Smalley v. Ohio Department of Transportation, District 1

869 N.E.2d 777, 142 Ohio Misc. 2d 27
CourtOhio Court of Claims
DecidedMarch 15, 2007
DocketNo. 2005-10756-AD
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 869 N.E.2d 777 (Smalley v. Ohio Department of Transportation, District 1) 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
Smalley v. Ohio Department of Transportation, District 1, 869 N.E.2d 777, 142 Ohio Misc. 2d 27 (Ohio Super. Ct. 2007).

Opinion

BoRCHERT, Deputy Clerk.

{¶ 1} Plaintiff, James A. Smalley, owns land adjacent to and abutting the U.S. Route 30/U.S. Route 23 interchange in Wyandot County. Plaintiff stated that he planted two acres of soybeans in his fields abutting the U.S. Route 30/U.S. Route 23 interchange and that the beans failed to mature during the growing season of 2005. Plaintiff attributed this crop failure to the act of defendant, the Department of Transportation (“DOT”), of installing high mast lighting along the roadway interchange in Wyandot County in December 2004. Plaintiff asserted that this newly installed roadway lighting caused two acres of his soybean crop he planted in May 2005 to fail and he consequently was forced to mow down the failed portion of his crop.

{¶ 2} Plaintiff contended that two acres of his crop failed as a direct result of artificial light from the newly installed roadway lights bleeding onto his fields abutting the roadway. Plaintiff estimated that two acres of planted soybeans should yield about 120 bushels of beans. Plaintiff determined that he lost about $6 per bushel, for a total loss of $720. Plaintiff has asserted that defendant should bear the responsibility for his crop failure. Consequently, plaintiff filed this complaint seeking to recover $720. The filing fee was paid.

{¶ 3} Without waiving any defense, defendant disputed plaintiffs estimate of damages. Defendant produced evidence establishing that the actual loss plaintiff suffered when his two acres of crops failed was $512.94. Defendant produced a document from the United State Department of Agriculture showing “the average cost-per-acre to grow soybeans in this region of Ohio, calculating both operating costs and allocated overhead,” amounts to $256.47, relying on 2004 calculations. Therefore, defendant maintained that plaintiffs loss figure should be limited to $512.94, after reducing his operating costs/overhead expenses for two acres at 2004 prices. Plaintiff did not respond to defendant’s argument. Plaintiff did not offer any supporting evidence to establish that he had sustained a loss of $720.

{¶ 4} Defendant acknowledged that in December 2004, it completed work on the installation of high mast lighting on U.S. Route 30 expressway in Wyandot County. Defendant also acknowledged that the lighting was installed along the roadway area adjacent to plaintiffs fields. Defendant stated that it had installed this lighting to “safely illuminate the expressway.” Defendant further stated that [30]*30the 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, it was recorded that light did “occasionally bleed onto adjacent property [and] there is little doubt that defendant’s light encroaches upon plaintiffs property.” Defendant argued, however, that it cannot be held liable for any damage to plaintiffs bean crop caused by its light encroachment.

{¶ 5} Initially, defendant alleged that plaintiffs damage is not compen-sable due to the fact the injury claimed “falls under the doctrine of damnum absque injuria” (a loss for which there is no legal remedy). Defendant, citing Smith v. Erie RR. Co. (1938), 134 Ohio St. 135, 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 recovery is barred by the damnum absque injuria doctrine. The issue in Smith was the same as the issue in the instant case — 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 at 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 at paragraph two of the syllabus. Defendant has contended that its act of installing a roadway lighting system did not constitute a pro tanto taking of plaintiffs property and, consequently, any damage suffered is noncompensable. Defendant insisted that plaintiffs injury (impacted plant development) caused by the roadway lights was a harm suffered in degree by other landowners adjacent to a lighted highway. Therefore, defendant asserted 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 offered 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 harm caused to the general public, because the landowner’s legal status is categorized as damnum absque injuria. In Bucsi, a public improvement made the street on which plaintiffs lived a cul de sac, thus hindering ingress and egress to the property. The court determined that hindered access to a nonabutting-property owner is an injury of degree and not of kind. In the instant claim, [31]*31plaintiff 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 its act of installing the lights on U.S. Route 23/U.S. Route 30 was done in compliance with its obligation to make improvements upon highways for serving the public and promoting the public good and that none of plaintiffs property was taken by this public improvement. Defendant produced the following quote by the Ohio Supreme Court in the case of State ex rel. Schiederer v. Preston (1960), 170 Ohio St. 542, 544, 11 O.O.2d 369, 166 N.E.2d 748, quoting I Lewis on Eminent Domain (3d Ed.), 179 et seq., Section 120, to support this argument:

{¶ 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, no private right is interfered with and consequently no private property is taken.”

{¶ 9} The facts of State ex rel. Schiederer involved a situation in which a public roadway improvement raised the grade of part of a street in front of the land abutting that street, thereby interfering with the abutting land owner’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, 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.” Id., 170 Ohio St. at 548, 11 O.O.2d 369, 166 N.E.2d 748. The holding in the previously mentioned case has no bearing on the action before this court.

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Bluebook (online)
869 N.E.2d 777, 142 Ohio Misc. 2d 27, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smalley-v-ohio-department-of-transportation-district-1-ohioctcl-2007.