Court Opinion

ID: 9669674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:04:42.584815+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:58.912041
License: Public Domain

HAWTHORNE, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority opinion appears to be based on the premise that the City of New Or*919leans láwfully expropriated the property involved' here when it filed its answer in this suit on September 27, 1951, and incorporated in that answer its demand for expropriation. This reasoning completely overlooks the fact that the City of New Orleans actually took possession of the property ■ in 1941 when the City bought the' Pailet Tract, which was thought to include the land in dispute here, and immediately possessed and used the entire area,' including plaintiff’s property, and began- construction- of .the airport thereon.
If the City of New Orleans possessed the power in the instant case to expropriate plaintiff’s property for airport purposes -and is. not a trespasser, it is my view that the:judgment of the Court of Appeal, 76 So.2d 466, relegating plaintiff to an action in damages for the value of the property at 'the' time of its taking for-public purposes is correct and is supported by the following cases and the authorities cited therein: St. Julien v. Morgan’s Louisiana & T. Railroad Co., 35 La.Ann. 924; Pons v. Yazoo & M. V. R. Co., 131 La. 313, 338, 59 So. 721; Roussel v. New Orleans Ry. & Light Co., 152 La. 517, 93 So. 758, Gumbel v. New Orleans Terminal Co., 197 La. 439, 1 So.2d 686.