City of Los Angeles v. Kossman

FOURT, J. This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of plaintiff in a condemnation proceeding.

Appellants in substance contend that they are entitled to recover as elements of damages certain expenses incurred by them in undertaking to mitigate the City’s damages. Their contentions are without merit.

Appellants at the time of trial owned a certain parcel of real property situated on the northwest comer of Hoover Street and 25th Street in the City of Los Angeles. On or about April 8, 1966, the City instituted in the superior court an action in condemnation naming as defendants the Kossmans and owners of adjacent properties along Hoover Street over which the City desired to obtain permanent easements for the purpose of street widening.

The Kossmans’ property is bounded for approximately 118 feet by Hoover Street and runs for about 150 feet along 25th Street. At the time this action arose the Kossmans owned and operated on their premises a commercial laundry which in part serviced the entire Los Angeles area by means of a system of delivery trucks. This laundry handled the cleaning and pressing of shirts, sheets and other finished items for retail laundry outlets in locations convenient to customers throughout the county. It also handled substantial industrial accounts which it billed on a monthly basis for supplying clean work clothes, wiping rags, and miscellaneous items. This operation utilized an established work flow route within the plant. Soiled laundry was delivered to the yard off 25th Street, was marked for identification, and was then systematically processed by in turn soaking, washing, drying, ironing, and finally packaging it for return to the customer. In the process the laundered items executed a turn through the plant and were returned to the curb at 25th Street for reloading onto the delivery trucks at the end of the completed circuit.

The City initially contemplated two kinds of taking of appellants’ property: the permanent taking of the portion to be utilized for a roadway easement and a temporary taking or use of a part of the remainder for a period of approximately [118]one year to allow for the demolition of certain buildings which were situated partly within the strip permanently taken and partly on the remainder of the parcel. The permanent taking of the Kossman property consisted of a strip of land approximately 18% feet deep and 118 feet long bordering Hoover Street, plus a small additional triangular comer cut at the intersection of Hoover Street and 25th Street. Two 2-story buildings which fronted on Hoover Street had to be demolished in order to accomplish the City’s purpose. Since these buildings were integrally united and related with certain buildings at the rear of the property, the City would have to occupy temporarily the buildings situated on the remainder in order to effect demolition. The method of taking proposed by the City would have made it impossible for the Kossmans to continue the uninterrupted operation of their laundry business on the remainder property for the duration of the City’s occupancy. As a result of the Kossmans’ desire to prevent the temporary destruction of their business with its anticipated attendant loss of profit and permanent damage to goodwill, the Kossmans reached an agreement with the City which would allow them to rearrange their business property in a manner planned to permit continuous operation and thus mitigate damages.