In re Chittenden Solid Waste District

182 Vt. 38, 2007 Vt. 28
CourtSupreme Court of Vermont
DecidedApril 20, 2007
DocketNo. 05-217
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 182 Vt. 38 (In re Chittenden Solid Waste District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Vermont primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Chittenden Solid Waste District, 182 Vt. 38, 2007 Vt. 28 (Vt. 2007).

Opinion

Dooley, J.

¶ 1. Hinesburg Sand & Gravel Company, Inc. (HS&G) appeals from an amended judgment of $4 million in damages for the condemnation of its sand pit by Chittenden Solid Waste District (the District) to create a solid waste landfill. [40]*40Following a jury verdict, the Chittenden Superior Court granted the District’s motion for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to V.R.C.P. 50(b). The court ruled that HS&G suffered no compensable business loss, and it set aside that part of the verdict that awarded HS&G an additional $4.8 million for business loss. HS&G argues that the court erred in granting the motion and that the court should have awarded it interest to make the valuation current. We hold that the superior court properly determined that HS&G was not entitled to compensation for business loss or to prejudgment interest. We affirm.

¶ 2. Condemnation proceedings began in 1992 when the District filed a petition pursuant to 24 V.S.A. § 2299a to condemn a sand pit located in Williston, Vermont that is owned and operated by HS&G. As its name suggests, HS&G’s manufacturing and processing plant, as well as its main gravel pit, are located in Hinesburg, some miles from the sand pit.

¶ 3. The District intends to create a regional solid waste landfill at the sand pit site. The landfill condemnation statute, 24 V.S.A. §§ 2299a-2299k, sets forth two separate steps for the District to condemn property for a landfill. First, the District must show, and the superior court must find, that the condemnation is necessary. Id. § 2299e. Second, unless the District and any person “with an interest in the property” can agree on damages, the court must assess the damages caused by the taking. Id. § 2299f.

¶ 4. In this case, HS&G contested both the necessity for the taking and, after necessity was determined, the compensation offered by the District. In the necessity phase, the superior court found that the District had satisfied the criteria for necessity set forth in 24 V.S.A. §2299b(l), subject to the condition that the District stockpile and make sand from the pit available to HS&G for up to thirty years. The condition was included pursuant to a plan presented by the District to excavate and stockpile sand, at its expense, for HS&G to transport to its Hinesburg plant to process. To the extent the District excavated and stockpiled sand for HS&G, the plan required it to (1) excavate the sand “in a reasonable way” consistent with “preserving or enhancing the value of the available sand to HS&G,” (2) cover it with a “vegetative cover,” and (3) handle it so as to “prevent any significant contamination by litter or landfill leachate.” HS&G appealed the finding of necessity and the court’s authority to order the stockpiling condition to this Court, and we affirmed. [41]*41Chittenden Solid Waste District v. Hinesburg Sand & Gravel Co., 169 Vt. 153, 154, 730 A.2d 614, 616 (1999).

¶ 5. In affirming, we explained that the superior court had simply adopted the proposal of the District, and had not modified or altered the proposal. Thus, we stressed that the condition did not bind HS&G:

The condition objected to by HS&G was imposed on [the District] not HS&G. HS&G could take it or leave it. The condition commits [the District] to adhere to a plan, at [its] cost and expense, to make the Redmond sand available to HS&G ... if it chose to take it. We conclude that in so determining the court did not bind HS&G to any conditions subsequent to the condemnation, but instead was merely adhering to the legislative mandate under § 2299b(l) that the court consider and give effect to the policy of protecting earth resources as required by 10 V.S.A. § 6086. . . .
. . . The court did take into account “inconvenience and expense” by offering HS&G the choice whether to accept the sand. Depending on HS&G’s choice, the issue of expense may be relevant in the damages portion of the proceedings yet to come.

Id. at 160, 730 A.2d at 619-20.

¶ 6. This appeal arises from the damages phase of the condemnation. Before trial, the parties skirmished over what issues could be litigated in the damages phase. The District, through a motion for partial summary judgment, argued that HS&G was precluded by collateral estoppel from relitigating issues related to the viability of the District’s plan to excavate and provide sand to HS&G. The superior court agreed, deciding that HS&G could not relitigate the claim that sand would not be available, because that issue had been decided in the necessity phase when the court found that the District’s plan would provide sand to HS&G in a useful and valuable form. The court did, however, deny the District’s motions in limine to prevent HS&G’s experts from testifying to the costs involved in using the excavated sand as it related to business losses. A similar ruling was made just before trial commenced.

¶ 7. During the jury trial on damages, HS&G introduced evidence to prove that in addition to compensation for the value of [42]*42the sand pit property, it was entitled to recover for business losses consisting of the additional costs of sorting the commingled coarse and fine sand and cleaning the sand because of contamination by bird droppings on the stockpile. HS&G’s expert testified that this additional processing would cost the company over $5.7 million. As to the value of the property itself, appraisal experts for both parties agreed that the highest and best use of the property was as a landfill, and not as a sand pit. They agreed that the property’s fair market value, when valued as a landfill, was about $1.8 million.1 In addition, HS&G president Paul Casey testified that he thought the property was worth $7.5 million, without including the value of the sand.

¶ 8. The court instructed the jury that it could award HS&G compensation for both the fair market value of the property and the business loss. For the property value determination, the court instructed the jury to determine fair market value “based on the highest and best use of the property,” defined as the one “which is the most profitable.” The court went on to instruct that fair market value “includes the value of the sand.” The court also instructed that in determining fair market value it must consider the effect on that value of any restrictions on the District’s use: the right of HS&G to excavate and remove sand through October 31, 2007, the obligation of the District to make sand available to HS&G under its sand plan, and the right of HS&G to take the stockpiled sand without charge. The court instructed that the jury should set fair market value as of January 1, 2000. Since the valuation date was already nearly four years old, the court further instructed: “Do not add interest, that will be handled by the Court after the verdict is received.”

¶ 9. The court also instructed on business loss as follows:

Damages to the sand and gravel operation at the Hinesburg plant are measured by any increase in the costs of operating the plant caused by the District’s taking of the Redmond Road sand pit. Hinesburg Sand and Gravel asserts that the District’s co-mingling of coarse and fine sands and the defecation of sea gulls on [43]

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Related

In re Chittenden Solid Waste District
2012 VT 10 (Supreme Court of Vermont, 2012)
Appeal of Van Nostrand
Vermont Superior Court, 2009
In Re Chittenden Solid Waste Dist.
2007 VT 28 (Supreme Court of Vermont, 2007)

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Bluebook (online)
182 Vt. 38, 2007 Vt. 28, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-chittenden-solid-waste-district-vt-2007.