Court Opinion

ID: 9586376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:09:59.786859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:52.097097
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent to those portions of the majority opinion which affirm the trial court.
1. OCGA § 32-3-1 (a) provides: “Any property may be acquired in fee simple or in any lesser interest, including scenic easements, airspace, and rights of access, by a state agency . . . through . . . eminent domain ... for present or future public road or other transportation purposes.” (Emphasis supplied.)
2. In 1955, we held that what was then known as the State Highway Department “has paramount authority in the matter of taking any property within its boundaries for those public uses to which it may reasonably devote such property, including that which has already been devoted to a different public use.” (Emphasis supplied.) Elberton Southern R. Co. v. State Hwy. Dept. of Ga., 211 Ga. 838, 839 (89 SE2d 645) (1955).
3. In 1963, we drew a distinction between inherent powers of eminent domain, such as belong to a state by virtue of its sovereignty, and delegated powers of eminent domain which are conferred upon a lesser entity (either a public body, or a privately-owned enterprise *140which is affected by a public interest)-through legislative grant. “But a rule different from the one stated above prevails where one is exercising a delegated power of eminent domain. There, the one exercising such a delegated power of eminent domain may not condemn property already devoted to another and different public use unless power to do so is conferred upon it in express terms or by necessary implication.” (Emphasis supplied.) Southern R. Co. v. State Hwy. Dept., 219 Ga. 435, 439 (134 SE2d 12) (1963).
4. Having conferred upon the Department of Transportation the power to acquire by eminent domain “any property,” and having determined, in the cases noted above, that property devoted to a public use is not beyond the reach of the state’s power of eminent domain, and having distinguished between the inherent power of the sovereign and the conferred powers of lesser bodies, the issue resolves itself into this: is there, by necessary implication, the power within the state’s executive branch to acquire property now devoted to some public use?
5. The answer to that question must be in the affirmative, upon several considerations:
(a) Whether property which is devoted to a public use is vested in a public or a private corporation is immaterial, as both receive their powers of eminent domain by legislative grant. To attempt to distinguish those cases noted in the first paragraph above on the ground that they treat public utilities is unavailing, as it must be the nature of use and not title that counts. Private property may only be condemned for public purposes. If private property be taken for other than public purposes — by whatever entity — what occurs then is not the exercise of the power of eminent domain, but expropriation. “We have repeatedly held that private property may not be taken for a private purpose . . .” Earth Management, Inc. v. Heard County, 248 Ga. 442, 446 (283 SE2d 455) (1981).
(b) The cases of Dorsey v. Dept. of Transp., supra, and Frank v. City of Atlanta, supra, cannot be relied upon as calling for a strict construction of the power of eminent domain, as vested in the sovereign. They merely apply the elementary proposition that condemnation procedures as established by the General Assembly “must be strictly conformed to by the condemning body.” Dorsey, supra, 248 Ga. at 37.
(c) The declaration in OCGA § 32-3-1 that “[a]ny property may be acquired ... by a state agency . .. through .. . eminent domain .. . for present or future public road or other transportation purposes” must be understood to include the authority of the Department of Transportation to condemn property subjected to a public use, whatever the status of its title may be. See Annot. 35 ALR3d 1293, 1312.
*141(d) Having lodged the condemning power in the Department of Transportation, and having charged it with the transportation needs of a state of five and a half million people, it is fatuous to suggest that the discharge of these responsibilities is to be frustrated by the absence, in the statute, of the specific words “public property.”
The necessary consequence of such a holding quickly can lead to the absurd. Assume these circumstances: the Department plans a major interstate route through a portion of a small hamlet in Georgia; the city fathers want none of it; they cause to be condemned a yard-wide strip lying directly athwart the path of the proposed interstate highway. Thus ends the interstate highway project — permanently.
Such a rule is more appropriate to a game of Parcheesi than to the operation of a department of government.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice Marshall joins in this dissent.
On Motion for Reconsideration.
The DOT cites OCGA § 32-6-112 as authority for the condemnation of the parks involved in this case. OCGA § 32-6-112 enables the DOT to acquire property for limited access roads in the same manner that it may acquire property for other roads. OCGA § 32-6-112 states, “The department, a county, or a municipality may acquire private or public property and property rights for limited-access facilities and service roads, including rights of access, of view, of air, and of light through gift, devise, purchase, or condemnation in the same manner as such governmental units are authorized by law to acquire such property or property rights in connection with public roads within their respective jurisdictions.” (Emphasis supplied.)
This code section does not state that the DOT may acquire public property through any manner that it is authorized to otherwise use to acquire any property. As the DOT is nowhere otherwise authorized to employ eminent domain to acquire public property, “the same manner” does not include condemnation where public property is concerned. In other words, since “the department . . . may acquire . . . public property . . . through . . . condemnation in the same manner that [it] is authorized by law to acquire such [i.e., public] property . . . ,” and the department is not anywhere authorized by law to condemn public property, this code section gives the department no authority to condemn public property that it otherwise could not condemn.
“Public property” simply does not, as the DOT contends, apply by necessity to each of the four methods of property acquisition listed in OCGA § 32-6-112. A city, for example, may not “devise” public property to the DOT even though the DOT may be “authorized by *142law” to acquire private property from private individuals through devise. The DOT is not “authorized by law” to acquire public property by devise or by condemnation.
Furthermore, as noted previously in Division 4, OCGA § 32-6-111 (a) provides that authorization to “plan, designate, establish, regulate, abandon, alter, improve, maintain, and provide” limited access facilities within municipalities “shall be subject to such municipal consent as may be provided by law.” This statute applies to limited access facilities that lie within municipalities, not just limited access facilities upon municipal property. The DOT’s reading of OCGA § 32-6-112 conflicts with OCGA § 32-6-111 (a), in that Code § 32-6-111 (a) requires municipal consent, and Code § 32-6-112 would, in the next breath, enable the DOT to render that requirement useless. Gift, devise or purchase transferring municipal land to the DOT would, by definition, be premised on municipal consent. Condemnation of municipal property by the DOT would, except in very rare instances, occur in the absence of municipal consent. “ [A]ll the words of the legislature, however numerous, ought to be preserved, and effect given to the whole, if it can be done. No doubt courts could sometimes better legislation by rejecting some of the words delivered to them by the legislature for construction; but to do this courts have no power.” Smith v. Davis, 85 Ga. 625, 631 (11 SE 1024) (1890). OCGA § 32-6-111 (a) not only distinguishes condemnation from other methods of property acquisition under OCGA § 32-6-112, it also supports the ap-pellee’s position that the legislature did not intend to expand the DOT’s power and authorize condemnation of public property in enacting OCGA § 32-6-112.
Since the power of eminent domain is perhaps the greatest power vested in the General Assembly, we will construe that power against the condemnor absent specific legislation to the contrary. OCGA § 32-2-2 (b) does not constitute such specific legislation. Furthermore, since neither the procedure for or the power of condemnation of public property is otherwise vested in the DOT, OCGA § 32-2-2 (b) does not, by itself, confer such power.
Finally, we note that this court has recently held that condemning authorities may not cynically play “Parcheesi” with condemnation procedures to accomplish ends that they might not accomplish without manipulation of those procedures. Earth Management v. Heard County, 248 Ga. 442, 446 (283 SE2d 455) (1981). The full body of the sentence of Earth Management, supra, cited in Justice Weltner’s dissent reads, “We have repeatedly held that private property may not be taken for a private purpose and that a condemning authority may not act in bad faith in the exercise of the right of eminent domain.” Id. (Emphasis supplied to portion of sentence deleted from dissent.) In Earth Management, we prevented Heard County from condemn*143ing land for a public park when “there [was] evidence that even though the land [might be used as a park] after condemnation, the real reason for its being taken [was] to thwart the application of another use in which the state [had] an interest.” Id. at 447. A full reading of Earth Management, thus, shows that “the necessary consequence of [this] holding” could only lead to “the absurd” if this court is willing and ready to ignore or abandon precedent.
Decided October 8, 1985 —
Reconsideration denied October 29, 1985 and November 5, 1985.
Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Marion 0. Gordon, First Assistant Attorney General, Roland F. Matson, William C. Joy, Senior Assistant Attorneys General, Charles M. Richards, Assistant Attorney General, for Department of Transportation.
Marva Jones Brooks, Kendric E. Smith, Overtis Hicks Coop-wood, for City of Atlanta et al.
Walbert & Hermann, David F. Walbert, for Davis et al.
Neely & Player, Michael R. Johnson, for Arapaho Construction Company, Inc.
Hansell & Post, Terrence B. Adamson, Mary A. Prebula, Long & Aldridge, Jack H. Watson, Jr., Alston & Bird, Sidney 0. Smith, Jr., Anne S. Rampacek, King & Spalding, Griffin B. Bell, Frank C. Jones, Richard A. Schneider, amici curiae.