108 Va. 42 | Va. | 1908
delivered the opinion of the court.
The Seaboard Air Line Railway presented its petition in the Hustings Court of the city of Richmond, in which it shows, that in order to provide for the convenient conduct of its business in the city of Richmond it desires to acquire the fee-simple interest in that certain piece or parcel of land, with improvements there
The petitioner further shows that, although it has acquired the undivided one-half interest in the land, it has been unable to agree with the parties authorized to sell on the terms of purchase for the remaining undivided one-half interest; and now seeks to acquire in these proceedings an undivided one-half fee-simple interest in the tract of land above described, with improvements, constituting a part of the real estate, subject to the lease of the Richmond Iron Works, if any it has.
The administrators of James H. Scott, and his heirs at law, were made parties to this proceeding, and five disinterested freeholders were appointed commissioners by the court, who reported as follows: That upon the evidence before them they decided to make an alternative award:
“2. If said evidence is incompetent and inadmissible, then we are of opinion and do ascertain that for the undivided one-half fee-simple interest in said land proposed to be taken in these proceedings, $25,000 would be a just compensation.
“We are advised that, under the law governing this proceeding, ‘the inquiry must be what is the property worth in the market, from its availability for valuable uses both now and in the future.’ We take it that ‘future’ means reasonable future. ‘If it has a peculiar adaptation for certain uses, this may be shown, and if such peculiar adaptation adds to its value, the owner is entitled to the benefit of it.’
“We are of opinion that the property in question is peculiarly adapted for railroad purposes; in fact, that its value for such purposes is largely in excess of its value for any other purposes.
“How, the officials of the Seaboard Air Line Railway, who are specially qualified to pass upon the value of this property for railroad purposes, have without compulsion or by way of compromise, paid within the last few months $27,500 for.one-half of the whole property. Under these circumstances, ■ and in view of the fact that our award, treating said evidence of purchase as inadmissible, is $25,000, we think that we are justified, when treating said evidence as admissible, to attach great weight to said purchase and to make our award $27,500.”
The Hustings Court, by its final order, gave judgment against the railroad for $27,500, and to that judgment a writ of error was awarded upon the petition of the Seaboard Air Line Railway. '
Before discussing the subject, it would be well to point out the precise mode in which the question is presented to us. We are not embarrassed by any consideration as to similarity of circumstances and sitnation; we are not called upon to consider varying conditions which may affect such a question, when the effort is to show market value of a parcel of land by proof of sales of other parcels of land of like character and situation. Here, the conditions are not similar but identical. The Seaboard Air Line Railway paid $27,500 for an undivided one-half interest in the fee-simple of this particular parcel of land, the other undivided one-half fee-simple interest in which it now seeks to condemn. Has or has. not its former action in buying the one-half interest at $27,500 any evidential or probative force in ascertaining what would be the fair market value of the other undivided one-half of the same property?
In Lewis on Em. Dom., sec. 443, it is said that the propriety of allowing proof of sales of similar property to that in question, made at or about the time of the taking, is almost universally approved by the authorities. He then discusses what degree of similarity must exist between the property as to which such proof is offered and the property taken, and the nearness with respect to time and distance, and concludes that with respect to these no general rules can be laid down. But here, as has been seen, we are not embarrassed by such considerations. We are dealing, not with similar, but identical conditions.
But it is said by the same author, at section 447, that “what the party condemning has paid for other property is incompetent;” and the reason given is that: “Such sales are not a
In the case before us, the evidence was not excepted to and the objection to its admission presented by a bill of exception, as is ordinarily the case. The commissioners in their report made alternative statements, one based upon the admission and the other upon the exclusion of the evidence, and it is upon that report the question arises. Such being the case, we are of opinion that the question must be considered as the commissioners,have seen fit to present it; and they state, that “the officials of the Seaboard Air Line Tailway, who are specially qualified to pass upon the value of this property for- railroad purposes have, without compulsion or by way of compromise, paid within the last few months $27,500 for one-half of the whole property.” That statement is nowhere controverted in the record and must be accepted as true.
“The market value of property,” it is said, “is the price which it will bring when it is offered for sale by one who desires, but is not obliged, to sell it, and is bought by one who is under no necessity of having it. In estimating its value all the capabilities of the property, and all the uses to which it may be applied or for which it is adapted, are to be considered, and not merely the condition it is in at the time and the use to which it is then applied by the owner. It is not a question of
ISTow, as we have seen, proof of the sale of similar property to that in question is admissible to aid in the ascertainment of the market value; but what the condemning party has paid for similar property is held to be not admissible, because the price paid has not been agreed upon by free and open estimate of its value, but has in more or less degree been influenced and constrained by compromise or compulsion. But the case presented to us is, that the particular transaction by which the railway company agreed to pay $27,500 for the undivided one-half of the property sought to be condemned was not under the influence of compulsion or by way of compromise, the conclusion being that the offer made was controlled solely by the purchaser’s opinion and estimate as to the value of the property bought.
Wigmore considers this subject at section 463 of his work on Evidence. “Eor evidential purposes,” he says, “sale-value is nothing more than the nature or quality of the article as measured by the money which others are willing to lay out in purchasing it. Their offers of money not merely indicate the value; they are the value i. e., value being merely a standard or measure in figures, those sums are that standard. * * * As the price at a sale is, by the law of damages, conceded to be an element in the test of value (except perhaps in forced sales), this question is usually presented in the form, whether a sale of other property is admissible as evidence of the value of the property in question. In answering this question, it is found that the two leading principles already expounded come into
In the case before us, the trial court did receive it, and it is plain that in this particular case it did not introduce a confusion of issues.' Therefore; it is unaffected by any argument based upon the policy which excludes evidence which tends to a confusion of issues.
In the case of Presbrey v. Old Colony & Newport Ry. Co., 103 Mass. 9, it is said: “The price paid for lands purchased for the location of a railroad, designated by lines run according to the exigencies of that location, and without reference to the convenience of the land-owner, is generally affected by a consideration of the disadvantage to the whole tract resulting from the manner in which the location is made. It.includes all incidental injuries to the remaining land. It is in effect a settlement of all damages which would otherwise be recoverable by
Commenting upon Wyman v. Lexington & West Cambridge R. Co. 13 Met. (Mass.) 316, the court said: “In that case, a witness was asked and allowed to state what was given by the respondents for land next adjoining the land of the petitioner. The situation and circumstances áre not stated, and no ground is shown against the propriety of the ruling of the sheriff admitting the testimony, except the fact that it was a purchase by the railroad corporation for the purposes of its location. The opinion of the court apparently assumes that it was merely a purchase of land with only the ordinary incidents of a purchase. The case did not turn upon that point; and the decision cannot be regarded as settling anything more upon this question than that such evidence is not necessarily incompetent, and that exceptions will not he sustained on account of a ruling admitting it, unless they show some ground upon which the court can see that the ruling was erroneous upon the facts of the case.” May v. Boston, 158 Mass. 21, 32 N. E. 902; Langdon v. Mayor, &c., of New York, 133 N. Y. 636, 31 ET. E. 98.
Without undertaking to say what the rule would he, as applied to a different state, of facts, we are of opinion that the railway company having purchased an undivided one-half interest in real estate at a specific price, under circumstances which show that the purchase was made without compulsion, and not by way of compromise, is admissible evidence for the purpose of ascertaining the market value of the remaining undivided fee-simple one-half of the same property, in a proceeding instituted by the company for its condemnation.
Without pursuing this branch of the case further, we are of opinion that the judgment of the hustings court should be affirmed.
Affirmed.