. Murphy, 19 Minn. 433, (500;) Peck v. Superior Short Line Ry. Co., 36 Minn. 343" court="Minn." date_filed="1887-01-26" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/peck-v-superior-short-line-railway-co-7965246?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="7965246">36 Minn. 343, (31 N. W. Rep. 217;) and see Wilcox v. St.
The case here presented did not justify treating the lands east of the railroad and those west of it as one entire body of land. The most significant and controlling fact is that these parcels are physically separated by the intervening fee. In this respect they are as really separate and distinct tracts of land as if they had been miles apart, instead of perhaps a hundred feet. Different tracts of land, being in fact and physically separate and distinct, cannot, in general at least, be reasonably regarded as constituting one entire body of land, or be treated as such, from the fact that they may be under one ownership, and be profitably and appropriately used together for the same purpose. The not unusual fact that lands so separated are conveniently and most profitably used by the owner in conjunction, so as to contribute to a common purpose or end, — as in the case of a farm, with its necessary pasturage or timber-land, situate at a distance from the rest of the land used for farming purposes, — cannot justify treating parcels which are essentially and in their very nature distinct and separate, as though they were one continuous body of land. To do so would be to either disregard altogether, or at least to make a matter of secondary importance, what has always been re
Chapter 174 of the General Laws of 1887 does not affect the case. The first section, requiring railroad companies to construct farm-crossings, is by its terms restricted to railroads to be thereafter laid out, opened, or fenced. Section 2, authorizing the land-owner through whose farm a railroad has been constructed to construct a crossing over or under the railroad, for the passage of stock, would not seem to have been intended to apply to a case where, as in this case, the owner of the lands on either side had no property right in the land occupied by the railroad. It may be doubted whether, in such a case, the provisions of the act of 1887 could be deemed applicable for constitutional reasons.
There was error in the trial in the particular to which we have referred, and the order refusing a new trial must be reversed.
Collins, J., took no part in this case.