Court Opinion

ID: 9581667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:17:19.832673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:10.507411
License: Public Domain

Andrews, Judge,
dissenting.
Bland appeals on the basis of the giving of the following charge to the jury: “In order to determine total damages in a case of this kind [partial taking] and in this case, you should make every effort to determine the fair market value of the entire tract of property Mr. Bland owned before any of it was taken, and then you should make every effort to determine the fair market value of what was taken, the 15.848 acres, and considering that part that was taken as a part of the whole.”
*321Decided July 16, 1992
Reconsideration denied July 31, 1992
Edenfield, Stone & Cox, Gerald M. Edenfield, James B. Rutledge III, E. Lee Davis, Jr., for appellant.
Franklin, Taulbee, Rushing & Bunce, James B. Franklin, Barbara N. McKay, for appellee.
The objection voiced after the charge was given was that condemnee excepts “to the Court’s charging on the take, the charge that they must give consequential damages — I mean give damages, assessing the value of the whole farm, before they can assess damages on that portion for the take. We differ on the Gunnels decision, and I understand that.”
1. The first enumeration argues, on the basis of Department of Transp. v. Gunnels, 255 Ga. 495 (340 SE2d 12) (1986), that the charge set out above restricted the jury to a pro rata valuation of the property taken.
Pretermitting the issue of whether the objection now made is the same one made below, I do not believe the charge is subject to the infirmity claimed here. In Gunnels, the deficient charge was that “the measure of damages for the part of the lot actually taken by [DOT] is the difference between the market value of the whole lot just before the taking and the market value of the whole lot immediately after the taking. Now, that’s the measure of damage for the part that was actually taken.” (Emphasis supplied.) The court found this deficient in that it allowed the potential for double recovery of consequential damages to the remainder.
Such is not the case with the charge given here, which is much more similar to that given and approved in light of a Gunnels objection in Rucker v. Dept. of Transp., 188 Ga. App. 283 (372 SE2d 839) (1988). Therefore, I conclude that Rucker controls this issue adversely to condemnee.
2. The charge, considered in light of the charge as a whole, was not error and did not create the confusion argued in the second enumeration. Shennett v. Piggly Wiggly &c., 197 Ga. App. 502, 503 (1) (399 SE2d 476) (1990); cf. Renew v. Edenfield, 200 Ga. App. 484, 486 (3) (408 SE2d 499) (1991).