47 Pa. Super. 261 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1911
Opinion bt
The question for determination in the court below was the amount of damage which the plaintiff sustained by reason of the change of grade of two of the borough streets at the intersection of which the plaintiff owned a lot. The extent of the injury was to be ascertained by a consideration of the value of the property before and after the improvement, and evidence was introduced on this point in support of the contentions of the respective parties. Objection was made to the admissibility of the plaintiff’s testimony because he had not qualified as an expert on the value of real estate. He was not examined in chief, however, in regard to the market value of his property before and after the alleged injury but only testified as to the amount of damage which he had sustained. It was said in Michael v. Crescent Pipe Line Co., 159 Pa. 99, that market value is a price fixed in the mind of the witness
The rule that the measure of damages in such cases is the difference in the market value of the property before and after the injury is well established. But the inquiry is not restricted to this single question, for otherwise the jury would not obtain pertinent information as to the soundness of the opinion of the witness. It would become to a great degree a matter of the number of witnesses on each side rather than a determination based on the convincing force of reasons. As estimates of the value of real estate are necessarily matters of opinion and the value of opinion depends on the knowledge and sound judgment of the witness it is important that the jury have such information as would enable them to give due weight to the opinions of the witnesses. For this reason evidence is admissible to show what uses the property was capable of and how such uses have been interfered with; that by the improvement the property has been made inaccessible or less accessible; that it is less adapted to the purposes for which it was held than formerly; for which the party is entitled to be compensated on the ground that a restoration to the original condition as near as may be is a subject of necessary expenditure which may be shown, not for the purpose of a recovery for such expenditure, but as affecting the value before and after the injury. This doctrine was applied in Dawson v. Pittsburg, 159 Pa. 317; Patton v. Philadelphia, 175 Pa. 88; Mead v. Pittsburg, 194 Pa. 392; Shaffer v. Reynoldsville Boro., 44 Pa. Superior Ct. 1; Strathern v. Braddock Boro., 11 Pa. Superior Ct. 1. The latter case was one of a change of grade, the
We do not attach importance to the matter embraced in the third assignment. The evidence did not fix a particular height of the retaining wall as necessary, and the fact that one witness testified that he thought a wall three feet above the surface of the ground would be sufficient did not prevent the plaintiff from showing the cost of a wall four feet above the ground. The latter witness included in his estimate the height of a coping so that the difference in the height of the walls referred to by the two witnesses was only six inches. And as the wall would then be a considerable distance below the level of the lot it was not error to admit the evidence on that point. Moreover, no objection was made to the testimony on this ground. The objection to the evidence proposed to be offered by the witness related to the competency of evidence to show the cost of a stone wall, but there was no intimation to the court that the evidence was objectionable because the witness testified about a wall four feet high instead of one three feet high. It is to be noticed also that the estimate of this witness was not as high as that of another who based his calculation on a wall three feet high with a six-inch coping on the top, so the defendant was not harmed by the evidence.
The objection that there was no evidence that the borough authorities did any of the grading on either of the streets is well answered in the opinion of the learned trial judge on the motion for judgment non obstante veredicto.
We do not find anything in the record which requires a reversal.
The judgment is affirmed.