Court Opinion

ID: 9586763
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:14:41.227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:50.241146
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
concurring.
I write only to invite attention to the concurring opinion in Dept, of Transp. v. Gunnels, 255 Ga, 495, 497 (340 SE2d 12) (1986), which bears directly upon the problems treated in the present case. Division *3415 (id. 499) suggests, in part, as follows: “We do not need to trouble juries with discussions of the value of the property taken, or a weighing of ‘consequential benefits’ and ‘consequential damages,’ or questions of ‘whole lots’ and ‘severance’ and other terms which serve to generate uncertainty.
Decided September 8, 1987.
Reynolds & McArthur, Charles M. Cork III, for appellant.
Sell & Melton, Carl E. Lancaster, Jr., for appellee.
“Just and adequate compensation means that the owner must be made whole, to whatever extent he has been damaged by virtue of the taking. (In this discussion, we make a mistake to speak of ‘damage to property.’ Real property, itself, is not damaged; only the value of the owner’s interest in real property is damaged.)
“In each instance, the task of the trior of fact is the same: it must determine the value of the condemnee’s interest before the taking; and it must determine the value of such interest, if any, as shall remain after the taking. If the value is less afterward than it was before, then that difference must be awarded to the condemnee as just and adequate compensation. If value is the same or greater, then the condemnee’s entitlement is but nominal damages.”