EMINENT DOMAIN - MEASURE OF COMPENSATION - ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE OF PAST PROFITS

Authors

Alfred G. Ellick Jr., University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Plaintiff corporation, lessee for a term of ten years of a tract of real estate located at the intersection of a main highway and the tracks of the lessor railroad, was engaged in the poultry business and in the retail buying and selling of automobile equipment. The location of the plaintiff's leasehold enabled the plaintiff to effect many economies in the operation of its business. The defendant municipality constructed a viaduct over the railroad tracks in such a manner that, while none of the plaintiff's property was actually taken, its usefulness as a retail outlet was destroyed. Plaintiff brought suit for damages and attempted to introduce evidence of past profits for the purpose of establishing the market value of its leasehold interest. In its first opinion the court sustained the trial court in refusing to admit such evidence. In a supplemental opinion, held, that evidence of past profits, if established with reasonable certainty, "may be admitted, not as an independent or separate element of damage, but for the purpose of showing the value peculiar to the leasehold and its location." James Poultry Co. v. Nebraska City, 135 Neb. 787, 284 N. W. 273, 136 Neb. 456, 286 N. W. 337 (1939).

Recommended Citation

Alfred G. Ellick Jr., EMINENT DOMAIN - MEASURE OF COMPENSATION - ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE OF PAST PROFITS, 39 Mich. L. Rev. 161 (1940).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol39/iss1/19