People ex rel. Department of Public Works v. Nyrin

15, 16 and 17 to help the hospital, which was then in operation. The lessor and lessees agreed that the leased property would be used for joint parking for the hospital and the medical building. The medical building was completed in 1958. Herman Kaye was the manager of the medical building from the time it was built until it was sold to appellant on May 4, 1962. Construction of the medical building was financed in part by a loan from John Hancock Life Insurance Co. which was secured by a deed of trust on lots 15, 16 and 17 and an assignment of the lessees’ interest in the 50-year parking lot lease on lots 18, 19 and 20. Through a series of conveyances not material to the issues before us, Dolores D. Kaye, the wife of Herman Kaye, acquired fee title to the medical building in the summer of 1960.

Prior thereto, Herman Kaye had purchased the interests of his partners in the medical building and to secure the purchase money obligation had executed a deed of trust in favor of Milton Greene, trustee for the selling partners, covering lots 15, 16 and 17 and the lessees’ interest in the 50-year parking lot lease in lots 18, 19 and 20. On February 2, 1960 the owners of lots 18 through 28 leased all of these lots to AMA Corporation, as lessee “for the purpose of conducting therein a Hospital, and for no other purpose” for a term of 10 years. Mr. Kaye was the president of the lessee corporation and became the president and operating manager of the hospital. On October 1, 1960, AMA Corporation leased lots 18, 19 and 20 to Dolores D. Kaye, as lessee for a term of 10 years, to be used by her “in connection with her enjoyment and use of the Bradford Medical Building.” In 1960 and 1961 Messrs. Kaye and Harris and their successors in interest in lots 15, 16 and 17 executed quit claim deeds to Dolores D. Kaye for the purpose of clearing those lots of the 50-year parking lot lease. When appellant purchased the medical building on May 4, 1962, all liens against lots 15, 16 and 17 were paid. Since payment of a debt extinguishes the security therefor, (Civ. Code, § 1473; Singleton v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 127 Cal. App. 635 [ 16 P.2d 293 ] ; 34 Cal.Jur.2d, Mortgages and Trust Deeds, § 356, p. 24) the security interests of John Hancock Life Insurance Company and Milton D. Greene, trustees in the lessees’ interest in the 50-year parking lot lease on lots 18, 19 and 20, were eliminated by appellant’s purchase.

From the time it opened, the medical building was operated as practically part of the hospital. There was no pharmacy in the hospital. There was a pharmacy in the medical building

where the hospital pharmacist was employed and where the pharmacist filled all hospital patients’ prescriptions. The hospital laboratory as well as the hospital radiologist were located in the medical building and did their work for the hospital from there. There was a restaurant in the medical building operated by Mr. Kaye. The kitchen facilities, food storage, main preparation of meals (“outside of short orders”) for the hospital were in the medical building basement. The number of doctors in tenancy in the medical building varied from 12 to 24. A condition for rental to a doctor in the medical building was that he have staff privileges at the hospital.

The entire parking area between the medical building and the hospital was used jointly by tenants, employees and guests of both buildings. Doctors who were tenants in the medical building and did surgery at the hospital would park nearest the hospital and leave their cars there all day; several tenant doctors never parked anywhere except on the area near the hospital. Employees who, in connection with the hospital, prepared the food or worked in the pharmacy or in the laboratory, parked their cars, according to Mr. Kaye, ‘1 anywhere in the whole area, [i.e. lots 18-23] wherever they went to first that morning, they usually left it for the rest of the day just like the doctors.” During hospital visiting hours, visitors parked on the entire area. Doctors who were not tenants of the medical building used lots 18, 19 and 20 for parking while on calls to the hospital.

The evidence was sufficient to support a finding that unity of use and ownership existed as to Parcel 7 and lots 21 through 28 unless we must conclude, as a matter of law, that these unities could not exist by reason of the various parking lot leases that were outstanding against the propert3L No such conclusion is required.

Unity of Use. Unity of use has been defined as “a connection or relation of adaptation, convenience, and actual and permanent use [such] as to make the enjoyment of the parcel taken reasonably and substantially necessary to the enjoyment of the parcels left, in the most advantageous and profitable manner in the business for which they are used.” (City of Stockton v. Marengo, 137 Cal.App. 760 , 766 [ 31 P.2d 467 ].) Unity of use does not exist where the condemned parcel and the remaining parcel are used separately (Sharp v. United States, 191 U.S. 341 [ 48 L.Ed. 2 .11, 24 S.Ct. 114 ]; City of Menlo Parle v. Artino, supra, 151 Cal.App.2d 261 , 270; City

of Stockton v. Marengo, supra, at p. 767), but is not necessarily defeated by the fact that the remaining parcel is not put to any independent use. (People v. Thompson, 43 Cal.2d 13 .26 [271 P.2d507].)

The evidence shows that Parcel 7 was used for the benefit of the hospital from the time the medical building was built in 1958 to the date of condition. The lessees under the 50-year lease of January 10, 1956, agreed that Parcel 7 was to be jointly used by the hospital and the medical building. The medical building was built and used for the benefit of the hospital and from 1960 on the hospital and medical building were under the same management. AMA Corporation, the lessee of the hospital, was also the master lessee of Parcel 7. Appellant argues that the sublease of Parcel 7 by AMA Corporation to Dolores D. Kaye gave her the exclusive right to use that area. As we have noted, the master lease to lots 18 through 28 held by AMA Corporation as lessee was “for the purpose of conducting therein a Hospital and for no other purpose. ’ ’ Mrs. Kaye, as sublessee, could have had no broader right to use the parking lot under the sublease than AMA Corporation had under the master lease. (Baranov v. Scudder, 177 Cal. 458 [ 170 P. 1122 ].) Therefore, the sublease could not have derogated from the right of the owners of the hospital to require that Parcel 7 be available for hospital parking. The existence of the sublease, therefore, does not compel a conclusion that there was diversity of use between Parcel 7 and the hospital property.

Unity of Ownership. “ [T]he fact that several tracts are owned by different persons does not preclude them from being regarded as one where they are contiguous and are used in common by the owners under a contract or other arrangement and each tract is more valuable by reason of that use than if used separately.” (29A Corpus Juris Secundum, Eminent Domain, § 140, p. 595; City of Stockton v. Ellingwood, 96 Cal.App. 708 [ 275 P. 228 ] [separately owned contiguous parcels operated as a unit under partnership agreement] ; County of Santa Clara v. Curtner, supra, 245 Cal.App.2d 730 , 737 [owners of remaining parcel held equitable title to condemned parcel following their exercise of an option to purchase]; see also State v. Carrow (1941) 57 Ariz. 429 [ 114 P.2d 891 ] [recovery for severance damages approved to land held by condemnee under short term leases where condemned and damaged land operated as a cattle ranch] ; Petition of Mackie (1966) 2 Mich.App. 572 [ 140 NW2d 781 ] [reversionary inter

est of lessor in land subject to 10-year lease plus contiguity held sufficient connection between condemned parcel and remaining parcel to consider them as one parcel in assessing severance damages].)

Underlying the requirement of unity of ownership is the rule that there can be no recovery in condemnation where there has been no actual taking or severance of the claimant ’s property. (People v. Symons, 54 Cal.2d 855 , 860 [ 9 Cal.Rptr. 363 , 357 P.2d 451 ] ; Bacich v. Board of Control, 23 Cal.2d 343 [ 144 P.2d 818 ].) “The courts have not authorized a recovery under article I, section 14 of our state Constitution where there would be no recovery for damages caused by the construction of an improvement if undertaken by a private citizen on adjoining property.” (People v. Symons, supra, 54 Cal.2d 855 , 861-862.) Therefore, where the owner of the abutting land has no legal interest in the condemned land, unity of ownership has been held not to exist. (People ex rel. Dept. of Public Works v. City of Los Angeles, 220 Cal.App.2d 345 , 362-363 [ 33 Cal.Rptr. 797 ] [abutting landowner had right to use condemned land under an agreement with four years remaining, but no interest therein] ; East Bay Municipal Utility Dist. v. Kieffer, 99 Cal.App. 240 , 246-247 [ 278 P. 476 , 279 P. 178 ] [unexercised option held insufficient interest to support severance damages to optioned land]; County of San Benito v. Copper Mountain Min. Co., 7 Cal.App.2d 82 , 86 [ 45 P.2d 428 ] [no severance damage for loss of use of water on nearby property where condemnee had no right to the use of the water].) Although some courts have taken the view that unity of ownership does not exist unless the condemnee holds a fee interest in both the condemned and the remaining parcel (United States v. Honolulu Plantation Co. (9th Cir. 1950) 182 F.2d 172 , 179; see 27 Am.Jur.2d, Eminent Domain, § 320, p. 143), we have not found any case where severance damages were disallowed on the ground that the fee owner of the remaining parcel held title to the condemned parcel subject to a lease.

Respondents Nyrin and U.L.C. Corporation held title in fee to both Parcel 7 and the adjoining hospital property. Although on the date of condition Parcel 7 was subject to various leasehold interests those leasehold interests were, by agreement between the owners and lessees, to be used, and in practice were used, for the benefit of the hospital. We conclude, therefore, that the requisite unity of ownership was present. City of Stockton v. Marengo, supra, 137 Cal.App.

available to it on the date of condition the number of parking spaces required by the zoning ordinance even though some of the parking area between the hospital and medical building was on that date also being used by tenants of the medical building and their visitors. The court could reasonably have concluded that since the medical building was operated to a large extent as an adjunct of the hospital, parking spaces reserved for use by tenants and visitors of the medical building were available to the hospital within the meaning of the zoning ordinance. Therefore, we do not accept appellant’s contention that in ruling that the hospital conformed to the zoning law the trial court necessarily found that the leasehold interests in Parcel 7 had been eliminated by the acquisition of the medical building by appellant.

During the trial, in support of their position that the hospital conformed to the zoning law on the date of condition, respondents sought to prove that they had conformed since the enactment of the zoning law in 1958. In response to appellant’s objection the court ruled that the hospital did not conform in 1958 because “there was a lease which gave this parking lot to somebody else.” Appellant argues that the only change in the use of the parking area between 1958 and the date of condition was the acquisition by appellant of the medical building in 1962 and that therefore the trial court must have considered the effect of that acquisition in ruling that the hospital conformed to the zoning law on the date of condition. It may be that appellant correctly analyzes the reasoning of the trial court, but we are not bound by that reasoning. As we have shown above, the ruling that the hospital conformed to the zoning law as to parking on the date of condition was reasonable in the light of the evidence concerning the use of the medical building facilities by the hospital and its staff doctors. The ruling was therefore correct in law and will not be disturbed on appeal because it may have been given for a wrong reason. (Davey v. Southern Pac. Co., 116 Cal. 325 , 329 [ 48 P. 117 ].)

The Refusal of the Court to Rule that Appellant Did Not Have Authority to Acquire the Whole of Parcel 7.

After the court ruled that Parcel 7 was part of a larger parcel, appellant moved the court for a ruling that appellant had no authority to acquire the portion of Parcel 7 that lay outside the right of way line on the ground that there was no public use for such portion. In support of its motion appellant argued that only the part of Parcel 7 lying within

the right of way line was needed for the improvement and that the remainder had been included in the take because it had little value to its owners and would give rise to claims of severance damage. Appellant offered to prove that the sole public use for the remainder of Parcel 7 was to accomplish the purposes specified in section 104.1 of the Streets and Highways Code (see fn. 1). Appellant asked that its motion not be interpreted by the court as a partial abandonment under Code of Civil Procedure, section 1255a. The court denied the motion and refused the offer of proof.

The resolution of the California Highway Commission stating that public interest and necessity required the acquisition of the whole of Parcel 7 was in evidence at the request of appellant. The finding of the commission that all of Parcel 7 was needed for the freeway was binding upon the court in the absence of proof that the commission had acted in bad faith and abused its discretion in making this finding. (People v. Chevalier, 52 Cal.2d 299 , 304 [ 340 P.2d 598 ]; People v. Lagiss, 223 Cal.App.2d 23 , 36 [ 35 Cal.Rptr. 554 ].) Appellant does not assert its own bad faith as a reason why the court should reexamine the finding of the commission that all of Parcel 7 was needed for a public use. The motion of appellant presented no justifiable issue and therefore was properly denied.

The judgment is affirmed.

Ford, P. J., and Cobey, J., concurred.

A petition for a rehearing was denied December 21, 1967.