Newell v. Ohio Department of Transportation

870 N.E.2d 813, 142 Ohio Misc. 2d 42
CourtOhio Court of Claims
DecidedMarch 6, 2007
DocketNo. 2005-11264-AD
StatusPublished

This text of 870 N.E.2d 813 (Newell v. Ohio Department of Transportation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Newell v. Ohio Department of Transportation, 870 N.E.2d 813, 142 Ohio Misc. 2d 42 (Ohio Super. Ct. 2007).

Opinion

Daniel R. BorcheRT, Deputy Clerk.

{¶ 1} Plaintiff, Ronald L. Newell, is a farmer who owns farm land and plants crops on this land adjacent to and abutting U.S. Route 23 in Wyandot County. Plaintiff stated that new lights installed along U.S. Route 23 in Upper Sandusky [44]*44by defendant, Department of Transportation (“DOT”), affected the maturing of the bean crop planted in fields adjacent to the roadway. Plaintiff explained that the bean crop he had planted in the rest of his field was ready to harvest by October 4, 2005. However, plaintiff observed that the beans planted in the two fields adjacent to the roadway lights “were soft and unable to harvest due to not being mature.”

{¶ 2} Plaintiff has contended that the light installation along U.S. Route 23 directly resulted in his bean crop’s inability to mature. Plaintiff related that the two fields affected by the roadway lighting averaged 57 bushels of beans per acre, and the affected acreage amounted to approximately 7.18. Plaintiff calculated the price of a bushel of beans based on November 18, 2005 prices as $5.40 per bushel. Plaintiff estimated that he had lost a total bean yield of $2,210 caused by the failure of the bean crop to mature. Plaintiff maintained that DOT should bear responsibility for the loss of the bean crop. Consequently, plaintiff filed this complaint seeking to recover the estimated lost yield from 7.18 acres of beans, plus the $25 filing fee. The filing fee was paid.

{¶ 3} Plaintiff submitted a written statement from Joe Lininger, an agronomist who is employed by an entity identified as The Farmers Commission Company. In his undated statement, Lininger noted that he had conducted measurements and had calculated that the total affected bean crop was located on 7.18 acres. Lininger concluded, “The soybeans are affected by highway lights and will not mature until a frost.” Lininger pointed out that crop yields on plaintiffs land would be affected, but he was uncertain as to the extent that the yield would be diminished.

{¶ 4} Defendant acknowledged that DOT in December 2004 completed work on the installation of high mast lighting on U.S. Route 23 in Wyandot County. Defendant also acknowledged that the described high mast lighting was installed along the roadway area adjacent to plaintiffs fields. Defendant stated that DOT had installed this lighting to “safely illuminate the expressway.” Defendant further stated that the installed lights “are the safest and most efficient lighting source given the traffic flow and lighting required at interchanges.” While defendant did explain that this lighting installation was beneficial to the motoring public using the roadway, light did “occasionally bleed onto adjacent property [and] there is little doubt that defendant’s light encroaches upon plaintiffs property.” Defendant, however argued that DOT cannot be held liable for any damage to plaintiffs bean crop caused by any light encroachment.

{¶ 5} Initially, defendant alleged that plaintiffs damage to a particular part of his bean crop is not compensable because the injury claimed “falls under the doctrine of damnum absque injuria,” or “damage without wrongful act.” Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (1995) 244. Defendant, citing [45]*45Smith v. Erie RR. Co. (1938), 134 Ohio St. 135, 145, 11 O.O. 571, 16 N.E.2d 310, contended that when a party “is uniquely affected in degree but not in kind by a highway improvement,” any damage claim recovery is barred by the damnum absque injuria doctrine. The issue in Smith is the same as in the instant claim: whether or not defendant’s act constituted a taking of plaintiffs property. “Under Section 19, Article I, of the Constitution which requires compensation to be made for private property taken for public use, any taking, whether it be physical or merely deprives the owner of an intangible interest appurtenant to the premises entitles the owner to compensation.” Smith, paragraph one of the syllabus. However, “[w]hen there is no taking altogether or pro tanto, damages consequential to the taking of other property in the neighborhood, or to the construction of the improvement, are not recoverable; under such circumstances, loss suffered by the owner is damnum absque injuria.” Smith, paragraph two of the syllabus. Defendant contends that the act of DOT of installing a roadway lighting system did not constitute a pro tanto taking of plaintiffs property and consequently, any damage suffered is noncompensable. Defendant insists that plaintiffs injury (“impacted plant development”) from the roadway lights was a harm suffered in some degree by other landowners adjacent to a lighted highway. Therefore, defendant asserts that the suffered harm did not differ “in kind” from that sustained by the general public and renders the harm damnum absque injuria.

{¶ 6} Defendant offers New York, Chicago & St. Louis RR. Co. v. Bucsi (1934), 128 Ohio St. 134, 190 N.E. 562, for the proposition that a land owner cannot be compensated for a harm that differs in degree, but not in kind, from that of the general public because the landowner’s legal status is categorized as damnum absque injuria. In Bucsi a public improvement rendered the street on which plaintiffs lived a cul de sac, thus hindering their ingress and egress. The court determined that hindered access to a nonabutting property owner is an injury of degree and not of kind. In the instant claim, plaintiff owns abutting land affected by defendant’s improvement, and the action pursued does not involve hindered access to the property.

{¶ 7} Additionally, defendant argued that the act of installing the lights on U.S. Route 23 was done in compliance with DOT’s obligation to make improvements upon highways for serving the public and promoting the public good and consequently, none of plaintiffs property was taken by this public improvement:

{¶ 8} “ ‘[A]s all streets are established primarily for the public use and general good, the right of the public is paramount to the right of the individual. And so the private rights of access, light and air are held and enjoyed subject to the paramount right of the public to use and improve the street for the purposes of a highway. And * * * it follows that, when such uses or improvements are made, [46]*46no private right is interfered with and consequently no private property is taken.’ ” State ex rel. Schiederer v. Preston (1960), 170 Ohio St. 542, 544, 11 O.O.2d 369, 166 N.E.2d 748, quoting 1 Lewis on Eminent Domain (3d.Ed.) 179, Section 120.

{¶ 9} State ex rel. Schiederer involved a public roadway improvement that raised the grade of part of a street in front of the land abutting that street, thereby interfering with the abutting landowner’s view over the particular street and affecting the harmony of the street with the abutting land. The Supreme Court in State ex rel. Schiederer, 170 Ohio St. at 548, 11 O.O.2d 369, 166 N.E.2d 748, concluded that no actionable taking of property occurred when a public highway improvement raised the grade of part of a street and “substantially interferes with the view that the owner of that land had over that street and with the relative harmony of the street with his land.” The holding in the previously mentioned case has no bearing on the action before this court. “The United States and Ohio Constitutions guarantee that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.” State ex rel. Elsass v. Shelby Cty. Bd. of Commrs.

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Bluebook (online)
870 N.E.2d 813, 142 Ohio Misc. 2d 42, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/newell-v-ohio-department-of-transportation-ohioctcl-2007.