150 Minn. 69 | Minn. | 1921
Lead Opinion
Rasmus Oen appealed to the district court of Marshall county from the order of the county board determining the amount of benefits accruing to his land from the construction of county ditch number 33. The jury fixed the benefits to one forty at $6.25 per acre, to another at $5 per acre, and to another at $4.95 per acre. R. appeals from an order of the district court denying his motion for a new trial.
The question is whether the 'court erred in refusing to permit appellant to show on the cross-examination of a viewer in the ditch proceeding, a witness for the county, that the amount of the benefits fixed for his
Viewers are required to take an oath to perform, their duties. It is their duty to fix benefits. The assessments for actual cost of construction are based proportionately on benefits. The viewer having testified that benefits were $20 per acre, it was proper to show that when
It is every day practice to ask an expert witness, testifying upon the value of lands, as to the value of nearby tracts, or of sales of similar property, or of the value which he has put upon lands of like character, or about comparative values. The same principle is operative in the situation before us.
In a sense this is inquiring into collateral matters. The extent to which the examination may go is largely discretionary. The trial court is charged with the conduct of the trial, and, mindful of the rule that cross-examination of an expert witness on value to determine credibility and weight should be somewhat free, and of the other rule that the extent of cross-examination, especially when directed to matters in their nature collateral, is within its fair discretion, it should not permit the cross-examination unduly to prolong the trial or to continue when
Order reversed.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting).
I dissent. In my opinion the viewers’ report, under the rule adhered to by this court in the cases cited in the majority opinion, was properly excluded. As stated, a viewer when called as a witness upon a trial before a court and jury in a drainage proceeding, as other witnesses, is subject to -cross-examination. In the instant case the viewers’ report was offered for the manifest purpose of showing the amount of assessments upon several tracts of land not involved in the trial. The cross-examination was in no way restricted except as to the offer of the report. Only the assessments on demandants’ lands were under consideration. The question of benefits in such proceedings is largely a matter of opinion and must be arrived 'at by the viewers, oftentimes by compromising and arriving as nearly as possible at a correct amount, and the viewers’ report does not necessarily represent the exact opinion of any one viewer, but rather the result arrived at by the three in equalizing the assessments on all the lands benefited by the system. A jury is called to assess benefits for the particular lands of -demandants, while it is the duty of the viewers to determine and equalize the assessments on the lands benefited by the entire system.