Department of Public Works & Bldgs. v. Diel

232 N.E.2d 133, 89 Ill. App. 2d 130, 1967 Ill. App. LEXIS 1379
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 20, 1967
DocketGen. 67-62
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 232 N.E.2d 133 (Department of Public Works & Bldgs. v. Diel) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Department of Public Works & Bldgs. v. Diel, 232 N.E.2d 133, 89 Ill. App. 2d 130, 1967 Ill. App. LEXIS 1379 (Ill. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

GOLDENHERSH, J.

Petitioner, The Department of Public Works and Buildings, appeals from the judgment of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County entered upon a jury verdict in an action to condemn land for use in the construction of Interstate Route 57, north of Mt. Vernon.

The judgment awards petitioner fee simple title to a strip of land approximately 360 feet wide, 1,850 feet long, and containing 15.3 acres, except “all right, title or interest in and to the coal, oil, gas or other minerals underlying said tract, provided that such exception shall not be construed to grant, reserve or leave to the owners of said coal, oil, gas and other minerals the right of ingress and egress to the surface of said tract for the purpose of drilling for, mining, exploring for, producing or removing said coal, oil, gas and other minerals, or the right to otherwise break or disturb the surface of said tract”; .... As just compensation, the jury assessed the sum of $7,787.80.

The land condemned is part of a 55-acre tract owned by defendant, Daisy Diel, and leased for limestone quarry purposes to the defendants, Randall. After the taking, the remainder consists of two parcels, one containing 14.3 acres lying to the west, and the other 25.4 acres, lying to the east of the strip.

Access to Interstate Route 57 will be limited, and the only route between the two parcels remaining will be over a frontage road to an elevated township road which will cross Route 57 one-quarter mile north of the north boundary of the Diel tract.

In addition to the land taken in fee simple, petitioner sought, and the judgment grants, an easement over and upon 5.5 acres of the land on the east side, and 7.4 acres of the land on the west side of the strip, “for the right, privilege and easement to enter upon said tract for the purpose of performing roadway excavation and embankment construction, grading existing waste piles of overburden from quarry operations to provide a better profile for right of way fence, and for the purpose of straightening an existing stream channel, such easement rights to terminate upon completion of construction project on Federal Aid Interstate Route 57 across Tracts 136B and 136B-CE, or three years from July 1, 1966, whichever shall be sooner”; . . . .

As just compensation for the easement, the jury assessed the sum of $2,954.10.

A cross petition alleging damages to the land not taken was filed by the defendant, Diel; defendants Randall filed a separate cross petition, and upon demand of petitioner, filed a bill of particulars. The jury assessed damages to land not taken in the sum of $20,582.24.

The record shows that shortly after the action was filed, petitioner moved for, and the court ordered, immediate vesting of title. Prior to trial the parties stipulated that from the moneys awarded defendants, defendant, Diel, would receive an agreed sum and defendant, Diel, did not participate in the trial. Any reference hereafter to defendants, is to the defendants, Randall.

Petitioner contends that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence certain exhibits offered by defendants. Included in these exhibits, are drawings prepared by an engineer witness as overlays for an aerial photograph of the Diel tract and several adjacent parcels. They demonstrate the boundaries of the land owned by defendant, Diel, the proposed right of way, the construction easements, the location of defendants’ scale and crusher, the boundaries of lands lying adjacent to the Diel tract and on which defendants hold mineral leases, the locations at which the witness made soil borings, and the cores procured in the borings.

The other exhibits complained of are mineral leases running to the defendants, as lessees, for the parcels contiguous to the Diel land.

It is defendants’ theory that these exhibits are relevant and admissible to show that the Diel tract is part of an operating unit comprised of all of the lands under lease to defendants, and its fair cash market value is to be determined in its capacity of a part of the larger unit, and not as a single isolated parcel, as contendéd by petitioner.

It appears from the testimony of defendant, Harvey W. Randall, that the Diel tract is a part of a mining operation comprised of all of the leased tracts, that the condemnation will eliminate his haul roads to the face of his present operations on the Diel tract and to proposed operations on the adjacent parcels, that as a result he will be required to move the rock from the site of the quarries to his crusher and scale over the county and frontage roads above described, a distance of approximately one and one-fourth miles, rather than as at present, a distance of one-fourth mile.

In City of Chicago v. Cruse, 337 Ill 537, 169 NE 322, at page 539, the Supreme Court said: “Where a parcel of land used as a part of an entire property is sought to be taken for public use, and the land sought to be taken is of greater value, considered as a part of the entire property, than if taken as a distinct and separate piece entirely disconnected from the residue, the just compensation for the part so taken is its fair cash or market value when considered in its relation to and as a part of the entire property and not simply what may appear to be its value as a separate and distinct piece.”

The fact that defendants were lessees and not owners of the parcel does not preclude the application of the above stated rule. In Chicago & Evanston R. R. Co. v. Dresel, 110 Ill 89, the condemnor sought to take a portion of 4 lots leased by defendant, and used in the operation of his business along with 10 lots to which he held title in fee simple. In rejecting the petitioner’s contention that the jury were improperly instructed the Supreme Court said, at page 91: “It is also claimed by appellant that the court erred in giving instructions one and two, on behalf of appellee. The complaint is, that the jury were, in substance, directed that if by virtue of the lease of certain lots, and Dresel’s ownership of certain other lots in block 10, he is entitled to the exclusive use and en joyment of these lots and improvements thereon, as one entire tract or parcel, until the expiration of the lease, and if said tract, in its present condition, has a special capacity, as an entirety, for the purposes of flower-gardening, and as an entirety is devoted to such purpose, and if the value of such tract, for the residue of the leasehold term will be depreciated and lessened by the taking of the portion of said land proposed to be taken, then Dresel is entitled to recover a sum equal to such depreciation of value. We perceive no valid objection to the instruction. As before observed, appellee occupied the fourteen lots as one tract of land, as an entirety. He owned a portion of the lots, and held the others under a lease. Appellant proposed to take a portion of the lots held by the lease. If by so doing the market value of the whole tract was lessened during the two years which appellee had the right to hold and use the same, to that extent he was damaged, and while no part of the lots he owned in fee was taken, still, by the taking, as his property held in fee and by lease was damaged, he, in justice, ought to be entitled to recover so far as the market value of his property was depreciated.”

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Bluebook (online)
232 N.E.2d 133, 89 Ill. App. 2d 130, 1967 Ill. App. LEXIS 1379, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/department-of-public-works-bldgs-v-diel-illappct-1967.