Sanitary District of Chicago v. McGuirl

86 Ill. App. 392, 1899 Ill. App. LEXIS 240
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJanuary 4, 1900
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 86 Ill. App. 392 (Sanitary District of Chicago v. McGuirl) 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
Sanitary District of Chicago v. McGuirl, 86 Ill. App. 392, 1899 Ill. App. LEXIS 240 (Ill. Ct. App. 1900).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Adams

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of appellee and against appellant for damages to appellee’s real property, alleged to have been occasioned by appellant in constructing the drainage channel.

The jury returned a verdict for $17,000, a motion for a new trial was overruled, and the court rendered judgment on the verdict.

Appellant is the owner of four lots, two of which, numbered 11 and 12, front east on Western avenue in the city of Chicago, and two of which, numbered 21 and 22, front on what purports, in a plat put in evidence by appellee, to be a street called Ash street or Artesian avenue. Between the lots fronting on Western avenue and those fronting on Ash street, the plat mentioned shows an alley of the width of fifteen feet. The lots are twenty-five feet in width by 125 feet in depth, giving a frontage on Western avenue of fifty feet and on Ash street the same, plaintiff’s entire property running fifty feet in width from Western avenue to Ash street, including the alley. The lots fronting on Western avenue are mentioned by the witnesses as the front lots, and the others as the rear lots, and will be so referred to in this opinion.

The northwest corner of the north rear lot, numbered 22, is a little more than seventy-five feet south of the drainage channel, and the northeast corner of the north front lot, numbered 11, is a little more than 175 feet south of the drainage channel, as shown by appellee’s plat. On the north front lot is a brick one-and-a-half-story cottage, with a frame basement, which was erected over seventeen years ago. On the rear lots there is a rendering and soap factory and barn. Appellee’s attorney, on the trial, offered in evidence a plat to illustrate the location of the channel, the grades, roadways, bridges and surroundings of appellee’s property, and examined a witness in reference to it, but it does not appear that it was admitted in evidence, or any ruling in regard to it, and there is no plat in the record showing these things.

Appellee conducted a rendering and soft soap factory on her rear lots prior to the fall of 1895, when work was commenced on that part of the drainage channel in the vicinity of her property, and, at the time of the trial, was still engaged in that business. The drainage channel runs northeast and southwest, cutting through Thirty-first street and Ash street north of appellee’s property. Thirty-first street is about 250 feet north of the property, as shown by appellee’s plat. The damage complained of is the cutting off access to the rear lots, the causing water to flow into the basement of appellee’s house, rendering such basement useless and uninhabitable, the settling and cracking of the walls of the house by reason of such flow of water, etc.

Appellee, in her examination in chief, testified that the value of her property, at the time they started to dig the channel, including the whole business, was about §30,000, and that the decrease in value by reason of the work was about $12,000. Being recalled, as a witness for herself, she testified that when she before said that the damage was $12,000, she meant that the damage to the real estate, without reference to the business, was $12,000, but that she eonsidered the damage to her property, as a whole, about $29,000. On cross-examination she testified that the profits were the main thing in her estimate; that the value of her property was $30,000; that in such estimate she included about $15,000 for profits. John Fitzpatrick, a witness for appellee, also considered, in his estimates of value and depreciation, the difference between profits made before the work commenced and the profits which he considered might be made in the business thereafter. The following occurred in the examination of the witness:

“ Q. Do you, or do you not, mean to be understood as saying that the real estate there, for any purpose, was worth $45,000 ? A. Eo, not in that way.
“ Q. What do you mean ? A. Why, that the difference in the profits of the business, or the difference in the percentage now and before that.”

This testimony was given after appellee had testified, as heretofore stated, and had also testified that she had made in her business $800 and $900 per month. Hale, another witness for appellee, included in his estimate of value, $18,000 on account of the business which had been established on the premises.

At the conclusion of appellee’s evidence in chief, appellant’s attorney moved the court to exclude from the jury all evidence showing the amount of profit derived from appellee’s business, which motion the court overruled and appellant’s attorney excepted. Appellant’s attorney then moved to exclude all testimony as to the value of the business separate and apart from the property, or over and above the property, whereupon the court said : “ If the motion is made as to that line of testimony that came out in response to your own questions, it is overruled. If there is any that was introduced over your objections by them, and you will call my attention to it, I will exclude it;” to which ruling an exception was preserved. It appears, from a colloquy between the court and appellant’s attorney during the trial, that the court ruled as it did, because it Avas the understanding of the court that the evidence as to profits was brought out in the first instance by appellant’s attorney. This is true, in so far as the express evidence of appellee as to profits is concerned, but the evidence was brought out in the legitimate cross-examination of appellee, and the fact that it was so brought out, is not a sufficient reason for refusing to exclude it from the consideration of the jury. Appellee, on direct, testified, as before stated, that while the damage to her realty was $12,000, the damage to her property, as a whole, was $29,000. It was entirely competent to interrogate her, on cross-examination, as to the elements of her estimate, as to how she figured value and damage, and to inquire whether she included the profits of her business in her estimate, and if so, how much profits. The testimony of a witness is frequently excluded altogether by reason of facts brought out on his cross-examination. That the evidence as to profits should not be considered by the jury in passing on the question of compensation to appellee was recognized as the law by the court, is evidenced by the following instruction, which the court gave to the jury:

“ The court instructs the jury that there can be no recovery for loss of business or loss of profits.”

The giving of this instruction did not, in our opinion, cure the error of refusing to exclude the evidence from the consideration of the jury before argument. The evidence not having been excluded, appellee’s counsel used it in his closing argument to the jury, saying:

“ It is undisputed that she made $800 a month out of this business, clear profit. You can not escape from that evidence. If that is the evidence, and undisputed and proven, you can not escape from giving her a just compensation, "full measure for the injury she has sustained. Eight hundred dollars a month is nine thousand six hundred dollars a year.”

Appellant’s attorney objected to these remarks, saying:

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Bluebook (online)
86 Ill. App. 392, 1899 Ill. App. LEXIS 240, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sanitary-district-of-chicago-v-mcguirl-illappct-1900.