Court Opinion

ID: 9770673
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:18:55.361177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:19.806641
License: Public Domain

PALMORE, Judge
(dissenting in part).
Insofar as the phase of the majority opinion holding that the assignment of a value to the limestone in place was inadmissible apparently amounts to a flat condemnation of this type of testimony. Chief Justice MILLIKEN and I respectfully dissent from it. If there is a market for mineral rights as such, we see no objection to evidence of their value. In large areas of Kentucky coal rights are commonly bought and sold separately. No man about to buy a tract of land in- such an area could sensibly evaluate it independent of the prevailing market value of the coal rights. We agree that the witness ought not be permitted to give this value without first estimating the sale value of the whole property, so that the part must be considered in the perspective of the whole; but if he is able to keep the value of a readily saleable part of or interest in a particular piece of real estate in proper focus, it is one of the factors bearing upon the value of the whole, and is fundamentally competent from an evidentiary standpoint. We all know that professional appraisers consider it; why force them to pretend they do not?