254 F. 417 | 8th Cir. | 1918
This is a proceeding brought by the North American Telegraph Company as plaintiff to condemn a right of way for a telegraph pole line on the railroad right of way of the defendant, the Northern Pacific Railway Company, from White Bear to Duluth, M'inn., a distance of 138 miles, and from White Bear to Stillwater, a distance of 12 miles, under section 6246 of the General Statutes of Minnesota for 1913. The case was before this court and was carefully examined in an opinion reported in 230 Fed. 347, 144 C. C. A. 489, L. R. A. 1916E, 572. The decision of the trial court was there reversed, because it failed to receive evidence which we deemed necessary to show the true value of the property, and because the rule of damages adopted was erroneous. On the second trial the rejected evidence was received, and the rule of damages formulated
When the matter under investigation is so exceptional as the right involved in the present case, to try to fit it into the formula of “market value” leads only to confusion. In such a case all that can be done is to aid the jury by the opinions of men who are shown to have opinions which will prove, in the judgment of the trial court, a help to the jury, and to present the various features of the property to which we have already referred. The elements which witnesses may properly bring forward in such a case are those which experienced and intelligent business men would present, if they were negotiating with respect to the property in question. Boom Co. v. Patterson, 98 U. S. 403, 25 L. Ed. 206; United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Co., 229 U. S. 53, 77, 33 Sup. Ct. 667, 57 L. Ed. 1063. When the minds of jurymen have been enlightened by such evidence and opinions, their composite judgment constitutes the “fair compensation” referred to in our Constitutions. Judges cannot properly make a schedule of the elements, which may be brought before a jury by experienced men to aid them in making their assessments. The rule and the elements for its application must be adapted to the subject matter that is under investigation. That is what was done by this court in its opinion when the case was here before. The Circuit Court of Appeals of the Sixth Circuit, after a careful examination of the same subject, has recently approved the same method. Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 249 Fed. 385,-C. C. A.-.
The judgment is affirmed.