Rausch v. City of Marion
Annotate this Case
In this dispute over the just compensation award for commercial property the Supreme Court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by limiting the testimony of the property owner regarding his opinion testimony that sales of other commercial property were comparable where that opinion required technical or specialized knowledge.
An Iowa municipality condemned part of the owner's undeveloped land for a road. The district court allowed the owner to opine as to the site's reduction in value resulting from the taking but barred the owner's evidence of comparable sales on the grounds that the owner relied on hearsay and was unqualified as an expert. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the owner, a former restaurant manager, was not qualified as an expert under Iowa R. Evid. 5.702 to offer the opinion testimony given his lack of expertise and the complexity of these commercial real estate valuations.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.