Court Opinion

ID: 9607100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:55:27.948992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:37.080162
License: Public Domain

Ingram, Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur in the majority opinion of the court in this case, but I wish to emphasize that under the Georgia Constitution I believe a property owner is entitled to recover all special damages to his property caused by a condemnation whether the property owner is a party to the condemnation case filed by the condemnor or not. "Private property shall not be taken, or damaged, for public purposes, without just and adequate compensation being first paid ...” Code Ann. § 2-301.
The individual property owner in this case, whose separate property was not condemned and does not join the property being condemned in this proceeding, must be regarded as a stranger to this case. He is in the same position legally as any other landowner whose property may be damaged by the present condemnation but who is not a party to the case and whose land is not the subject of the condemnation. Consequently, it is the injection of diverse parties and their separate claims into this litigation which I believe was error. The filing of condemnation proceedings by a party possessing the power of eminent domain is not an open invitation for diverse parties and claims to enter the case as if it were an interpleader proceeding.
However, since the Georgia Constitution requires "just and adequate compensation” not only for the "taking” of private property, but for damage to private *563property, I believe an independent action will lie for damages against the condemnor by any separate landowner who can prove his property has been specially damaged by this condemnation proceeding. Of course, as noted in the majority opinion, these damages to be recoverable must be special damages not sustained in common with the public generally as a result of the condemnation. See Tift County v. Smith, 219 Ga. 68 (131 SE2d 527). We recognize the theory of inverse condemnation in Georgia and I believe it encompasses not only a "taking” but the resultant damage done by a "taking” of private property.
In summary, I concur in the majority’s conclusion that these diverse claims cannot be properly handled in the original condemnation case instituted by the condemnor as if it were in the nature of interpleader. In a condemnation case filed by the condemnor, the condemnor has the burden of proving damages. To allow strangers to file diverse claims in the case would put an impossible burden upon a condemnor to "guess” who might claim special damage as a result of the taking and might well stimulate claims where none really exist. A separate owner of separate land who claims special damage as a result of a condemnation should have the burden of proving those damages in a separate proceeding. If he can prove special damages, the Georgia Constitution permits their recovery.