NAPA UNION HIGH SCHOOL DIST. OF NAPA CTY. v. Lewis

VAN DYKE, P. J.

This is an appeal from a judgment awarding appellant the sum of $48,000 as the value of 40 acres of land condemned by the respondent. The land taken was part of a larger tract owned by the appellant which contained 245 acres. No issue as to severance damage was presented in the case. There were three value witnesses, two called by appellant and one by respondent. All agreed that the highest and best use of the entire holding, as well as of the land taken, was subdivision for residential purposes. One value witness called by appellant testified that the value of the property taken was $92,000; another witness for appellant testified the value was $116,500. Respondent’s value witness testified that the land taken was worth $40,000. All three witnesses testified that, considering the highest and best use of the property, they had arrived at their values by calculating the cost of subdivision and improvement so that lots could be sold for residential purposes. Appellant’s witnesses, treating the 245 acres as a unit, estimated the cost of its subdivision and improvement and then apportioned to the 40 acres its share of that cost. By this method they proposed to arrive at a value per lot for the lots that would be produced within the 40 acres and to fix the value of the 40 acres as the total value of the lots. Respondent’s value witness estimated the

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cost of subdividing and improving the 40 acres as a unit and then by arriving at approximately the same number of lots producible in the 40 acres, and by giving the lots approximately the same value as had appellant’s witnesses, arrived at a value, which, as noted, was approximately one-half the value arrived at by appellant’s witnesses. It was made obvious by all the testimony that the cost of subdivision and improvement of the 40 acres would be much greater per lot if the 40 acres should be subdivided and improved as a unit than it would be if the whole tract should be subdivided.

Without going into detailed references to the testimony of the several value witnesses, it may be said that this difference in view developed early in the case and was the subject of considerable argument by counsel addressed to the court, and that during the course of the trial the court, adopting the view of respondent, compelled appellant’s value witnesses to adjust their testimony to the method approved by the court. The result was to largely destroy their testimony of the value of the land taken. In effect, the case was submitted to the jury in such a way that the jury, in considering the testimony of the witnesses as to value must have discounted the values arrived at by the methods used by appellant’s witnesses and must have accepted the values arrived at by respondent’s witness. This is reflected in the jury’s verdict since the verdict was only slightly higher than the value placed upon the land by respondent’s witness. There was no material difference in the estimated cost of subdivision and improvement as to such necessary units as water mains, main sewers and the like, whether the 40 acres would be subdivided and developed alone or in conjunction with the whole tract; and there was not much difference between the testimony of the witnesses as to the value of the lots that would be produced. The result was that, with minor differences not material here, all the witnesses took the gross value of the lots to be produced in the 40 acres but the respondent’s witness subtracted therefrom the cost of subdivision and improvement of the 40 acres considered by itself and then arrived at his figure of about $40,000 as the value of the 40 acres. The appellant’s witnesses sought to spread over the entire tract the cost of improving the whole, and to then subtract the amount apportioned to the 40 acres from the gross value of the lots to be produced therein, thus arriving at a much higher figure for the value of the land taken.