Court Opinion

ID: 9575474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:14:08.907656+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:13.967544
License: Public Domain

Almand, Justice,
concurring. I am of the opinion that the judgment in this case is right, by reason of the laches of the defendant in error.
The owner in this case sought to raise the issue of necessity by filing a petition in equity to enjoin the condemnation at its inception. In this petition, he named an assessor and authorized him to proceed with the other assessor if the owner’s prayer for an interlocutory injunction was denied. After a hearing on the application for a temporary injunction, the judge dissolved a restraining order and refused a temporary injunction. This, in effect, was a signal for the assessors to proceed to assess the property in the condemnation proceeding. From this judg*369ment the owner filed no appeal or exceptions. The law gave him a right to go into a court of equity to determine the right of the condemnor to take his property. He had his day in court. After the court had determined that the condemnor was proceeding lawfully to condemn the property, and with the assistance of the owner’s assessor an award was made and the amount of the award was tendered to the owner, and upon his refusal to accept it the same was paid into court, and the condemnor thereafter went into possession and made permanent improvements at a cost of several thousand dollars — it would now be inequitable to permit the owner to assert that he had the right to try the issue of necessity before a jury, on a petition in which he had been denied relief and in which judgment he acquiesced. This is true, even though the owner refused tender of the amount fixed by the assessors, and had an appeal pending from this award. In this case the condemnor, after the owner’s petition for injunction was denied, proceeded with the condemnation proceeding, as the law permitted it to do. It has paid the amount of the award into court and has entered into possession of the property, making valuable improvements thereon, as the law said it had a right to do; and, after all this has been done, it would be neither fair nor just to permit the owner to retry the issue of necessity. Even though the fact that the owner did not appeal from the interlocutory order of the judge denying an injunction could not operate as a final- and conclusive judgment, on the issue of necessity, the owner had the right when the case was in order for final judgment, to have the cause advanced and expedited for the final hearing (Code, § 37-1101). The record in this case shows that the owner’s petition for injunction was filed on November 13, 1948, returnable to the January term,. 1949, of Wilkinson Superior Court. The interlocutory order denying a temporary injunction was entered on December 17, 1948, and the assessors’ award was made on January 7, 1949. Shortly thereafter, the amount of the award was paid into court and the condemnor took possession of the property. It appears from the record that the lines and structures placed on the property by the condemnor were finished shortly prior to the trial of the case before a jury in January, 1950. The petitioner’s prayer for a permanent injunction could have been tried by a jury at *370the January term, 1949, and the April, July, and October terms of court passed without any trial; and nothing appears in the record to indicate that the condemnor did anything that prevented the owner from getting a trial earlier than January, 1950, or that an earlier trial was not available. I am of the opinion that the owner in these circumstances, by standing by for a year and failing to prosecute his case to a final judgment, while the condemnor was placing valuable improvements on the property, was barred by laches from insisting upon having a jury pass on the issue of necessity.
In Wright v. City of Metter, 192 Ga. 75, 76, 77 (14 S. E. 2d, 443), this court held. “The doctrine of laches, equitable in nature and origin, concerns itself with the situation of petitioner as the applicant who seeks equity, and not with the infirmities of the legal process sought to be arrested. When applicable, it says to him that, despite the right which might be given by law, or which he might ordinarily enjoy and be able to assert, he by reason of delay, neglect, or other conduct has become barred as to equitable relief on his petition. In other words, by reason of the infirmities in his own situation, he may not in equity assert or have his legal rights measured.” A person is not entitled to injunctive relief where it is shown that he has been careless in guarding his rights, and if he has been subjected to a loss, it was because of his not attending to his own interests at the proper time. Dulin v. Caldwell & Co,, 28 Ga. 117. In Wood v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad Co., 68 Ga. 539, it was ruled that the writ of injunction is designed to prevent and not to undo what has been done, and without strong reason therefor, if delayed until progress (in laying out a right-of-way) has been made, injunction should not be granted. See headnote 6, Wood v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad Co., supra. In Holt v. Parsons, 118 Ga. 895 (45 S. E. 690), it was held that a person is not entitled to an injunction when, with full knowledge of his rights, he has been guilty of delay and laches in asserting them and has negligently suffered large expenditures to be made by another party, upon whom great injury would be inflicted by the grant of an injunction.
Though it may be true that the condemnor in this case had full notice of the owner’s contention and claim, by reason of the *371filing of the suit for permanent injunction at the beginning of the condemnation proceeding in this case (Code, § 37-117), yet the fact that the petition for a permanent injunction was pending does not of itself preclude the conclusion that the owner has been guilty of laches, in that the failure to prosecute a suit may result in the same consequences as the failure to institute a suit. Tinsley v. Rice, 105 Ga. 285 (31 S. E. 174); Johnston v. Standard Mining Co., 148 U. S. 360 (13 Sup. Ct. 585, 37 L. ed. 480); Wells Nevada Nat. Bank v. Barnett, 298 Fed. 689 (43 L. ed. 916). In other words, reasonable diligence must be exercised in prosecuting to trial the final issue before a jury; and if, by reason of a delay in the plaintiff asserting his rights to a final trial, the opposite party is permitted to expend money or suffer irreparable injury thereby, the equitable principle of laches will be applied. A man who, possessing full knowledge of his rights, has stood by, and by his conduct encouraged others to expend moneys in contravention of rights for which he afterwards contends, cannot come to the court for relief by perpetual injunction, however clear his right or whatever be the value of his right. Kerr on Injunctions (5th ed.) p. 36.
Though the statutory provision regarding condemnation proceedings is silent as to when the owner of property sought to be condemned can raise the question of the right of the condemnor to take his property, until the General Assembly fixes the time in which the question can be determined by a court, the issue of timely action on the part of the owner must be determined by the court on the facts and circumstances of the case under consideration.