Defendant, Iowa State Highway Commission, condemned, for highway purposes, a strip of land 8.84 acres in area across plaintiffs’ two-hundred-acre dairy farm in Dubuque County. Plaintiffs-landowners appealed to district court from *255 the appraisement of damages, returned by the condemnation commissioners. Trial resulted in an allowance of damages in the amount of $19,103 and judgment against defendant for costs. Defendant has appealed.
I. Appellant complains the award was excessive and, in the light of the record, was indicative of passion and prejudice on the part of the jury.
This was a well-improved and equipped two-hundred-acre dairy farm. The buildings and farmyard occupy eleven acres on the north part of the farm. The buildings consist of (1) the main bam for dairy stock, called the loafing barn, 80 feet in diameter, (2) a bam used as a farrowing house for hogs, 45 feet in diameter, (3) a grain elevator and corncrib, with electric elevator, (4) machine shed No. 1, (5) machine shed-No-. 2, 20 x 60, with basement hog house, (6) two small chicken houses, (7) three-car garage, (8) modem nine-room farmhouse. The milk house and milking parlor, attached to the main bam, is a very modern installation which can milk four cows simultaneously and 55 cows in one hour, with refrigerated milk tanks and equipment. The total cost of this installation ivas more than $10,000.
The farm is gently rolling. There was evidence it was considered one of the finest farms in Dubuque County. Appellees operated it on a five-year crop rotation basis consisting of (1) grass for hay, (2) alfalfa for pasture, (3) and (4) corn, and (5) oats. They had 101 dairy cattle on the farm, of which 53 were being milked at the time of the condemnation. Their yields of com and oats were high and they raised about 250 hogs per year.
The condemned light of way varies from 286 feet to - 326 feet in width, is one-fourth mile in length and has an area of 8.84 acres. The- right of way runs through the rolling land and part of the highway is in a cut. It splits the south 41 acres off the farm. This part of the farm is left without access- to the bams, water tanks, etc., all of which are situated on the north 150 acres, except by travel across the surface of the highway which is not practicable for dairy cattle and other livestock. The condemnation proceedings included also the right of the *256 Commission to- limit access to the highway right of way to a frontage road along the property.
There were expert valuation witnesses for each side. Appellees’ witnesses, respectively, estimated the value- of the farm before the taking at $70,000, $80,000 and $78,000-, Appellant’s witnesses fixed such valuation at $72,400, $60,000, $76,000, $65,000 and $76,000. The value after the taking was estimated by appellees’ witnesses at $47,750, $59,210 and $57,300 and by appellant’s witnesses at $60,800, $47,000, $66,500, $53,000 and $65,200.
The trial jury by answers to interrogatories, propounded at the request of appellant, fixed the value before the taking at $77,000 and after the taking at $57,897. Interrogatories of this kind are disapproved because they require the jurors to- agree, not only in their conclusions, but also in the method by which they arrive at those conclusions. Danker v. Iowa Power & Light Co.,
The amount of the damages fixed by the jury, $19,103, was well supported by evidence and does not seem unreasonable. The trial court which saw and heard the witnesses concluded the verdict should not be disturbed. We find no- merit in the contention it was so excessive as to indicate passion and prejudice or entitle appellant to a new trial. Korf v. Fleming,
II. Appellee Fay C. Hostert testified the virtual inaccessibility of the south part of the farm would require the relocation of fences in the- north part, to divide that part of the cultivated land into five fields of the same size, if the five-year crop and field rotation system is continued. (There was no attempt to show the- cost of such fences.) Appellant complains that, over its objections, the witness was then permitted to state where, in his opinion, such partition fences would be located. It is argued by appellant that one prospective purchaser might be interested in the farm as a corn and hog- farm or for raising crops and feeding cattle, that another might be a dairy farmer who would not operate in the same manner as appellees, and
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that the arrangement of partition fences would not be important to such prospective purchasers. However, this would not make it improper for the owners to show the desirable and undesirable features of the farm, before and after the taking, in the use to which it was actually put — as a dairy farm operated under a five-year crop rotation plan. It would seem that real estate specially equipped for and successfully used for that purpose probably would have an equal or greater market value as a dairy farm than as a stock or grain farm. As stated in Ranck v. Cedar Rapids,
“* * * Generally speaking, the true rule seems to be to permit the proof of all the varied elements of value; that is, all the facts which the owner would properly and naturally press upon the attention of a buyer to whom he is negotiating a sale and all other facts which would naturally influence a person of ordinary prudence desiring to purchase. [Citations]
“In this estimation the owner is entitled to have the jury informed of all the capabilities of the property, as to the business or use, if any, to which it has been devoted, * *
Randell v. Iowa State Highway Commission,
Among other decisions in accord with the foregoing are Wilson v. Fleming,
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III. Appellant assigns error to the overruling of its objections to questions asked one of its expert valuation witnesses on cross-examination relative to the amounts paid him for his previous services in connection with the case and his anticipated charges for testifying. This court has held great latitude is allowed in the cross-examination of expert witnesses and a broad discretion is lodged in the trial court in such matters. Madsen v. Obermann,
Buttman v. Christy,
We hold the overruling of appellant’s objections in the case at bar was not an abuse of the discretion lodged in the trial court.
IV. Appellant complains of alleged improper and inflammatory remarks made by counsel for appellees in argument to the jury. Appellees contend the statements were within the fair scope of the record and were not improper. It appears the court was present during the argument and that no objections to any of such statements were made by appellant then or at any time during the trial. The first complaint of them was made in appellant’s motion for new trial. See Connelly v. Nolte,
However, we have considered the statements and have concluded the trial court did not err in overruling that ground of the motion -for new trial.
We find no error which would entitle appellant to a reversal of the judgment. — Affirmed.