Luby v. City of Dallas

396 S.W.2d 192
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 24, 1965
Docket16577
StatusPublished
Cited by44 cases

This text of 396 S.W.2d 192 (Luby v. City of Dallas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Luby v. City of Dallas, 396 S.W.2d 192 (Tex. Ct. App. 1965).

Opinion

BATEMAN, Justice.

The City of Dallas, having previously purchased the fee simple title t0‘ certain real property needed in connection with the improvement of Griffin Street in downtown Dallas, took by these condemnation proceedings the leasehold interest of appellants in the property. Appellants occupied the property under a lease which would by its terms expire approximately 33 months after the date of taking, paying $700 per month rent. The special commissioners awarded appellants $40,000, which was paid into *195 court by the City and then withdrawn by appellants, pursuant to Vernon’s Ann.Civ. St., Art. 3268, prior to the trial in the county court. Both sides appealed from the award by filing objections thereto. The jury found the value of the leasehold to be $23,100; whereupon the court awarded the City of Dallas the leasehold interest in the land and judgment against appellants for $16,900, the difference between the $40,000 received by them and the $23,100 verdict. We affirm. The appellants’ 36 points of error are so interwoven that we shall discuss the contentions raised by them rather than each of the points of error separately.

A great many of the points challenge the regularity of the condemnation proceedings occurring prior to the withdrawal of the $40,000 by the appellants. Several of them attack the Statement in Condemnation filed by the City because of the insufficiency of the description of the land being condemned, the failure of the City to state properly the names of the known owners of interests therein or the purpose for which the land will be used, concerning which there was a discrepancy between the Statement and the resolutions of the City Council; the failure to include in the proceedings certain necessary parties; and the failure of the Statement to contain all the information required by Art. 3264, § 1, V.A. C.S.

The appellants, by their withdrawal of the $40,000 paid into the registry of the court by the City, must be held as a matter of law to have impliedly consented to the taking of their property. Only the question of adequate compensation remained to be determined. This has been the rule uniformly announced by our courts since City of San Antonio v. Grandjean (1897), 91 Tex. 430, 41 S.W. 477, 44 S.W. 476; the latest expression of our Supreme Court on the subject being in State of Texas v. Jackson, Tex.1965, 388 S.W.2d 924. In a footnote to that opinion is cited the opinion of this court in Crockett v. Housing Authority of City of Dallas, Tex.Civ.App., 274 S.W.2d 187, no wr. hist.

The foregoing rule is binding on appellants notwithstanding the fact that they sought to condition their withdrawal of the $40,000 by a recitation that the withdrawal was without prejudice to certain objections and exceptions. Having withdrawn the money deposited, appellants are precluded from contesting the legality of the proceedings establishing the City’s right to take the property.

Appellants attack in various ways the legality of the condemnation proceedings and seek a reversal of the judgment because the City purchased from the fee owner, and took from appellants, more land than was necessary for the declared purpose of extending Griffin Street and sold the unneeded surplus to a private corporation. We see no merit in these points. In the first place, the appellants must be held to have waived any irregularity in this respect by their withdrawal of the $40,000. City of San Antonio v. Grandjean, supra, and State of Texas v. Jackson, supra. Morover, in the second place, an examination of the facts and the applicable authorities will demonstrate that there was nothing illegal or wrongful in the transactions in question.

Appellants say that the court erred in even trying the case and submitting it to the jury because of this variance between the resolutions of the City Council, which authorized the appropriation of appellants’ leasehold estate for the purpose of “extending” Griffin Street, and the Statement in Condemnation, which states that such estate is to be condemned for the purposes of “the widening and improvement of public streets and more particularly the extension of Griffin Street.” Appellants concede that the statutes and appellee’s charter authorize the appropriation of privately owned property “in order to open, widen, narrow, straighten or extend any public street, avenue or alley within the City limits,” but argue that when the City Council (the governing body of the City) declared a public necessity for the mere “extension” of Grif *196 fin Street that meant continuing the existing street in a straight line and with the same width, and that there existed no authority, and no declaration by the Council of a public necessity, for the taking of appellants’ property for the purpose of widening or changing the course of that street. We see no merit in this contention. The appellants were adequately informed by the Statement in Condemnation that the City was seeking to take all of their leasehold interest in the entire tract for the purpose of extending, improving and widening Griffin Street. Appellants appeared at the commissioners’ hearing, objected to the award made by them, not on the grounds here under discussion, but on other matters touching only upon the value of the leasehold; withdrew the deposit of the award and sought to obtain a larger award by the jury. They' amended their objections and exceptions to the award twice, and in the last amendment, which was filed March 16, 1964, and which must be held to have supplanted the previous objections and exceptions under Rule 65, Vernon’s Texas R.C.P., the only objection made was that the award of the commissioners was inadequate. We therefore hold that appellants waived their right, if any they had, to complain of this matter of variance by not pleading it.

It is true that when the City filed its motion for a partial summary judgment under Rule 166-A, T.R.C.P., wherein it sought adjudication of its power, right and authority to condemn appellants’ property and to limit the controversy to the proper amount to be paid to appellants, the latter, in a “Controverting Affidavit” hinted broadly at the matter by suggesting that there were material fact issues on the question of whether the City had properly exercised its power to condemn. The transcript also contains a motion by appellants to dismiss the City’s appeal from the commissioners’ award, in which the question was squarely raised, but there is nothing in the transcript to show that this motion was called to the attention of the court. Therefore, it is our holding, based upon our examination of the record as a whole, that (1) the point was never actually presented to the trial court for a ruling and cannot now be raised for the first time on appeal, and (2) the point is, under all the circumstances of this case, without substance.

We think the trial court was correct in granting the partial summary judgment. The “Controverting Affidavit” of appellants’ attorney, mentioned above, raises no actual fact issues. Its eight pages are devoted primarily to complaint that the City, in purchasing the fee without notice to appellants, probably adversely affected the market value of appellants’ leasehold, and that the City, when it offered appellants $100 for their leasehold, did not negotiate with them in good faith.

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Bluebook (online)
396 S.W.2d 192, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/luby-v-city-of-dallas-texapp-1965.