Stuhr v. City of Grand Island

246 N.W. 461, 124 Neb. 285, 1933 Neb. LEXIS 21
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 20, 1933
DocketNo. 28131
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 246 N.W. 461 (Stuhr v. City of Grand Island) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stuhr v. City of Grand Island, 246 N.W. 461, 124 Neb. 285, 1933 Neb. LEXIS 21 (Neb. 1933).

Opinion

Goss, C. J.

This ease, involving a judgment for damages .arising out of condemnation of plaintiff’s land for a sewer, was heard by one of the divisions of the court, and an opinion was adopted reversing the judgment of the district court. Stuhr v. City of Grand Island, 123 Neb. 369. A motion for rehearing was duly filed. On consideration thereof-an oral argument on the motion was allowed and had by the full court. The case was fully reargued — as if on the merits.

An injunction suit between the same parties, arising over the sewer, was previously before this court. Stuhr v. City of Grand Island, 120 Neb. 491. In the injunction case we affirmed a final order of the district court enjoining the city from conducting its sanitary sewage through an open canal on the land condemned “until such a time that said city shall, by the construction of an adequate disposal plant, or by other appropriate means, render the output of the sewage of such city, which flows past the lands of the plaintiff, and which may be carried thereon by overflow, clear and odorless, with the contents of organic matter sufficiently oxidized so that it is nonputrescible and incapable of causing a nuisance.”

In commenting on the effect of the injunction and on testimony that, notwithstanding the injunction, the sewer will emit noxious and offensive odors and thus damage property not taken, the opinion in the present case says: “Notwithstanding the question of committing a nuisance seems to have been foreclosed in that case, the trial court in this case permitted witnesses to testify that this sewer would exhale noxious and offensive odors to the extent of becoming a nuisance and endangering the health of persons living in that vicinity. In view of the present state of the record, any evidence offered at the trial o.f this case under a claim that the present improvement [287]*287would diminish the value of the land unappropriated by making the same uninhabitable or unfit for habitation was incompetent and improper and the jury should not have been permitted to hear testimony in support of such an element of damage.” Stuhr v. City of Grand Island, 123 Neb. 369.

We think the foregoing comment unduly restricted plaintiff’s rights under the facts and the law. The sanitary sewage from the closed sewer was the main subject-matter of the injunction suit, but the decision of the district court that “the building of the open storm sewer, such as contemplated by the defendants at the inception of the suit, would not, in itself and disconnected with the problem of an influx and overflow of sewage from Wood river at the proposed outlet, constitute a nuisance or endanger the health of the plaintiffs to the extent that it should be enjoined.” Stuhr v. City of Grand Island, 120 Neb. 491. So while, under the facts in that record, the decision refused to consider the open ditch through plaintiff’s land a nuisance, and therefore declined to enjoin it, yet it was not intended by the decision in that case to impair plaintiff’s right to prove any proper elements of damages when he should seek compensation for his property condemned and damages to the rest of his land not taken but affected by the creation and use of the sewer. The opinion under reexamination holds that in his action for damages plaintiff (1) may not use evidence as to the effect of the content of the open sewer, (2) may not show a present market value of his land for subdivision by reason of its proximity to Grand Island, and (3) may not show that the gravel on his land makes a market value beyond that for farming purposes. We think this was in some respects too restrictive of plaintiff’s rights, and to some extent misinterpreted that which was involved. The reversal having been arrived at largely on the ground above named, and other assignments not having been discussed, we are constrained to reconsider the entire appeal on the merits. So many of the geographical and general facts [288]*288appear in the statements of the former opinions we will not restate them here.

Appellant’s first assignment is that the court erred in failing to instruct the jury as to the material issues in the case. The first three instructions state what the parties pleaded, - respectively, in the amended petition, the answer and the reply. The first instruction abstracts and condenses the amended petition, which the record does not show to have been attacked. The instruction concisely describes the plaintiff’s land and improvements and the sewer to be dug across it — all as set forth at greater length in the petition. It recites that plaintiff alleges his land adjoins the city of Grand Island, abuts on the present and proposed Lincoln Highway, is in part highly productive for agricultural purposes, in part desirable for acreage tracts for home purposes, and in part valuable because of gravel deposit thereon. It states that plaintiff seeks to recover $2,400 damages for the four acres actually appropriated and $23,500 for the depreciation arising to the remaining land. It sets out the allegations as to damages on the phase last above in the following particulars: (1) The open ditch (dimensions described) with the dirt excavated therefrom will be unsightly, and the water therein (described as to qualities) will pollute the water supply of the tract and will be dangerous to life and health of those living near and of live stock kept on the tract; (2) the removal and relocation of improvements, the fencing and its maintenance necessitated; (3) the gravel deposits on the remaining tract and the present railroad trackage will be separated; (4) the main body of plaintiff’s land will be segregated from its one tract of ten acres and another tract of one-half acre — requiring the building of a bridge. In succeeding instructions the court told the jury that the answer raised issues on these matters and then described the burden of proof upon plaintiff to prove the material allegations of the petition by a preponderence of the evidence. So the court intended, and the jury must be considered to have under[289]*289stood, that the foregoing items constituted the material allegations, elements or particulars in which plaintiff was damaged, if at all. These matters were so plain and simple, and had been gone over so much in the trial, that the failure of the court to state and number each item separately and to tell the jury in specific words that these were the “material allegations” did not have any tendency to mislead the jury. It did not constitute prejudicial error. Murray v. Burd, 65 Neb. 427; Van Horn v. Cooper & Cole Bros., 88 Neb. 687, 693. If all these matters and elements were material, then the court adequately stated them and properly submitted them.

It is next assigned that the court erred in holding that the damages should be assessed as of October 21, 1925, the date of the passage of the ordinance appropriating the land. Appellant seems to concede that this is the general rule, but argues that an exception should be made here and the taking of the land should be considered to have been accomplished as of the date of the trial. Where land is taken from an owner by the power of eminent domain, he is entitled to the full market value as of the date it was appropriated. Stewart v. City of Lincoln, 108 Neb. 825. Valuation for railroad right of way is fixed as of the time of taking; application for appointment of commissioners to assess damages constitutes a taking. Northeastern N. R. Co. v. Frazier, 25 Neb. 53; Fremont, E. & M. V. R. Co. v. Bates, 40 Neb. 381.

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Bluebook (online)
246 N.W. 461, 124 Neb. 285, 1933 Neb. LEXIS 21, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stuhr-v-city-of-grand-island-neb-1933.