People ex rel. Department of Public Works v. Home Trust Investment Co.

Opinion

ROTH, P. J. Home Trust Investment Company and Bixby Hills Investment Company appeal from a judgment entered pursuant to a jury award of $526,000 as just compensation for condemnation of land to be used for freeway purposes.

On November 14, 1966, the date respondent filed its complaint in eminent domain, appellants were the owners of two large tracts of land (Tracts 21067 and 23482) in Long Beach. The proposed freeway was projected on Seventh Street, the southern boundary of the property. The property consisted of 288 R-l zoned lots situated between Seventh Street and the Los Cerritos Drain, several R-3 zoned lots located north of the Los Cerritos Drain, and a large R-4 zoned lot situated north of Seventh Street and west of the R-l property. The R-l property is approximately bisected by Bixby Hill Road, which parallels Seventh Street to the north.

Appellants’ property had been subdivided to. become “a luxury class residential community.” At the time this action was filed, several model [1026]homes had been constructed and some paving and curbing was completed. It appears that all of the improvements were located along B'ixby Hill Road, and that no improvements had been made in the southern portions of the property along Seventh Street.

The portions of the property condemned were 22 full and nine partial lots, some portions which were to become streets in the subdivision, and a small corner of the R-4 property, Predicated upon a stipulation supplemented by oral evidence the court determined which portions of the property should be considered the larger parcel for the purpose of determining severance damages. The determination was that the R-4 lot which consisted of eight and one-half acres, was the larger portion from which the small corner was taken, and that the southern half of the R-l property (from Bixby Hill Road) was the larger portion from which the R-l lots were taken. This determination is not questioned on appeal.

Appellants argue that rulings of court prejudicial to them misled the jury as a consequence of which less than just and reasonable compensation was allowed for the condemned property.

Appellants urge that they were improperly denied the right to show that additional damages would accrue because of delay in the construction of the proposed freeway since no construction was planned until the mid-1970’s. All appraisers were instructed to assume for the purpose of estimating damages that damages were to be fixed as of the date that the complaint was filed, i.e., November 14, 1966. The court, however, did permit appellants’ appraiser to present to the jury his opinion of costs which properly and necessarily would be incurred by the resubdivision of appellants’ property caused by the condemnation proceeding. Appellants cite no authority for their position. Section 1248 of the Code of Civil Procedure implies and California cases have established that the proper valuation date is the date of the commencement of the action. “[T]he state ‘could have fixed the time when the property was “taken” ’ by instituting, as early as it chose, an action to condemn whatever interest [appellant] owned in the property in issue. In this fashion it could have set the date of valuation at the date the summons was served and required [appellant] to accept such damages as might have been awarded by a verdict predetermining the impact of the projected freeway upon [appellants’] property even before any actual construction had been undertaken.” (Pierpont Inn, Inc. v. State of California, 70 Cal.2d 282, 293 [74 Cal.Rptr. 521, 449 P.2d 737]; People ex rel. Dept. of Public Works v. Schultz Co., 123 Cal.App.2d 925, 933 [268 P.2d 117].)