Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railway Co. v. Stickney

Citations

• 150 Ill. 362
• 37 N.E. 1098
• 1894 Ill. LEXIS 1618

Syllabus

<p>1. Special assessments — special benefits. If property is enhanced in value by reason of a public improvement, as distinguished from the general benefits to the whole community at large, it is specially benefited, and is to be assessed for the special benefits, notwithstanding every other piece of property upon or near the improvement may, to a greater or less degree, be likewise specially benefited. In other words, it is not such benefits as are special to the particular property, thereby excluding the consideration of such benefits as are common to other property similarly situated, but it is such benefits as that the particular-property is by the improvement enhanced in value, — that is, specially benefited, — that are to be considered.</p> <p>2. Eminent domain — set-off of benefits against damages to property not taken. In a condemnation proceeding the court instructed the jury, that though they believe, from the evidence, that some of the property of some of the respondents “will actually be benefited by reason of the construction and operation of the petitioner’s railroad, yet if the jury further believe, from the evidence, that such benefits are not special to the respondents’ property, and are shared by it in common with the generality of property in the vicinity of the line of said proposed railroad, then such benefits are not to be considered in determining whether or not the property of said respondents not taken will be damaged by reason of taking a part of their property and operating and maintaining the petitioner’s railroadHeld, that the instruction did not announce a correct rule of law, and was erroneous.</p> <p>3. If a piece of property is enhanced in value, its enhancement, or, in other words, benefits to the property, can not be said to be common to any other piece of property specially enhanced in value, and it is thus specially benefited within itself, and irrespective of the benefit that may be conferred by the improvement upon other proper