Court Opinion

ID: 9751778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 17:03:35.475846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:59.073632
License: Public Domain

RAKER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals affirming the Circuit Court for Montgomery County.
While I agree that, under Washington Sub. San. Comm’n v. Nash, 284 Md. 376, 396 A.2d 538 (1979), a condemning authority with “regular” condemnation power may obtain a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction only under exceptional circumstances, I believe that such circumstances are present in this case. Although preservation of the fair market value of the subject property was not an appropriate justification for granting the preliminary injunction, the removal of the existing trees and vegetation from the proposed park site would have constituted the detrimental “destruction, misuse, or alienation” of the land for the use for which it was intended. See id. at 383 n. 5, 396 A.2d at 541 n. 5. While removal of standing timber from a property intended to become a sludge-composting facility failed to meet this high standard, the destruction of the natural vegetation on a proposed park and the erection of improvements in its place constitute precisely the type of irreparable harm that would justify injunctive relief as contemplated in Nash. In addition, there is no reason to require, as a condition of obtaining injunctive relief, that the plant specimens removed from the property be “unique, rare, or notable examples of their kind.” Cf. maj. op. at 101-02 n. 27.
*111I also agree with the majority that, in order to ensure that petitioner received just compensation for the property, it should have been permitted to present evidence of what it would have done to the property, absent the injunction, and how that development would have influenced the property’s fair market value at the time of trial, the statutorily prescribed valuation date for determining just compensation for the taking of the property. Where I disagree is with the majority’s contention that, by granting the motion in limine, the lower court denied petitioner the right to present testimony as to what the fair market value of the property, including improvements, would have been at the time of the jury assessment. The motion in limine, by its own terms, only precluded evidence relating to damages resulting from the injunction and did not limit evidence with respect to fair market value. Petitioner simply failed, of its own volition, to present expert testimony with respect to valuation at trial.
Moreover, under our well-established precedent, in order to preserve its objection to the granting of the motion in limine, petitioner was required to make a proffer of the evidence at trial. Prout v. State, 311 Md. 348, 356, 535 A.2d 445, 449 (1988), recognizes an exception to this requirement where the trial judge “clearly determin[es] that the questionable evidence will not be admitted, and ... instructfs] counsel not to proffer the evidence again during trial ...” leaving the proponent of the evidence “with nothing to do at trial but follow the court’s instructions.” Id. at 356, 535 A.2d at 448. That is not what happened in this case. The case sub judice is a perfect example of why the proponent of the disputed evidence must proffer the evidence at trial. If there was a misunderstanding as to the trial court’s ruling, it could have been clarified, and the precise scope of the judge’s ruling would have been clear. Under my reading of the trial court’s ruling, petitioner would have been permitted to offer the evidence. This is not a Prout case, in which the trial court clearly determined that the questionable evidence would not be admitted and instructed petitioner not to offer it. Petitioner simply failed to offer the *112evidence as it was required to do and failed-to preserve the issue for appellate review.1 '
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. The majority also cites Reed v. State, 353 Md. 628, 728 A.2d 195 (1999), which affirmed the continuing viability of the contemporary objection rule. Reed is inapposite. That case dealt with the requirement that an opposing party make a contemporaneous objection to the admission of challenged evidence after a trial court’s denial of a motion in limine to exclude it.