State Ex Rel. Road Commission v. Noble

335 P.2d 831, 8 Utah 2d 405, 1959 Utah LEXIS 176
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 2, 1959
Docket8884
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 335 P.2d 831 (State Ex Rel. Road Commission v. Noble) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Ex Rel. Road Commission v. Noble, 335 P.2d 831, 8 Utah 2d 405, 1959 Utah LEXIS 176 (Utah 1959).

Opinions

WADE, Justice.

The State brings this appeal from a judgment in a condemnation case awarding Mr. and Mrs. Noble $175,000. In a former appeal we reversed an award of $150,000 because it was not supported by substantial evidence and remanded the case for a new trial.1 For a more detailed statement of the facts and our holdings on that appeal see the former opinion.

On the retrial the jury returned a verdict for $25,000 more than the previous verdict. On the State’s petition the trial court ordered a new trial unless the defendants offered to remit $35,000 from such judgment and further ruled that if the State refused to accept defendants’ offer to remit, the motion for a new trial was denied. The defendants offered to make the required remittance, but the State refused to accept and brings this appeal, again contending that the judgment is not supported by the evidence.

Is the defendants’ evidence sufficient to support the jury’s award, is the question confronting us. The suit was brought to condemn 8.1 acres of land at the boundary line between Salt Lake and Davis Counties north of Salt Lake City. When the State was awarded possession on July 22, 1955, 595 feet fronted on the east side of U. S. Highway 91. The tract is also 595 feet deep from the east boundary line of the [407]*407"highway and runs easterly up the mountain side. Fronting on the highway was a brick dwelling, an office building and antique shop, a garage, a building housing washrooms and restrooms for occupants of the trailer park and 32 auto-trailer spaces, all of which were provided with water and sewer facilities. This land was on a •side hill between the mountain to the east and the highway to the west, with a steep •slope up toward the mountain on the eastern side. It was covered with deep layers of sand and gravel with all of the topsoil east of the improvements removed, The defendants’ evidence based on engineers’ estimates from drillings on the land indicated there were approximately 355,222 tons of fine sand and approximately 944,646 tons of a mixture of gravel on the property available for sale, making a total of 1,299,868 tons of sand and gravel.

By our previous decision we reversed the jury verdict holding it was not supported by the evidence. In so doing we said:

“As heretofore observed all of the expert witnesses who testified for defendants fixed the value of the land by finding the product of the total tons of sand and gravel times the price per ton. Such is not the proper method of fixing the fair market value of the property. Courts have with great unanimity rejected the proposition that just compensation is the equivalent of the total profits which would be realized from the future operations of the property. The measure of damages is (said to be) the market value of the property and not the output thereof. The accepted formula for determining fair market value is not how much would the property produce over a period of fifteen years, but what would a purchaser willing to buy but not required *to do so, pay and what would a seller willing to sell but not required to do so, ask.
“As will be observed from the cases hereafter considered, the defendants are not entitled to the value of the sand and gravel independently of the land of which it is part, nor considered as merchandise. The land must be valued as land with the sand and gravel given due consideration as a component part of the land, and evidence of the amount, quality and value of the sand and gravel may be considered.”

Contrary to the State’s contentions, the defendants’ witnesses did not fix the value of the property at the net price per ton of the sand and gravel multiplied by the number of tons available for sale on the property. The State relies on the testimony of defendant Mr. Noble in making such contention. Noble, after describing the condition of the property and the improvements thereon, gave his opinion that $300,-000 was its market value at the time of [408]*408taking. He only mentioned the items by which he arrived at this value when the State recalled him and pressed him to disclose how he arrived at the value he fixed. Then he testified that he figured the replacement cost of the buildings and improvements at $44,000- less $4,000 depreciation. He figured the 595 feet fronting on the highway at $100 per front foot or $59,000. He figured 355,222 tons» of sand would sell for a net total profit of $213,133.-20 and 944,646 tons of gravel would sell for a net total profit of $377,858.40, and totaled all of these items at $690,491.60. He gave his opinion that all the sand and gravel could have been sold at such rate within three years after the State took possession. He explained his estimate of 15 years to make the sale in the previous trial as a device to spread the income over a longer period for income tax purposes.

He explained that property with sand and gravel, frontage and improvements worth more than $690,000 surely would sell for a lump sum on the open market of $300,000, or less than half of the total value of the various items which he considered. This does not fix the market price at the amount the sand and gravel could be sold for over a period of years, but fixes it.at less than half of all the items which he considered. Obviously it is an attempt to take into consideration these various items which contribute to the value of the property and to conclude therefrom what a willing buyer who was not required to buy would pay to a willing seller who was under no compulsion to sell on the open market. This shows that his opinion was based on due consideration of the frontage on the highway, the improvements on the land and the deposits of sand and gravel, and that the evidence supports the verdict.

In our former decision we found two related defects in the evidence from which we concluded that the verdict was not supported by competent evidence. (1) We held that' fair market value of condemned property should not be determined on the basis of piecemeal future sales, but on what the property could be sold for as a unit to a willing buyer by a willing seller without compulsion. (2) We held that the fair market value cannot be projected by multiplying the estimated tons of sand and gravel on the property by the estimated net price per ton which might be realized by future sales.

On the other hand, we indicated that the quantity and quality of sand and gravel on the property, together with the probable net profits therefrom by future sales, were admissible in evidence and could be considered by the jury and by experts in arriving at the fair market value of the property. The authorities definitely SO' hold: In 4 Nichols on Eminent Domain 243-245 it is said:

[409]*409«* * * 'phg ruie jg widely prevalent in this country that the existence of mineral deposits in or on land is an element to be considered in determining the market value of such land. Also as in the case of vegetable growths, the rule has been correlatively stated that the value of such mineral deposits cannot be separately determined independently of the land of which it is a part. It cannot he considered as so much potential merchandise to he evaluated as such. The land taken must be valued as land with the factor of mineral deposits given due consideration. In determining the just compensation to be paid to the owner it is not permissible to aggregate the value of the land and the value of the deposit.

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State Ex Rel. Road Commission v. Noble
335 P.2d 831 (Utah Supreme Court, 1959)

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Bluebook (online)
335 P.2d 831, 8 Utah 2d 405, 1959 Utah LEXIS 176, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-road-commission-v-noble-utah-1959.