This Court accepts the construction of a state statute as to
condemnation of land given to it by the state court.
While, in condemnation proceedings, the mere mode of occupation
does not limit the right of an owner's recovery, the Fourteenth
Amendment does not require a disregard of the mode of ownership, or
require land to be valued as an unencumbered whole when not so
held.
Where one person owns the land condemned subject to servitudes
to
Page 217 U. S. 190
others, the parties in interest are not entitled to have damages
estimated as if the land were the sole property of one owner, nor
are they deprived of their property without due process of law
within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment because each is
awarded the value of his respective interest in the property.
195 Mass. 338 affirmed.
The facts are stated in the opinion.
Page 217 U. S. 193
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a petition for the assessment of damages caused by the
laying out of a public street over 2,955 square feet of land at the
apex of a triangle between India Street and Central Wharf Street in
Boston, the latter being a private way between Milk Street and
Atlantic Avenue, laid out by the same order, as part of the same
street. The Chamber of Commerce had a building at the base of the
triangle, and owned the fee of the land taken. The Central Wharf
& Wet Dock Corporation, which owned other land abutting on the
new street, had an easement of way, light, and air over the land in
question, and the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank held a mortgage on
the same, subject to the easement. These three were the only
parties having any interests in the land. They filed an agreement
in the case that the damages might be assessed in a lump sum, the
City of Boston refusing to assent, and they contended that it was
their right, as matter of law, under the Massachusetts statute,
Rev.Laws c. 48, ยงยง 20-22, and the Fourteenth Amendment, to recover
the full value of the land taken, considered as an unrestricted
fee. The city, on the other hand, offered to show that, the
restriction being of great value to the Central Wharf & Wet
Dock Corporation, the damage to the market value of the estate of
the Chamber of Commerce was little or nothing, and contended that
the damages must be assessed according to the condition of the
title at act date of the order laying out the street. It contended
that the jury could consider the improbability of the easement
being released, as it might affect the mind of a possible purchaser
of the servient estate, and that the dominant owner could recover
nothing, as it lost nothing by the superposition of a public
easement upon its own. The parties agreed that, if the petitioners
were right, the damages should be assessed at $60,000, without
interest, but if the city was right, they should be $5,000. The
judge before whom the case was tried ruled in favor of the city,
and this ruling was sustained by the Supreme
Page 217 U. S. 194
Judicial Court upon report. 195 Mass. 338. A judgment was
entered in the court where the record remained, and then the case
was brought here.
We assume in favor of the petitioners, the plaintiffs in error,
that their only remedy was under the statute, and we give them the
benefit of the doubt in interpreting the decision of the court so
far as to take it to mean that the statutes of Massachusetts
authorize the taking of land held as this was with no other
compensation than according to the principle laid down. In short,
we assume in their favor that the constitutional question is open,
and that the case properly is not to be dismissed. But we are of
opinion that, upon the only possible question before us here, the
decision was right.
Of course, we accept the construction given to the Massachusetts
statute by the state court.
Maiorano v. Baltimore & Ohio R.
Co., 213 U. S. 268,
213 U. S. 272.
The only question to be considered is whether, when a man's land is
taken, he is entitled, by the Fourteenth Amendment, to recover more
than the value of it as it stood at the time. For it is to be
observed that the petitioners did not merely contend that they were
entitled to have the jury consider the chance of getting a release,
for whatever it might add to the market value of the land, as the
city merely contended that the jury should consider the chance of
not getting one. The petitioners contended that they had a right,
as matter of law, under the Constitution, after the taking was
complete and all rights were fixed, to obtain the connivance or
concurrence of the dominant owner, and by means of that to enlarge
a recovery that otherwise would be limited to a relatively small
sum. It might be perfectly clear that the dominant owner never
would have released short of a purchase of the dominant estate --
in other words, that the servitude must have been maintained in the
interest of lands not before the court -- but still, according to
the contention, by a simple joinder of parties after the taking,
the city could be made to pay for a loss of theoretical creation,
suffered by no one in fact
The statement of the contention seems to us to be enough.
Page 217 U. S. 195
It is true that the mere mode of occupation does not necessarily
limit the right of an owner's recovery.
Boom Co. v.
Patterson, 98 U. S. 403,
98 U. S. 408;
Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Barber Asphalt Co.,
197 U. S. 430,
197 U. S. 435.
But the Constitution does not require a disregard of the mode of
ownership -- of the state of the title. It does not require a
parcel of land to be valued as an unencumbered whole when it is not
held as an unencumbered whole. It merely requires that an owner of
property taken should be paid for what is taken from him. It deals
with persons, not with tracts of land. And the question is, what
has the owner lost? not, what has the taker gained? We regard it as
entirely plain that the petitioners were not entitled as matter of
law to have the damages estimated as if the land was the sole
property of one owner, and therefore are not entitled to $60,000
under their agreement.
See Bartlett v. Bangor, 67 Me. 460,
468;
Walker v. Manchester, 58 N.H. 438, 441;
Gamble v.
Philadelphia, 162 Pa. 413;
In re Adams, 141 N.Y. 297;
Olean v. Steyner, 135 N.Y. 341, 346;
Crowell v.
Beverly, 134 Mass. 98. There is some subordinate criticism
under the alternative agreement, giving them only $5,000. It is
noticed that this was conditioned upon the petitioners' not being
entitled, as just stated, and upon the admissibility of the
evidence offered by the city, and upon the substantial correctness
of the requests for rulings, and it is said that the evidence was
not admissible. It seems to us that the worst objection to it was
that it was offered to prove the obvious. But, taking the agreement
fairly, we think it meant only to contrast broadly the position of
the two sides, and made the result depend upon which was right.
Judgment affirmed.