Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis Railway Co. v. Aldrich

24 N.E. 763, 134 Ill. 9, 1890 Ill. LEXIS 934
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedJune 13, 1890
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 24 N.E. 763 (Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis Railway Co. v. Aldrich) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis Railway Co. v. Aldrich, 24 N.E. 763, 134 Ill. 9, 1890 Ill. LEXIS 934 (Ill. 1890).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Bailey

delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was a petition under the Eminent Domain Law, brought by the Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis Railway Company against James Aldrich and two others, to condemn a right of way, one hundred feet in width, over lands belonging to the defendants. The petition was presented to the judge of the County Court of Madison county and the proceedings thereon were had in vacation. Defendant Aldrich filed a cross-petition claiming and praying for an assessment of damages to that portion of his land not taken for said right of way. By consent of the parties, the trial was had as to the several tracts of land of the three defendants at the same time and before the same jury, and the jury having been empannelled and sworn, and having heard the evidence adduced by the respective parties, and having made personal examination of the premises in charge of the sheriff, rendered separate verdicts as to each tract of land. By their verdict in the case of defendant Aldrich the jury assessed as compensation for the land taken for right of way the sum of $116, and as damages to the contiguous land not taken the sum of $650, making $766 in all, and the court, after denying the petitioner’s motion for a new trial, rendered judgment in accordance with the verdict. The petitioner now appeals to this court.

The first error assigned calls in question the decision of the court sustaining the defendant’s challenge of James Stubhs and John Keinlen, two jurors who had been accepted by the petitioner.

It appears that said Stubbs, being called as a juror, and having testified on his examination that he resided at Edwardsville, was a freeholder, knew the defendant, and had no opinion about the merits of the case, he was accepted by the ■petitioner as a juror. The defendant’s counsel then asked him if he had served on a jury in a court of record within one year, and he replied that he had served on one jury in an insane case in the County Court within a year, but on no other jury, and thereupon the defendant challenged said juror for cause, and said challenge was sustained by the court.

Said Keinlen also having answered that he was a freeholder and resided at Edwardsville; that he knew the defendant but had no opinion about the merits of the case, was accepted by the petitioner. Said juror being then asked whether he had served as a juror in a court of record within a year, answered that he had served on a jury iii the Circuit Court one week as a picked up juror, and he was also challenged by the de-. fendant for cause, and. said challenge was in like manner sustained.

Although the mode of selecting the panel of jurors for service in condemnation cases, where such cases are fixed for hearing in vacation, is essentially different from that by which jurors are selected for service in the Circuit Court, the seventh section of the Eminent Domain Act gives to all parties in interest “the same right of challenge of jurors as in other civil cases in the Circuit Courts.” This provision would seem to render the same grounds of challenge which the law gives in ordinary civil cases available in the trial of condemnation suits; and by the fourteenth section of the statute in relation to jurors, it is made a sufficient cause of challenge that the juror called, if not a member of the regular panel, has served as a juror in the trial of a cause in any court of record in the county within one year previous to being offered as a juror.

In this case it does not appear from the bill of exceptions whether the jurors to whom the challenge was sustained were members of the regular panel or not. On that point the record is silent. It will therefore be presumed, in support of the judgment of the court below, that they were not members of the regular panel, but were jurors to whom the particular cause of challenge shown would apply.

Furthermore, the bill of exceptions does not purport to contain all the.evidence heard by the court in relation to the qualifications of said jurors, and the challenge for cause being general, and not specifically limited to the particular ground disclosed by the bill of exceptions, we can not say that other grounds of challenge may not have been shown sufficient to warrant the rejection of said jurors. Every reasonable intendment not negatived by the record, which goes to support the judgment, must prevail, and as the contrary is not shown, we must presume that all facts necessary to justify the court in sustaining the challenges were proved.

Complaint is made of the third instruction given to the jury at the instance of defendant Aldrich. That instruction held, that the jury,-in estimating the damages to that part of said defendant’s farm not taken hy the petitioner for right of way, should consider as elements of damage, among various other things, “the danger, if any, by fire from passing engines or otherwise, and liability, if any, of having the stock running on said farm killed or injured by trains, together with any other damage naturally resulting from the construction of said railroad.” It is urged that the elements of damage here specifically named are too remote and speculative, and should not therefore have been submitted to the jury.

So far at least as these objections are concerned, the instruction is fully justified by repeated decisions of this court. Thus, in C., B. & N. R. R. Co. v. Bowman, 122 Ill. 595, we held that the jury, in estimating the damages to the land not taken would be justified in considering “such incidental injury as would result from the perpetual use of the track for moving trains, or from danger of killing stock, or injury to pasturing stock, or escape of fire, and generally for such damages as are reasonably probable to ensue from the construction and operation of the proposed road. ” In St. L. & S. E. Ry. Co. v. Teters, 68 Ill. 144, we said: “The design of the law is, to fully compensate a party for all injury he may sustain by reason of the appropriation of his land for the use of the road, and which shall grow out of or be occasioned by its location and use at that place. This being true, it follows that it is proper for the jury to consider whether his stock would be liable to be killed and his farm injured, or his fences and buildings destroyed by fire, and the amount of damage he would thus sustain. If there was a liability to such injury, its tendency would be to depreciate the value of the farm in its use, as well as in the market; and if so, such would be proximate damage, as much as the danger and inconvenience of crossing the road from one part of the farm to another.” See also, R., R. I. & St. L. R. R. Co. v. McKinley, 64 Ill. 338; McReynolds v. B. & O. R. Ry. Co. 106 id. 152; C. & I. R. R. Co. v. Hopkins, 90 id. 316; Lewis on Eminent Domain, sec. 497, and authorities cited in notes.

Objection is also made to the defendant’s fifth instruction which told the jury that, in estimating the damages to the defendant’s land not taken, they should consider the railroad as running only through his farm, and should not consider any general benefits which the road might occasion by making a better market, or by affording conveniences for travel; that it would not be proper for the jury to take into consideration such benefits as the defendant might enjoy in common with the owners of other lands through which the road might run, but only such as would result to the defendant over and above such common benefits.

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24 N.E. 763, 134 Ill. 9, 1890 Ill. LEXIS 934, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chicago-peoria-st-louis-railway-co-v-aldrich-ill-1890.