City of San Rafael v. Wood

301 P.2d 421, 144 Cal. App. 2d 604, 1956 Cal. App. LEXIS 1770
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedSeptember 25, 1956
DocketCiv. 16742
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 301 P.2d 421 (City of San Rafael v. Wood) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of San Rafael v. Wood, 301 P.2d 421, 144 Cal. App. 2d 604, 1956 Cal. App. LEXIS 1770 (Cal. Ct. App. 1956).

Opinion

PETERS, P. J.

The city of San Rafael condemned a portion of certain properties owned by defendants. The taking of the property resulted in injury to the properties retained by defendants. The trial court awarded defendants $1,280 for the property taken, plus interest, and $16,000 severance damages, without interest. Defendants appeal, on the clerk’s transcript, from that portion of the judgment that failed to award interest on the severance damages.

On July 2, 1951, the city of San Rafael brought an action to condemn certain real property and certain water rights connected therewith belonging to defendants. The purpose of the condemnation was to erect and maintain a drainage pumping plant. The parcel of land condemned was a part of a larger parcel occupied and used by defendants for the purpose of operating a yacht harbor and a yacht sales business.

On July 5, 1951, the city secured an order for immediate possession of the property and actually went into possession under this order on November 5, 1951. On this date the city began construction on the condemned parcel of a concrete sump on which was constructed electric automatic pumps as part of a large pumping plant. By reason of the construction of the pumping plant a large quantity of silt was deposited in the yacht harbor which materially and adversely interfered with the use by defendants of their remaining properties.

The condemnation proceeding, through no fault of the defendants, did not come to trial until November 9,1954. The *606 trial resulted in a determination that $1,280 was the fair market value of the condemned parcels, and that the severance damages, together with the uses to which the condemned parcel has been and shall be put, amounted to $16,000.

On February 17, 1955, judgment was entered condemning the property and awarding to defendants, $1,280 as and for the reasonable value of the property condemned, with interest at 7 per cent from November 5, 1951, the date of the taking, and awarding to defendants, as severance damages, and because of the uses to which the property has been and shall be put, and for interference with defendants’ use of the larger parcel since November 5, 1951, the sum of $16,000, without interest. The city has deposited in court the amount called for by this judgment. Defendants have appealed from that portion of the judgment failing to award interest from November 5, 1951, on the $16,000 severance award.

The legal principles applicable to the problems involved on this appeal are well settled. Code of Civil Procedure, section 1249, fixes the time at which the value of condemned property and the damages flowing from such taking are to be fixed. So far as pertinent here, that section provides: “For the purpose of assessing compensation and damages the right thereof shall be deemed to have accrued at the date of the issuance of summons and its actual value at that date shall be the measure of compensation for all property to be actually taken, and the basis of damages to property not actually taken but injuriously affected . . . provided, that in any ease in which the issue is not tried within one year after the date of the commencement of the action, unless the delay is caused by the defendant, the compensation and damages shall be deemed to have accrued at the date of the trial. . . .”

In the instant ease, through no fault of the defendants, the trial was not had until three years and four months after the commencement of the action. As a result, the damages, under the quoted section, are computable as of “the date of the trial.” This is true even though the eondemner, as in the instant case, took possession of the condemned property prior to trial. (City of Los Angeles v. Tower, 90 Cal.App.2d 869 [204 P.2d 395].)

Under the Constitution of this state, article I, section 14, private property cannot “be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation having first been made to, or paid into court for, the owner.”

Where, as in the instant case, the eondemner secures *607 an order for immediate possession, the condemnee is entitled to compensation for the loss of use of the property from the date of possession to the date of trial, even though the value of the property, under section 1249, is fixed at the time of trial. Where the value of such use is not included in the judgment, the condemnee is entitled to interest from the date of taking in lieu of the value of such use. The leading case on this subject is Metropolitan Water Dist. v. Adams, 16 Cal.2d 676 [107 P.2d 618], where the court (p. 680), concluded; “There can be no question, we think, that just compensation for the taking of respondents’ property includes not only the actual cash value, or market value of said property, but also the actual cash value of the use of said property from the date of the taking possession thereof up to the date of judgment, if possession is taken by the eondemner prior to judgment. . . .

“There should be some means or method of procedure, if we are to comply with the constitutional requirement that just compensation be paid to the owner for the taking of his property, whereby compensation for its use prior to the judgment is paid to him. . . .
“. . . Legal interest is frequently accepted as the basis for fixing the measure of damages. . . .
“. . . The value of respondents’ property at the date of trial, whether less or more, was the measure of respondents’ damage for the taking of their property, but it did not cover respondents’ damage for being deprived of the use of said property prior to judgment. In our view of the merits of this appeal, we are of the opinion that interest was properly allowed under the facts of this case.” (See also Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. v. Hansen, 48 Cal.App.2d 314 [119 P.2d 734] ; Heimann v. City of Los Angeles, 30 Cal.2d 746 [185 P.2d 597]; Sacramento etc. Drainage Dist. v. Truslow, 125 Cal.App.2d 478 [270 P.2d 928, 271 P.2d 930].)

It should be noted that section 1249 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides, in part, for interest from the date of the order letting the eondemner into possession. That portion of the section is here inapplicable because it relates only to possession taken under section 1254 of the Code of Civil Procedure, that is, possession taken after judgment. (Metropolitan Water Dist. v. Adams, 16 Cal.2d 676, 678 [107 P.2d 618]; City of Los Angeles v. Tower, 90 Cal.App.2d 869, 872 [204 P.2d 395].)

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Bluebook (online)
301 P.2d 421, 144 Cal. App. 2d 604, 1956 Cal. App. LEXIS 1770, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-san-rafael-v-wood-calctapp-1956.