State v. Christian

376 S.W.2d 803, 1964 Tex. App. LEXIS 2017
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 5, 1964
DocketNo. 6571
StatusPublished

This text of 376 S.W.2d 803 (State v. Christian) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Christian, 376 S.W.2d 803, 1964 Tex. App. LEXIS 2017 (Tex. Ct. App. 1964).

Opinion

HIGHTOWER, Chief Justice.

This is a condemnation suit brought by the State of Texas against J. F. Christian and certain of his lien holders to condemn 1.68S acres of land out of a 12.056 acre tract located in Orange County, Texas. The purpose of the taking was for the construction of a new controlled access highway, Interstate Highway 10. After the taking, the landowner Christian owned a remainder of 8.18 acres on the north side of the new highway and 2.191 acres lying between the south side of the new highway and the north side of U. S. Highway 90.

In reply to special issues submitted in accordance with those suggested in State v. Carpenter, 126 Tex. 604, 89 S.W.2d 194, the jury found the value of the land taken to be $4,000.00. It found values of the remaining property immediately before and immediately after the taking to be $61,-950.00 and $50,750.00, respectively; thus, a diminution in value to the remaining property of $11,200.00. State has appealed from the judgment of the trial court which was entered upon these findings of the jury. Its most serious contentions relate to the admission of evidence concerning the loss of trade to appellees’ business due to construction of the new highway. The following facts were developed by the evidence.

The business owned by appellees, Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Christian, was known as a [804]*804truck stop. It was on the north side of U. S. Highway 90 just west of Orange, Texas, for several years prior to the filing of the condemnation suit. Their land has some 250 feet of frontage on U. S. Highway 90 and their property was some 2,000 feet deep. The highway property in front of the Christian tract was improved with a culvert and driveway extending substantially the full width of the frontage. The driveway led onto the Christian property where was located a well-constructed, two-story building which served as a cafe and filling station. A short distance to the west was located another building referred to as a wash and grease rack. The area immediately in front of these buildings was paved with a concrete ramp. The front of the cafe and filling station had doors and plate glass windows. To the rear was located the Christian residence, a garage and a small tenant house. Along the east side of the property extending northward some 700 or 800 feet was a strip of land 50 feet wide which had been dedicated for road purposes. At least a portion of the east side was paved where trucks could park.

When the new highway was built, it was located some 400 feet north of U. S. Highway 90 and behind the truck stop and residence buildings on the Christian tract. The only improvements within the taken area were a barn, a pond and fences. Behind the taken area is now the Christian’s north remainder extending some 1,400 feet back from the new highway.

At the time of the trial the new highway had been completed and opened to traffic and Highway 90 was still open and the access therefrom to the remaining southern portion of the Christian property had not been impaired. After the new highway was opened most of the traffic preferred to travel thereon rather than Old Highway 90. As a result of the loss of traffic on the old highway, appellees’ business suffered.

At the outset of the trial the court overruled State’s motion to suppress any evidence of appellees’ loss of business due to loss of traffic on Highway 90 by reason of the construction of the new highway. Throughout the testimony of the witness Hall, counsel for appellees consistently and repeatedly questioned him regarding the public’s preference to use the new highway instead of the old one. Just as consistently and repeatedly counsel for State was required to object to such questioning, informing the court that the questions and answers were inadmissible for several stated reasons, among them being that “it was an attempt to recover damages to which the appellees were not entitled.” All of State's objections were overruled by the court, and Hall was permitted to give his opinion that appellees’ remaining property had been damaged because of the preference of the public to travel the new instead of the old highway.

A review of other testimony is necessary in order to pass upon the questions of both admissibility and harm. The witness Brea-zeale was permitted to testify in substance as follows: He examined appellees’ property as a contractor, not as an expert appraisal witness. He had made a study of the cost of moving the tenant house, the residence and the garage and lining them up on the west side of the property facing east, setting them back on sills, hooking them all up to a septic tank and up to water, electricity and gas. The cost of this work would be $3,150.00. It would cost $2,150.00 to build a steel frame canopy on the back of the building facing the new highway like the one on the front facing the old highway. Laying concrete culverts along the new frontage, building driveways up to the houses lined up on the west side, removing a few pine trees, building a driveway from the northwest corner over to the east side to the northeast corner down the line on the east side then back to the west side of the service station would cost $8,150.50. Moving the electrical service from the rear (which would be the new front) to the side would be $650.00. Pouring a con[805]*805Crete slab on the back side of the service station facing the new highway, the same as the one on the front of the service station, $1,920.00. Six billboard signs on the highway similar to Stuckey’s and Conn’s directing traffic to his location, $2,400.00. A new well, $895.00. Installing a concrete pipe at the access road from the west side to the east side, putting in four manholes and leveling it off with dirt (thus having a driveway on the new highway like the one on the old highway), $2,110.75. Rearranging doors and windows so that he could serve his customers from the back side of the building and draining the water off of the roof so that it would not seep down on the customers, $1,727.75. He stated that all of these alterations and additions, which totaled $23,150.00, were not depreciated but were for new construction which was necessary to bring the property back up to where it was before.

Mr. Davis, appellees’ only valuation witness, placed a value of $61,700.00 upon appellees’ remaining property immediately before the taking and $30,700.00 immediately after the taking; thus, a diminution in value or damage figure of $31,000.00. On voir dire and cross-examination of this witness, in an effort to establish that the opinion of Mr. Davis was based upon inadmissible matters, State elicited the following testimony: In arriving at the value of the remainder, Davis took into consideration the fact that the traveling public has a preference to travel over the new highway instead of the old one. He had heard Mr. Breazeale’s testimony. He had discussed the various parts of the $23,-150.00 improvement and remodeling job that Mr. Breazeale had outlined and had considered the same in trying to determine what it would take to conserve the highest and best use of the remaining property. The remaining property had decreased $31,-000.00 in value and $23,150.00 of that was due to the matters that Mr. Breazeale had detailed.

“Q. Mr. Davis, does the defendants’, Mr. and Mrs. Christian’s, south property have the same highest and best use now that it did before, after the taking as it did before ?
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“A.

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334 S.W.2d 546 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1960)
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242 S.W.2d 176 (Texas Supreme Court, 1951)
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366 S.W.2d 212 (Texas Supreme Court, 1963)
State v. Carpenter
89 S.W.2d 194 (Texas Supreme Court, 1936)
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181 S.W.2d 719 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1944)

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Bluebook (online)
376 S.W.2d 803, 1964 Tex. App. LEXIS 2017, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-christian-texapp-1964.