§ 86.06 Appointment of Commissioners--Duties of--Standard for Damages
86.06. Appointment of Commissioners--Duties of--Standard for Damages
The court, or judge thereof in vacation, on being satisfied that due notice of the pendency of the petition has been given, shall appoint three disinterested commissioners, who shall be freeholders, resident of the county in which the real estate or a part thereof is situated, to assess the damages that the owners may severally sustain by reason of such appropriation. The value of the property being condemned and all benefits and damages shall be assessed by said commissioners as of the date the assessment is made, and, if the award of said commissioners has not been paid to the defendants, or to the clerk of the court for said defendants, within one year after said commissioners' award is filed, any subsequent assessment of values, benefits and damages shall be as of the date of such subsequent assessment. The commissioners, after having viewed the property, shall forthwith return, under oath, to the clerk of the court their report in duplicate setting forth, and stating separately as to all property held under the same ownership (1) the amount of net damages, if any, together with (2) a separate description of the property for which the damages are assessed. The clerk shall file one of said copies in the clerk's office and cause the other to be delivered to the recorder for the county where the property lies, who shall record the same in the recorder's office and shall enter in the abstract and index of deeds at the proper place in the grantor's column the respective names of the first persons alleged to claim, or through whom is claimed some title to each of such respective separately described properties, and the fee for said recording shall be taxed by the clerk as costs of the proceedings. When condemnation proceedings are brought in connection with a project to supply water to any city, town or village, the commissioners or jury shall inquire, and make report as to the value of the use of the stream, or the diversion of the waters thereof, to the extent to which the plaintiff proposes to use it, or to divert them, or what damage will be done by the erection and
maintenance of any dam or buildings that it is proposed to erect and maintain in connection with aforesaid supplying of water, specifically stating to whom and upon what account damages are awarded. When private property is appropriated by a municipality for any public place or use, resulting benefits shall be assessed against the municipality for the amount of the benefit to the public generally, and the balance of the benefits shall be assessed against the owner or owners having land within the benefit limits set by the municipality, which land shall be especially benefited by the proposed improvement, to the proportion that each lot of said owners shall be benefited. Upon making payment to the clerk of the amount assessed, for the party or parties in whose favor such damages have been assessed, it shall be lawful for the condemner to take possession and hold the interest in the property so
appropriated for the uses aforesaid; and, upon failure to pay the assessment aforesaid within ten days after it becomes final or, in the case of a municipality, within thirty days thereafter, the court may, upon motion and notice by the party entitled to such damages, enforce the payment of the same by execution, unless the condemner shall, within said ten or thirty day period, elect to abandon the proposed appropriation of any property, by an instrument in writing to that effect, to be filed with the clerk of such court and entered on the minutes of the court, and to so much as is thus abandoned the assessment of damages shall be void. If such appropriation be so abandoned as to any property, proceedings for the condemnation of the same property shall not be instituted again within two years after such abandonment. The report of the commissioners, when signed by two of said commissioners, shall be taken and considered as the report of all.