Court Opinion

ID: 9602091
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:51:45.170922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:00.663079
License: Public Domain

Stolz, Judge,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent from Divisions 2 and 3 of the majority opinion. Mrs. Michaels could not have appealed from the judgment below because she was not a party at the trial of the case.
*387The condemnation was against two separate tracts of land. The ownership or interest in ownership of each tract was different. Condemnee Mary Lorene Smith Michaels, as owner of an undivided interest in tract 2, had the right of electing between accepting her portion of the special master’s award, or appealing to a jury. She evidently chose the former, as no appeal to a jury was filed in her behalf. The condemnor did not appeal. Thus, as between Mary Lorene Smith Michaels and Georgia Power Co., the issues in the condemnation case came to an end when the statutory time passed without an appeal having been filed on her behalf. Thus, the rights of both condemnor and condemnee Mrs. Michaels were adjudicated as a matter of fact and law as to the compensation she was entitled to receive for her interest in tract 2. Nothing that occurred subsequently as to the result of the appeal filed by condemnee Robert J. Smith as to his separate interest in the property, could affect what had been judicially concluded between Georgia Power Co., as condemnor, and Mary Lorene Smith Michaels, as condemnee.
This result is not strange or unusual. It simply recognizes that parties with different interests in a condemnation case may have different opinions as to the advisability of an appeal. The statutes clearly recognize this.
"Where separate and distinct parcels of property are condemned in the same proceeding, the owner or owners of any separate and distinct property may file a separate appeal to a jury in the superior court, as herein provided for.” Code Ann. § 36-615a (Ga. L. 1957, pp. 387, 396).
A review of the record in this case reveals a procedural nightmare. It does not take great imagination to determine the position the condemnees would be taking had the jury increased the special master’s award. Be that as it may, the transcript reveals with unerring certainty that the case was tried and submitted to the jury on an erroneous theory—that Mrs. Michaels was a party. The judgment of the court against her when she was not a party, is patently erroneous and should not stand. I would reverse and remand the case to the trial court for a new trial. The jury would then determine the *388amount of compensation to which Mr. Smith would be entitled as owner of tract 1 and for his undivided interest in tract 2.
I am authorized to state that Judge Evans concurs in this dissent.