Effective 28 Aug 1939

243.120. Exceptions to report — appeal to circuit court — procedure — new notice to be published, form. — 1. The attorney for the drainage district or any owner of land or other property in said district, may file exceptions to said report within ten days after the last day of publication of the notice provided for in section 243.110. All exceptions shall be heard by the county commission and determined in a summary manner so as to carry out liberally the purposes and needs of the district, and if it appears to the satisfaction of the county commission, after having heard and determined all of said exceptions, that the estimated cost of constructing the proposed improvement is less than the benefits assessed against the land and other property in said district, then the county commission shall approve and confirm said viewers' report as so modified and amended.

2. The county commission shall adjudge and apportion the costs incurred by the exceptions filed and shall condemn any land or other property, within or without the boundary lines of the district, that is shown by the report of the viewers to be needed for rights-of-way, holding basins and other works, or that may be needed for material to be used in constructing said works, following, as nearly as possible, the procedure that is now provided for by law for the appropriation of land and other property taken for telegraph, telephone and railroad rights-of-way.

3. The price of the land and other property taken for rights-of-way and other use of the district and the damage to each piece of land and other property shall be paid in cash to the owner thereof and no drainage district shall have the right to enter upon or appropriate any land or other property sought to be acquired until the prices awarded to the owners of such land shall have been paid to such owners or into the commission organizing the district for the use of such owners; and if the sums awarded be not so paid within five years from the date of final confirmation of the viewers' report, all proceedings as to the taking of such property for rights-of-way, and other works not so paid for, shall abate at the cost of the district. Whenever any land is acquired by any district under the provision of this chapter and the price of such property has been paid the owner by the district, the title, use, possession and enjoyment of such property shall pass from the owner and be vested in the district, and subject to its use, profit, employment and final disposition.

4. Any person may appeal to the circuit court from the judgment of the county commission, and upon such appeal there may be determined either or both of the following questions:

(1) Whether just compensation has been allowed for property appropriated; and

(2) Whether proper damages have been allowed for property prejudicially affected by the improvements.

5. The court shall grant the appeal if the appellant shall, before the end of the term of the county commission and within ten days from the date of the order appealed from, file a written application for an appeal, specifying therein the matters appealed from, verified by affidavit as in appeals taken from judgments of circuit courts, and the application shall be recorded upon the record of the county commission.

6. The county commission shall then fix the amount of the bond to be given by the appellant and cause an entry thereof to be made upon its record. The party appealing shall within ten days thereafter file with the clerk a bond payable to the drainage district in the amount fixed by the county commission, with at least two good and sufficient freehold sureties, to be approved by the county commission, or in vacation, by the clerk, conditioned to pay all costs on the appeal in case the appellant fail to sustain the same, or the appeal be for any reason dismissed; and within ten days from the date of filing said bond the said clerk shall make and certify a transcript of the proceedings had before the county commission relating to the land of appellant and involved in the appeal, and file the same, together with all original papers relating to the proceedings, on file in his office, in the office of the clerk of the circuit court; provided, that nothing in this section shall be so construed as to authorize any appellant to stay the proceedings in the county commission, or to prevent progress in the work of constructing any work or improvement; but said county commission may proceed with said work, and any subsequent proceedings in the circuit court shall affect only the rights and interests of the appellant in property located in such district. The county commission may, if it deems advisable, refer the report back to the viewers, with or without directions for correction or amendment in any particular, in which event a new notice shall be given in the manner and for the time provided in section 243.110, which notice shall be substantially in the following form:

7. Exceptions to an amended report may be filed in like time and manner, as in the case of filing the original report, and the proceedings thereafter shall be the same as in the case of the report in the first instance.

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(RSMo 1939 § 12409)

Prior revisions: 1929 § 10820; 1919 § 4488; 1909 § 5592