In the Iowa Supreme Court
No. 23–0958
Submitted December 17, 2024—Filed January 17, 2025
Marabelle Ann ‘Le’ Abbas; Marabelle Abbas Trust; Matthew Abbas; Harland Duane Abbas Trust; Patricia F. Hanson; Patricia Hanson; Ten-K Farms, Inc.; Bruce D. Reid; Lynette Meyer; and Roy and Neva Stover Trust,
Appellants,
vs.
Franklin County Board of Supervisors, Mike Nolke, Gary McVicker, and Chris Vanness as trustees of Drainage District Number 48,
Appellees.
On review from the Iowa Court of Appeals.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Franklin County,
Rustin Davenport, judge.
A county board of supervisors seeks further review of a court of appeals
decision affirming a district court’s damages award to landowners in a drainage
district dispute. Decision of Court of Appeals Affirmed in Part and Vacated
in Part; District Court Judgment Reversed and Case Remanded.
Oxley, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which all justices joined.
Robert W. Goodwin (argued) of Goodwin Law Office, P.C., Ames, for
appellants.
George A. Cady III (argued) of Cady & Rosenberg Law Firm, P.L.C.,
Hampton, for appellees. 2
Oxley, Justice.
This appeal involves damages awards related to a drainage ditch project
undertaken in 2017 to deepen and widen the drainage ditch known as Drainage
District No. 48 (DD48) in Franklin County. The district court concluded that the
Franklin County Board of Supervisors (the Board) had not abandoned the
original right-of-way easement granted in 1906 when the drainage district was
first established, so the right-of-way damages stemming from reconstruction of
the open ditch in 2017 were allowed only to the extent the easement was
expanded beyond its prior boundaries. It also concluded that the affected
landowners were entitled to severance damages for the diminution in value of
their remaining property caused by the inability to traverse the open ditch with
farming equipment. Finally, the district court ordered the owners of one of the
properties to deed to the Board 4.01 acres that had become landlocked and
inaccessible by the 2017 ditch reconstruction and for which the Board was
required to pay the full value of the property as part of the severance damage
award.
Both sides appealed. The court of appeals affirmed the damages awards
but reversed and remanded the order to convey the 4.01-acre parcel for further
proceedings. We granted the Board’s application for further review to determine
whether the landowners were entitled to severance damages. As explained more
fully below, we conclude that—with the exception of the 4.01-acre parcel that
first became landlocked in 2017—they were not. We therefore reverse the district
court’s ruling and remand the case for entry of a damages award consistent with
the appraisal committee’s initial calculation of damages. 3
I. Factual Background and Proceedings.
A. General Drainage District Principles. County boards of supervisors
are statutorily authorized to establish drainage districts to construct and
maintain a drainage system on identified areas of agricultural land within the
county as a “public benefit.” Hicks v. Franklin Cnty. Auditor, 514 N.W.2d 431,
435 (Iowa 1994) (“The legislature has declared that ‘drainage of surface waters
from agricultural lands and all other lands or the protection of such lands from
overflow shall be presumed to be a public benefit . . . .’ ” (omission in original)
(quoting Iowa Code § 468.2 (1989))); see also Iowa Code § 468.1 (2017)
(authorizing a county board of supervisors “to establish a drainage district or
districts . . . in such county, whenever the same will be of public utility or
conducive to the public health, convenience or welfare”). “Once a drainage
district has been established, the improvement remains under the control and
supervision of the board of supervisors or a board of trustees, and the board has
the duty to keep the improvement in repair.” Hicks, 514 N.W.2d at 435. The
drainage district assesses the costs of constructing and maintaining the drainage
systems against those properties that benefit from the system. See Iowa Code
§ 468.11 (“The engineer [appointed by the board] shall examine the lands
described in the petition and any other lands which would be benefited by said
improvement or necessary in carrying out the same. The engineer shall locate
and survey such ditches . . . and other improvements as will be necessary,
practicable, and feasible in carrying out the purposes of the petition and which
will be of public benefit or utility, or conducive to public health, convenience, or
welfare.”). And it is required to compensate property owners whose land is taken
for the drainage system. See id. § 468.26 (“At the time fixed for hearing and after
the filing of the report of the appraisers, the board shall examine said report, and 4
may hear evidence thereon, both for and against each claim for damages and
compensation, and shall determine the amount of damages and compensation
due each claimant, and may affirm, increase, or diminish the amount awarded
by the appraisers.”). Drainage records are maintained in the county auditor’s
office. See id. §§ 468.27 (“Upon the establishment of the district, the petitioners
shall file with the county auditor the survey and report or permanent survey,
plat, and profile, as set forth in sections 468.172 and 468.173.”), .126(8) (“If the
drainage records on file in the auditor’s office for a particular district do not
define specifically the land taken for right-of-way for drainage purposes, the
board may at any time upon its own motion employ a land surveyor to make a
survey and report of the district and to actually define the right-of-way taken for
drainage purposes.”).
There are two general types of damages associated with a drainage district:
right-of-way damages and severance damages. Right-of-way damages
compensate a property owner for the value of the land taken for the construction
of the drainage ditch. See id. §§ 468.22(2) (requiring appointment of appraisers
“to assess the value of the right-of-way required for open ditches or other
improvements”), .25 (requiring appraisers to “place a separate valuation upon
the acreage of each owner taken for right-of-way for open ditches or for settling
basins, as shown by plat of engineer”); see also Johnston v. Drainage Dist. No. 80
of Palo Alto Cnty., 168 N.W. 886, 887 (Iowa 1918) (“Plaintiff was entitled to
payment for the fair market value of the land included within the drainage right
of way . . . .”). Severance damages compensate a property owner for the decrease
in value, if any, to his remaining property caused by having a drainage ditch run
through it. See Harris v. Bd. of Trs. of Green Bay Levee & Drainage Dist. No. 2,
59 N.W.2d 234, 237 (Iowa 1953) (explaining that a property owner’s 5
reimbursement from a drainage district compensates not only for the fair market
value of the property taken but “also includes the reduced value, if any, of the
remaining farm lands, and other damages caused by such severance”); see also
11A Eugene McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations § 32:94, Westlaw (3d
ed. updated July 2024) (“When only a part of the land is legally taken by
condemnation proceedings, the value of the land taken and the decreased value,
if any, of the remaining part at that time constitute the measure of damages.
These damages are termed severance damages.” (footnote omitted)).
B. Parties. The plaintiffs include three sets of individuals and related
entities that own tracts of land involved in this drainage district matter: the
Abbas property, owned by Marabelle Ann ‘Le’ Abbas, Marabelle Abbas Trust,
Matthew Abbas, and Harland Duane Abbas Trust (collectively “Abbas”); the
Hanson property, owned by Patricia F. Hanson, Patricia Hanson, and Ten-K
Farms, Inc. (collectively “Hanson”); and property owned by Bruce C. Reid,
Lynette Meyer, and the Roy and Neva Stover Trust (collectively “Reid-Meyer”).
The Board, through the named individual defendants, serves as the
trustees for DD48, which controls a five-mile-long drainage ditch that services
2,440 acres of farmland in Franklin County. We addressed repairs made to the
same drainage ditch in 1990. See Hicks, 514 N.W.2d at 434. The current dispute
involves a subsequent project undertaken in 2017 when the 1990 repairs proved
unsuccessful. Given the parties’ arguments and the district court’s ruling, we
briefly recount the history of the drainage district.
C. History of DD48. The Board formally established Morgan Township
Drainage District No. 1 (DD1) in 1906 and excavated an existing natural land
depression into a five-mile-long open drainage ditch to increase the land
available for farming in the area. Id. At the time, one-half to two-thirds of the 6
area was too wet to farm. The open drainage ditch was deep enough and steep
enough that farm equipment could not cross it without a bridge. Id.
When the ditch was initially proposed, the Franklin County auditor
distributed notices to impacted landowners directing them to file damages claims
related to the partial taking of their land by the open drainage ditch. The Board
appointed an appraisal committee to assess impacted landowners’ damages
claims and awarded a total of $2,714.00 to the fourteen landowners who filed
damages claims as “damages on account of the location and construction of a
ditch . . . upon and across certain lands owned by such persons.”
In 1915, landowners in DD1 petitioned to establish a new drainage district
with a main tile line and tile laterals. Based on the appointed engineer’s
conclusion that DD1 was “inadequate, insufficient, and out of repair,” the Board
authorized further construction in 1916. A bulkhead was built approximately
three miles down the ditch, and the open ditch below the bulkhead was cleaned
out and left largely intact. Tile was installed along the main line of the open
drainage ditch in the three-mile stretch above the bulkhead, and thirty-seven
lateral tiles were constructed off the main line. The ditch above the tile was also
backfilled to a specified grade, resulting in a shallow surface waterway above the
tile line. The construction was completed in 1917, and DD1 was renumbered
DD48.
Between 1917 and the late 1930s, landowners partially filled the waterway
north of the bulkhead with dirt left in spoil piles when the ditch was originally
dug. By 1937, farmers were using the land above the tile line for crops, and the
Board returned this area of the land to the tax levy rolls.
Fast forward to 1990, when DD48 undertook repairs “to recreate the
shallower ditch above the tile line similar to the condition that it would have been 7
following the 1917 construction of the tile line.” These repairs widened the
previous footprint of the drainage ditch. Damages claims related to the 1990
construction project were litigated in Hicks v. Franklin County Auditor, 514
N.W.2d 431.1
D. The 2017 Reconstruction Underlying the Current Dispute. In the
years that followed, the 1990 construction project proved to be unsuccessful.
The shallow ditch added in 1990 caused the tile lines to be closer to the surface
of the ground, providing less protection from the weather and from heavy farm
equipment. This, coupled with the aging tile that had been in place for seventy
years, caused the tile lines to break in places, and the area was wetter than it
had been before the 1990 repairs.
In 2017, the Board gave up on the tile line. In its place, the Board decided
to reconstruct an open ditch similar to what was originally constructed in 1906.
The 2017 open-ditch project, like that in 1906, was impassible for farm
equipment, requiring the adjoining land to be farmed in smaller, less efficient
fields than had been possible since the late 1930s.
The Board appointed an appraisal committee pursuant to Iowa Code
section 468.24 to assess damage claims asserted by affected landowners,
including the plaintiffs. The appraisal committee included one engineer (Lee
Gallentine) and two disinterested landowners within the county (Don Latham
and Larry Sailer). The plaintiffs sought right-of-way damages related to the entire
area occupied by the open ditch. But the appraisal committee limited its
assessment to the additional land occupied by the expanded ditch beyond what
DD48 “already ha[d] a historical right to.” The appraisal committee valued the
1Reid-Meyer made a claim for damages related to the 1990 project and was a plaintiff in
the Hicks litigation. Neither the Hanson family nor the Abbas family made claims related to the 1990 work. 8
additional acres based on each property’s average CSR2 rating (corn suitability
rating index) multiplied by $110.94 per CSR2 point based on recent sales of
farmland in the area. The appraisal committee recommended that the plaintiffs
receive right-of-way damages as follows:
Abbas Property
• Claimed 7.94 acres total • Allowed 1.80 acres as additional right-of-way • CSR2 rating of 69.34 at $110.94/point • Total right-of-way damages: $13,846.64
Hanson Property
• Claimed 3.96 acres total • Allowed 1.46 acres as additional right-of-way • CSR2 rating of 80.71 at $110.94/point • Total right-of-way damages: $13,072.79
Reid-Meyer Property
• Claimed 10.77 acres total • Allowed 1.32 acres as additional right-of-way • CSR2 rating of 77.18 at $110.94/point • Total right-of-way damages: $11,302.30
The appraisal committee also considered the plaintiffs’ claims for
severance damages, which were premised on their claim that the ditch made
farming the rest of their land less efficient, reducing its value. After a detailed
review of how each property had been used in the past, the appraisal committee
did not recommend severance damages for the Abbas or Hanson properties,
noting that their usage patterns had not been detrimentally affected and that the
land had not been viewed as crossable prior to reconstruction of the ditch. For
the Reid-Meyer property, the appraisal committee determined that 4.01 acres of
property that had previously been farmed was no longer accessible and had
become landlocked by the reconstructed ditch. The appraisal committee thus
recommended that plaintiff Reid-Meyer receive severance damages for that 9
4.01-acre parcel using the CSR2 valuation method it used for the right-of-way
damages. The appraisal committee assessed severance damages for the
Reid-Meyer property at $36,915.26 (4.01 acres × average CSR2 rating of 82.98 ×
$110.94). On February 7, 2022, the Board approved and adopted the appraisal
committee’s recommendations.
E. Judicial Proceedings. On March 16, the plaintiffs appealed the Board’s
final action to the district court pursuant to Iowa Code section 468.83. The
plaintiffs introduced evidence from their expert, Ted R. Frandson, who is an
experienced principal and real estate appraiser. Frandson calculated damages
by performing a fair-market-value appraisal of each farm before and after
reconstruction of the ditch. His calculations were premised on the assumptions
that there was no prior drainage district easement for the Abbas and Hanson
properties and that the Reid-Meyer property was subject to an easement only for
a shallow, farmable ditch. The plaintiffs also put on evidence that severing
farmland with an uncrossable ditch generally reduces its fair market value by
10% because it takes more time and work to farm smaller, odd-shaped fields
than long, straight ones. Matt Abbas supported the claimed inefficiencies by
documenting the extra work required to farm around the ditch on his property.
Following the two-day bench trial, the district court concluded that the
plaintiffs were entitled to additional damages. In reaching its decision, the
district court concluded that DD48 did not dissolve DD1 and that DD48 was not
abandoned between 1917 and 1990, including when the Board returned the
property to the tax rolls in 1937. Thus, the plaintiffs were only entitled to
right-of-way damages for the area covered by the reconstructed open ditch
beyond its original border, consistent with the appraisal committee’s conclusion.
Nonetheless, the district court concluded that the plaintiffs were also entitled to 10
severance damages for the reduction in value of the plaintiffs’ remaining
farmland, reflecting the farming inefficiencies caused by the reconstructed open
ditch. In calculating the amount of damages for the severance, the district court
found the testimony from the appraisal committee engineer, Gallentine, more
credible than the plaintiffs’ expert, Frandson, as to property valuation. So, it
used the appraisal committee’s CSR2-based valuations to value the entirety of
each property before the ditch reconstruction, and it used the plaintiffs’ expert’s
February 2022 per-acre valuations to value each property—less the additional
acres taken by the expansion of the right-of-way—after the reconstruction. It
awarded the difference in damages:
• $91,189.00 for the Abbas property • $162,003.00 for the Hanson property • $41,541.80 for the Reid-Meyer property
In its ruling on posttrial motions, the district court directed plaintiff
Reid-Meyer to convey by warranty deed the severed 4.01 acres for which DD48
was required to pay severance damages.
Both parties appealed, and we transferred to the court of appeals. The
court of appeals affirmed the district court’s conclusion that the plaintiffs were
entitled to both right-of-way and severance damages and its calculation of the
awards. But it vacated the district court’s conveyance order, remanding for
additional proceedings. We granted further review to determine whether the
plaintiffs are entitled to severance damages.
II. Analysis.
This appeal raises three issues: (1) did DD48 have an easement on the
plaintiffs’ property prior to the 2017 reconstruction; (2) if so, were the plaintiffs
entitled to severance damages; and (3) is Reid-Meyer required to convey title to
the 4.01-acre parcel to DD48 based on the severance payment? 11
A. Standard of Review. This drainage district action was tried as an
ordinary proceeding, and we review for the correction of errors at law. See Iowa
Code § 468.91 (“Appeals from orders or actions of the board fixing the amount
of compensation for lands taken for right-of-way or the amount of damages to
which any claimant is entitled shall be tried as ordinary proceedings.”); Chi. Cent.
& Pac. R.R. v. Calhoun Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, 816 N.W.2d 367, 370 (Iowa
2012). The district court’s findings of facts are binding on this court if supported
by substantial evidence.
B. Existence of Drainage Easement and Extent of Additional Right-of-
Way Damages. The plaintiffs challenge the district court’s conclusion that DD48
had an existing easement covering the original 1906 open ditch when it
reconstructed it in 2017. This matters because “[o]nce a drainage district has
been established, the district ‘is deemed to have acquired by permanent
easement all right-of-way for drainage district ditches, tile lines, settling basins
and other improvements.’ ” Hicks, 514 N.W.2d at 440 (quoting Iowa Code
§ 468.27 (1989)). Having found an easement, the district court denied the
plaintiffs’ claims to right-of-way damages associated with the land covered by
the original open ditch, even though the plaintiffs (and their predecessors) had
been using the land since at least the 1930s after the ditch was covered back in.
Reid-Meyer claimed it lost a total of 9.45 acres, Abbas claimed a total of 6.14
acres, and Hanson claimed a total of 2.50 acres.
The plaintiffs challenge the existence of the easement on a number of
fronts. First, they claim that DD48 “discontinued and abandoned” DD1 in 1916
when the open drainage ditch was replaced by a tile line and transformed into a
surface waterway above the tile line. They support their argument by reference
to the 1916 survey, which only provided for a tile system covered by dirt. The 12
plaintiffs further argue that even if DD48 did not supplant DD1, both were
abandoned at least by 1939, when the ditch was completely filled in and farmable
to the point of being returned to the property tax rolls.
There is a presumption that an easement continues to exist unless
abandonment is proven by clear and satisfactory evidence. Allamakee County v.
Collins Tr., 599 N.W.2d 448, 451 (Iowa 1999) (holding that a county did not
abandon its road right-of-way even though it only maintained the traveled
portion of the road). “Nonuse is not enough to establish abandonment, unless
coupled with affirmative evidence of a clear determination to abandon.
Obstructions, encroachments, or the failure to keep [an easement] in repair do
not necessarily result in abandonment.” Id. (citation omitted); see also Town of
Marne v. Goeken, 147 N.W.2d 218, 222–24 (Iowa 1966) (finding no affirmative
evidence of abandonment of alley even though area in question had been
encroached upon by defendant’s garage).
We rejected similar arguments in Hicks when we addressed the 1990
repair of the same drainage district. See 514 N.W.2d at 440–41. There,
landowners alleged that they were entitled to compensation “not only for the
expansion of the drainage easement, but also for the taking of all of the land for
the drainage right-of-way” because “the waterway easement had been filled in
and farmed for approximately fifty years” and DD48 took no action to repair or
restore the surface waterway during that time period. Id. We rejected the
landowners’ arguments based on theories of prescriptive easement, adverse
possession, equitable estoppel, and laches, recognizing that DD48 had a
permanent drainage easement on the land and “the [landowners’] evidence falls
far short of proving the elements of these defenses with respect to the original 13
easement.” Id. at 441. We therefore limited the landowners’ damages to those
resulting from the expansion of that easement beyond its original boundary. Id.
Here, the plaintiffs’ analogous abandonment theory fails as well. A century
ago, we addressed a similar situation in Johnston v. Drainage District No. 80 of
Palo Alto County, where a “proposed new drainage district included a portion of
the right of way of an old district known as drainage district No. 16.” 168 N.W.
at 887. The landowner there, like the landowners here, was not entitled to right-
of-way compensation to the extent such damages had already been paid with
respect to the old drainage district. Id. Because “the right of way for the
improvement in question include[s] a portion of the right of way of a former
drainage improvement, for which the owner [or his predecessor] had received
compensation, no additional sum should be allowed for the land thus taken and
occupied thereby.” Id. Thus, creation of DD48 did not eliminate the prior right-
of-way created by DD1—for which the plaintiffs’ predecessors were paid. Rather,
as we said in Hicks, DD1 was merely “renumbered . . . [DD]48.” 514 N.W.2d at
434.
Nor do the early farmers’ actions of using the spoil piles to fill in the ditch
and make it farmable change the nature of the easement held by DD48. Although
“the owner retains the right to use the property in any way not inconsistent with
the carrying out of the plans of the drainage district,” Johnston, 168 N.W. at 888,
the drainage district remains “under the control and supervision of the board of
supervisors,” id.; see also Iowa Code § 468.126. During the period between 1937
and 2017, when the tiles were removed, covering the ditch and farming over it
were undertaken by landowners—not DD48, the holder of the easement. See
Hicks, 514 N.W.2d at 441 (rejecting landowners’ argument “that the county
should be stopped from reclaiming the right-of-way because they took no action 14
to repair or restore the surface waterway for almost fifty years”). “It is the actions
and intent of the holder of the easement, not the claimant, that determines
whether abandonment has occurred.” Allamakee County, 599 N.W.2d at 453.
We also reject the plaintiffs’ argument that DD48 did not have an easement
over their respective properties because permanent right-of-way easements for
drainage districts were not statutorily authorized until Iowa Code section 468.27
was enacted in 1985, 1985 Iowa Acts ch. 163, § 1 (codified as amended at Iowa
Code § 468.27 (2017)), long after DD48 was put in place. This argument is
foreclosed by our cases predating 1985 recognizing that a drainage district’s
statutory right to control and maintain an established drainage district amounts
to an easement. See Johnston, 168 N.W. at 888 (collecting cases recognizing that
“land taken for a ditch right of way is simply burdened with an easement,
and . . . that the owner retains the right to use the property in any way not
inconsistent with the carrying out of the plans of the drainage district”); Barton
v. Boie, 151 N.W. 1064, 1065 (Iowa 1915) (“It will be observed that the taking [by
a drainage district] is for a public purpose, and that an easement is created upon
the land included in the right of way for the purpose, in this case, of establishing
a new channel for the river . . . .”); Stuhr v. Butterfield, 130 N.W. 897, 897
(Iowa 1911) (describing the rights obtained by a county board of supervisors
when a drainage district was established under section 1989-a1 of the 1907 Iowa
Code Supplement and explaining that “[t]he nature and object of the easement
the public thereby appropriates is much as others within the district like that of
a highway”).
For the foregoing reasons, we agree with the district court that the
easement had not been abandoned, and the plaintiffs were entitled to right- 15
of-way damages only to the extent the 2017 open ditch reconstruction expanded
DD48’s right of way beyond its initial boundaries.
C. Severance Damages. Despite concluding that DD48 held a permanent
right-of-way easement for drainage district purposes for which damages had
been paid in 1906, the district court nonetheless found that the plaintiffs were
entitled to severance damages related to the diminution in value of their
remaining farmland caused by reconstruction of the open ditch in 2017. Noting
that we allowed additional damages following the 1990 repairs to DD48 in Hicks
and that the appraisal committee here considered (but then rejected) the
plaintiffs’ severance damages claims based on their historical use of their
property, the district court concluded that proof of legal abandonment was not
a prerequisite to an additional severance award. The district court noted that
farming practices had changed significantly and that the plaintiffs were no longer
able to farm the property as they had for nearly eighty years or even cross over
the ditch as they had been able to since the shallow ditch repairs were made in
1990.
In affirming the district court’s award, the court of appeals considered the
severance damages under a substantial-evidence standard, concluding that the
damages award fell within the permissible range of the evidence. But whether
severance damages are even allowed is a threshold legal question that must be
decided before considering whether the amount was adequately supported by
the evidence.
When DD1 was created in 1906, affected landowners made claims for
damages, and the board of supervisors followed the statutory mechanism for
assessing and paying the damages. The “statutory procedures that are provided
for the original establishment of a drainage district” are “a special form of 16
eminent domain that the legislature has provided for drainage-district takings.”
Peterson v. Bd. of Trs. of Drainage Dist. No. 5, 625 N.W.2d 707, 709–10
(Iowa 2001) (en banc). The statutory provisions are analogous to condemnation
proceedings and require the drainage district to compensate landowners for the
associated damages. Id. at 710 (“[T]he Legislature, in authorizing the
condemnation of a right of way for a drainage ditch, has provided a definite and
complete method for the adjus[t]ment and adjudication of damages occasioned
by the taking and the compensation to the owners of the land through which
[the ditch] extended . . . .” (omission in original) (quoting Taylor v. Drainage Dist.
No. 56, 148 N.W. 1040, 1043 (Iowa 1914))).
It is the repeated pronouncement of this court that in condemnation cases the damages to the real estate, from which the condemned portion is taken for a public improvement, when assessed, are assessed once for all, and are conclusively presumed to include all damages, present and future, which may be sustained by the owner by reason of the proper use of the condemned portion for the purpose for which it is condemned.
Wheatley v. City of Fairfield, 240 N.W. 628, 632 (Iowa 1932) (collecting cases).
This pronouncement applies equally to drainage district damages assessments.
See Peterson, 625 N.W.2d at 711 (“The principle announced in Taylor is
consistent with principles that this court has applied to eminent-domain takings
in other situations.” (citing Hammer v. Ida County, 231 N.W.2d 896, 900 (Iowa
1975) (condemnation damages are to be assessed once and for all and once
assessed include all injuries that may result for all time); Wheatley, 240 N.W. at
632 (same))).
In Peterson v. Board of Trustees of Drainage District No. 5, we held that a
drainage district lacked the authority to award additional damages seven years
after completing the statutory proceeding for assessing damages under Iowa
Code section 468.26. See 625 N.W.2d at 708. After receiving compensation for 17
land taken for a new drainage district in 1991, Charles Gunn learned that his
property no longer qualified as wetland property under a federal grant program,
causing him to be sanctioned by the United States Department of Agriculture.
Id. at 709. He sought reimbursement from the drainage district for the resulting
$26,600 cost to him, which the board of trustees allowed over the opposition of
other property owners within the drainage district. Id. In reviewing the other
landowners’ petition for certiorari, we concluded that the finality principle from
condemnation proceedings defeated the board’s authority to award additional
damages to Gunn even though it “may work a hardship in those situations where
changes in the water flow produce unanticipated consequential damage to
adjoining property owners.” Id. at 711.
Similar principles must be applied here. When DD1 paid damages to
property owners for the original drainage ditch in 1906, the severance damages,
i.e., the diminution in value of the adjacent property severed by the open ditch,
“are conclusively presumed to include all damages, present and future, which
may by sustained by the owner by reason of the proper use of the condemned
portion for the purpose for which it is condemned.” Hammer, 231 N.W.2d at 900.
The plaintiffs attempt to distinguish the rule from Hammer v. Ida County on the
basis that the original landowners were not paid severance damages in 1906
based on testimony offered by Donald Etler, a consulting agricultural engineer
for Franklin County, that the records do not indicate severance damages were
considered. Considered or not, the finality principles of condemnation law
conclusively presume that severance damages were included. See Peterson, 625
N.W.2d at 711.
DD1 was not abandoned, and the compensation paid to the original
owners is conclusively presumed to have included the diminution in value of the 18
landowner’s remaining property caused by construction of the open ditch. The
facts that the initial payments were made a century ago and that farming
methods have changed significantly do not entitle the plaintiffs to additional
severance damage payments. The district court’s conclusion that the 1906
easement right-of-way had not been abandoned effectively removed its authority
to award severance damages. The plaintiffs’ expert, Frandson, recognized as
much when he testified that his calculations were premised on there being no
right-of-way easement on the Abbas and Hanson properties and the easement
for the Reid-Meyer property being limited to a shallow but traversable ditch
related to the 1990 repairs. He admitted during cross-examination that if an
easement for a deep ditch “was established [in 1906] and was in place today,”
the severance would have occurred in 1906, and “you would only be talking
about damages for acquisition for additional right-of-way if they increased
the . . . width of the ditch.”
We note one caveat. The appraisal committee concluded that 4.01 acres of
the Reid-Meyer property became landlocked by the 2017 open ditch
reconstruction and made inaccessible. The Board agreed and adopted its
assessment of damages at $36,915.26, the parcel’s full fair market value. The
Board changed course at trial, arguing that no additional compensation was
owed because the land had already been severed in 1906. On appeal, the Board
argues that we should either affirm the district court’s order that Reid-Meyer
must convey the 4.01 acres upon the Board’s payment of the severance award
or that we should reverse the damages award because the land was already
severed in 1906. At no point in any of the proceedings did the Board offer an
alternative valuation for the 4.01 acres. Yet, the Board confirmed during oral
argument that the parcel was not landlocked by the original 1906 open ditch, so 19
the 2017 open ditch reconstruction was, in fact, a new severance of that parcel.
Given the Board’s concession, we affirm the district court’s award of severance
damages for that discrete piece of property.
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the district court erred by
awarding the plaintiffs any severance damages based on the diminution in value
of their remaining land outside of the easement right-of-way for the drainage
ditch, subject to the caveat for the 4.01 acres.
To summarize the damages awards, the plaintiffs are entitled to
right-of-way damages limited to the value of the land taken for the expanded
right-of-way by the 2017 open ditch reconstruction but not to any severance
damages, except for the 4.01-acre Reid-Meyer parcel. In its calculation of
damages, the district court adopted the appraisal committee’s use of the CSR2
valuation method to value each property prior to the 2017 open ditch
reconstruction. In essence, the district court agreed with the appraisal
committee’s calculation with respect to the right-of-way damages, which was
accepted by the Board. The district court also agreed with the appraisal
committee’s valuation of the 4.01-acre landlocked parcel, premised on the same
CSR2 methodology. Given these factfindings made by the district court, no new
findings are needed, and the district court on remand can enter an award
consistent with the appraisal committee’s award.
D. Conveyance by Warranty Deed. Following the district court’s ruling,
the Board filed a motion to enlarge, asking—without citing any legal
authority—the district court to clarify that DD48 was entitled to a warranty deed
from Reid-Meyer conveying the 4.01-acre parcel upon the Board’s payment of
the $36,915.26 compensation award. This was the first mention of transferring
title to any of the property. In its postruling order, the district agreed that the 20
parcel should be conveyed by warranty deed upon payment of the compensation
award, likewise without citing any legal authority. The court of appeals reversed
that order and remanded for further proceedings given the district court’s lack
of cited legal authority to support the conveyance order.
When a drainage district seeks to make repairs or improvements that
expand an existing right-of-way, as done here by DD48, it can “acquire . . . the
necessary lands or easements” “by contract or conveyance” or “in the manner
provided in the original establishment of the district,” or it can exercise “the
power of eminent domain as provided for in chapter 6B.” Iowa Code § 468.126(6)
(emphasis added); see also Peterson, 625 N.W.2d at 709 (describing the
“statutory procedures that are provided for the original establishment of a
drainage district” as an alternative procedure to eminent domain). Here, the
Board used the statutory procedures provided when a drainage district is
originally established, which “is a special form of eminent domain that the
legislature has provided for drainage-district takings.” Peterson, 625 N.W.2d at
710. Under Iowa Code chapter 468 procedures, the drainage district obtains a
permanent easement and is required to pay the resulting damages. See Iowa
Code §§ 468.26, .27. While the Board may be required to compensate a
landowner for damages beyond the land taken for the right-of-way easement in
the form of severance damages, nothing in chapter 468 requires the landowner
to convey the property for which it was compensated to the board. See Taylor,
148 N.W. at 1043 (“[T]he Legislature, in authorizing the condemnation of a right
of way for a drainage ditch, has provided a definite and complete method for the
adjustment and adjudication of damages occasioned by the taking and the
compensation to the owners of the land through which [the ditch]
extended . . . .”). 21
Having chosen to proceed under the alternative statutory procedures to
expand its easement in exchange for paying damages, the Board is not entitled
to conveyance of the severed property even if the damages award compensated
the landowner for the full value of the affected property. As previously noted, the
Board has never challenged the amount of the damages valuation on the basis
that it overstated the damages associated with landlocking the 4.01-acre parcel.
For the foregoing reasons, the Board is not entitled to a deed of the
4.01-acre parcel.
III. Conclusion.
The district court’s order is reversed, and the case is remanded for entry
of a damages award consistent with the appraisal committee’s award.
Decision of Court of Appeals Affirmed in Part and Vacated in Part;
District Court Judgment Reversed and Case Remanded.