the judgment of the Exchequer Court has awarded him therefor $47,880 including an estimated value. for buildings of $3,000.
Deducting that estimate for buildings leaves $42,880 for the bare land.
I assume that the -sheriff's sale may have been at a sacrifice price yet an award that gives the respondent who paid it thirty-two times as much for market price at the end of sixteen years is startling. I assume that the price of two and a half cents a foot for that sold in 1902 must be taken as the market value at that time. I cannot agree that the stipulation to build a good house was of such a character as to render the price named an untrustworthy guide to the value. Men buy land to build houses upon. And the purchaser in that instance had long and easy terms of payment with interest at 6% per annum.
It is alleged by respondent, however, that the sale had been bargained for two years before.
If I am right in assuming that price to have been the market value in 1902, or 1900, as alleged, then this award can only be maintained as correct by finding that such property in Lauzon had, within eleven years, or thirteen if the bargain was made two years earlier, more than quadrupled in market value. It was a town of three thousand population and, like many such, practically stationary, as Mr. Charland admits, but yet .had increased to four thousand during that time. It had long had an important industry in the shipbuilding and repairing line. We are not told how many hands employed. Respondent's factum modestly says a considerable number of workmen are employed there. Another old industry is that of manufacture of trunks and boxes.
A more recent establishment of the same kind is mentioned.
These seem to tell all there is of sufficient importance to be called large or substantial industries.
The evidence of actual market value at the time of the expropriation is unusually unsatisfactory. It seems almost impossible to get witnesses testifying to values as of a given dite when speaking three or four years after the given date, and when there has been in the meantime some great impulse given to the apparent progress of a town and hence a sudden rise in values, to bear in mind exactly what is wanted and distinguish accurately between past and present values. Even when the right question is put an ambiguous answer is given by one leading witness herein. The respondent's witnesses in this case as a group hardly furnish an exemplary exception to the truth of these general observations.
I am not surprised, therefore, to find that the learned trial judge has not accepted their opinions as his guide.
They have, besides their mere opinions, given a great many illustrations of transactions which, unfortunately, for one reason or another, can hardly assist us much in determining by comparison the market value of the property in question.
And some of these the learned judge seems to assume might help to arrive at the truth.
I desire to test the matter by using the respondent's price for what he sold and another sale beside it. Besides the part of the property sold by the respondent, there is one other transaction directly bearing upon the earlier value of that in question and that is a sale of lots in an adjoining plot, No. 6, said by Mr. Charland to be of substantially as good value as that now in question. It took place in 1905 and was a sale of twenty-nine lots at one cent per square foot. Two slight difficulties arise in the way of possibly making too much use of this One is that the quality of the land is said by respondent to be inferior to that in question and that it has not the same advantage for needed drainage. The other is that the transaction was eight years prior to this expropriation.
Yet making all due allowance for the alleged difference in want of drainage facility, I think it is a fair index that property there had not increased since respondent's sale already mentioned, and of the value of property immediately beside that now in question. As a matter of common knowledge we know, or ought to know, that property in towns such as described and presenting no greater rate of increase than J. shewn, does not quadruple in value within eleven years.
Upon the advent of some great project likely to double the population very shortly, there may be found such rapid rises within very brief periods. But these exceptional cases can all be verified by clear and convincing testimony and the causes therefor explained.
The extent to which these causes in any cases may have operated are also susceptible of lucid explanation.
We have no such evidence offered in this case. That presented of estimated value of the property in question has been so extravagant that the learned trial judge seems to have discarded it entirely.
I think he was right in doing so.
I cannot accept the theory that such properties as in question had quadrupled in value in Lauzon within eleven years. Much less can I accept opinion evidence which would require in some of the estimates put forward a rise in values based on such slow progress in the town that it would imply an advance in values of fifteen to twenty fold in eleven years, or even thirteen years. It rather seems to me that witnesses forget the actual foundations of real market values and the increase thereof.
At all events I cannot, in the absence of any better reasons than those given, accept such estimates, involving such rise in values as I have just pointed out. There is also the municipal assessment for the property in question which was $2,100 for years 1906-1908 and 1910, then.raised, in 1912, to $2,400, and after the expropriation was raised to $6,000.
Assuming that it did not comply with the law and did 'not represent actual values, yet there is little doubt in my mind but that it would be approximately on the same low level throughout the town. If I am right in that, curiously enough Mr. Lagueux gives a piece of evidence that when applied destroys his high estimate. It is this:
He tells of buying a property valued by the assessor at $2,000, and selling part for $3,000.
And then says he would not give what is left for $5,000. Assuming from these figures the reasonable deduction that the witness does not draw, but I do, that four times the assessed value is what might be expected for the property, and apply that to the assessments of this property now in question, would fix the value of it at about $9,600.
And yet we are asked to maintain a valuation of $42,800 for land alone and houses at S3.000. and add 10% for the cruel taking of it.
* I really cannot believe that the assessor for so many years assessed this property, of such an attractive character as Mr. St. Laurent so well and ably painted it to us, at one-twentieth part of its value, and then, when he raised it, only added, at the dawn of better days, $300.
But when those better days had come he could yet find it worth only $6,000.
The respondent was one of those men whom nothing could change after he had made up his mind not to sell, and hence some could well afford to practice the joke of offering him a hundred thousand dollars knowing he would refuse it.
I notice they did not venture to lay down the gold less a year's discount and give the respondent a fair chance, or succeed in inducing the learned judge to accept the words as representing a sincere reality. In argument counsel for appellant pointed out that the learned trial judge had made an error regarding the price of some larger sales and thus in effect misdirected himself. I assume that would have been denied if incorrect, and I think it quite possible the error of calculation may have led to error in the judgment.
Another test of the intrinsic worth of the property and the demands for more house room, is the fact that the houses were used only in summer, although appellant says one of them had double windows and was fit to live in during winter.
The learned trial judge has not accepted the views of any set of witnesses and has come to his judgment from a survey of the general evidence in the case. Following the same lines I cannot accept his conclusions as to the value of the land and would cut the allowance for latter down to one-half what has been allowed therefor, including such additional percentage as he has added to value he finds, and reduce the amount of the judgment to $26,540. . I would therefore allow the appeal with costs and dismiss the cross-appeal with costs.
- J.-I concur with Mr. Justice Brodeur. J. s'agit d'un appel d'un jugement de la Cour d'Echiquier accordant une somme de $47,080 pour 1'expropriation d'un terrain appartenant A l'Intim6 et dont le gouvernement avait besoin pour la construction d'une cale shche A Lauzon.
Ce terrain comprend 398,000 pieds et la Cour infdrieure l'a 6valu6 A 10 sous du pied.
La Cour a accord6 en outre 10% pour l'expropriation forc6e (compulsory taking) et $3,000 pour les b Atisses 6rig6eS THE KING sur le terrain item. I n'y a pas de difficult6 quantk ce dernier item; il est reconnu que ce chiffre de $3,000 Brodeur J. repr~sente la valeur de ces b Atisses.
L'Intim6 Larivie n'est pas satisfait du montant accord6 pour la valeur du terrain lui-m~me et il demande per un contre-appel 50 sous du pied au lieu des dix sous qui lui ont 6t6 accord6s.
Ce terrain repr~sente une grande 6tendue de terre et a 6t6 achet6 il y a quelques ann6es par l'Intim6 pour une somme assez modique.
II est incontestable que depuis il y a eu fkugmentation dans la valeur de la propri6t6 en cet endroit. La preuve .d6montre que des terres d'assez grande 6tendue se sont vendues dans le voisinage pour 6tre subdivis6es en lots A bAtir. L'Intim6 a prouv6 que ces lots A b Atir s'6taient alors Vendus jusqu'A 17 cents du pied.
Mais l'honorable Juge de la Cour inf6rieure, et cela, je crois, avec raison, n'a pas voulu accepter ce prix de lots subdivis6s pour 6tablir la valeur marchande de la propri~t6 de l'Intim6. Voici ce qu'il dit:
A number of sales were referred to in the course of the trial, and deeds in respect of a number of these sales were also filed of record. With a few exceptions, most of the sales have reference to small building lots which sales represent no similarity to the piece of land in question in this case, which is composed of 398,000 sq. ft., and therefore would be a very misleading guide to follow.
However, from the evidence of promoters and real estate men heard as witnesses, it appears that large farms were bought, at Lauzon, not long before the expropriation, at three cents and four to five cents a foot when buying a large area; and, after passing through the usual process of promotion, by sale and re-sale to syndicates and companies at very large figures, compared with the original purchase price, these lands were afterwards placed upon the market and sold as small building lots at 14 and 17 cents a foot and perhaps more. It is not rational to use as adpposite the value of these building lots, but it is the original sale for a large area that really offers similarity with the present case, and helps to reconcile and bridge the gap between the opinion evidence adduced by the plaintiff and the defendant respectively.
Dans les circonstances, je crois que ces ventes en bloc constituent un meilleur guide pour d6terminer la valeur de la propri6t6 de l'Intim6 que ces ventes de lots subdivis6s.
D'un autre ctd, la Couronne elle-mime offre un prix plus 4lev6 que celui pay6 pour les fermes mais moindre que celui pay6 pour les lots subdivis6s. L'Honorable Juge de la Cour inf6rieure a eu l'avantage d'entendre les t6moins et il dit:
Je comprends par cet extrait de son jugement qu'une somme de huit sous du pied serait une indemnit6 raisonnable.
Je ne saurais, pour ma part, accepter le principe que ces indemnitds doivent 6tre bas6es sur une trbs grande g6ndrosit6. Par cons6quent, je considbre que nous devrions r6duire la compensation accord6e A huit sous du pied.
Je suis d'opinion que l'appel devrait 6galement r6ussir pour les 10% additionnels accord6s par la Cour inf6rieure.
L'Intim6 ne retirait qu'une somme de $285.00 de revenu par ann6e sur cette propri6t6 et il devrait s'estimer heureux de recevoir un capital de $34,840 qu'il pourrait placer facilement en bons de l'Etat ou autrement de manibre qu'il retirerait de suite un revenu de pris de $2,000 par ann6e, c'est-A-dire pros de sept fois plus que ce qu'il a aujourd'hui.
II a t6 question d'offres de $100,000 qui auraient 6t6 faites A l'Intim6 pour son terrain.
L'une de ces offres aurait 6t6 faite par le t6moin Lagueux; ine autre par un nomm6 L6gar6; et la dernibre par un nomm6 Couillard.
M. Lagueux, dans son t6moignage, nous dit qu'il a fait ces offres en mai 1913 c'est-A-dire apr~s l'expropriation.
Quant aux offres de Couillard et de Lfgar6, elles sont rapport6es seulement par l'Intim6 lui-m~me.
Or, le t~moignage de ce dernier, qui est un homme a t6 jug6 si peu- satisfaisant que le juge a t6 oblig6 d'en interrompre la transquestion. On ne devrait donc pas y attacher d'importance. Quant A l'offre Couillard, it est incontestable que c'est apris l'expropriation.
Pour toutes ces raisons, I'appel devrait 6tre maintenu avec d6pens de cette Cour et l'Intim6 devrait recevoir comme indemnit6 pour son terrain..
..............
$31,840.00 pour ses b Atisses..................
3,000.00 Total.............
$34,840.00 Le contre-appel devrait 4tre renvoy6 aierc d~pens. Appeal allowed with Cross-appeal dismissed with costs.